Hempnall FC

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In a week when the managers of the 3 teams had to work extremely hard to get 3 sides out, it was somewhat disappointing but perhaps not unexpected to end the day with nothing to show for our efforts.

My thanks go to Martin Butcher at Horsham for the loan of some of his players & the contacts given.

For the 1^st teams part, Iain Mills (work/ skiing!?), Ben PPlayer (away), Carl Harwin (work) & Ali Shearer (away) were all missing plus Marty Addison (work) & Lee Devlin (injured) have still not returned.

Having spoken with Lee he feels much more upbeat now he has seen a specialist in Leicester & the problem that has niggled him all season has been identified.

He is set for an operation & hopeful of some games before the end of the season.

So in came Sean Flint, Kristian Jones, Ben Nichols & the returning Tim Downs to pick up the skipper's arm band.

We started brightly dominating the early play & the changes seemed seamless as we stuck with the system that we had done so well with in the last 3 games.

An early chance came for Flinto as good work down the left from the rejuvenated Halliwell, but the absence of games & the slightest of touches from a defender as it came across the 6 yard box meant he didn’t get a clean connection.

A full of cold Hunter stung the hands of the visiting keeper with a well hit free kick & other half chances came & went. The feeling on the side line was that we needed to score whilst in the ascendency as we had doubts whether the pace of the game would catch up with some on a heavy pitch.

So with us shading proceedings in a close & keenly contested game there was a positive outlook in the dressing room at halftime.

Around the 65 minute mark when the game again being fairly even the tide visibly started to turn in St John's favour as our fears of a ‘lack of legs’ became reality. The ball was no longer sticking up top & the defence came under more pressure.

St. John's introduced fresh legs to increase the pressure.

But with the fine form that Hunting, Pretty & co have been in of late, there was hope we could prevent a side that has been freely scoring in recent games from opening us up.

We did actually achieve that but unfortunately a tiring Ben Nichols was hit by an awkward cross from the right & the ball spun agonisingly past Cuds to nestle in the corner of the net for what turned out to be the only goal of the game.

We played our last card with debutant Darren Tubby replacing Kristian Jones who had put in a fine shift. Man of the match Tom Halliwell was moved further forward as we pushed on trying to get an equaliser.

This left gaps at the back & Cuds had to be at his best to save a 1 on 1, other than that, he as had his counterpart, had a relatively quiet day.

So we were a little disappointed all our efforts on & off the pitch came to nothing in terms of points when perhaps a draw would have been fair. But there were positives in terms of the performance & the efforts given by all of the lads.

Next week we travel to play St John's again. Not an ideal situation but with the game played in relatively good spirits I do not belief there are any ‘vendetta’s hanging over the sides.