END OF THE RUN
Hitchin 1 Yeltz 0
07 January 2006
After three good wins over Xmas and New Year, the mighty Yeltz went down 1-0 to similarly in form Hitchin. They also missed a penalty, and by all accounts we pretty much deserved to lose. Oh well.
On Saturday Chippenham are the visitors to The Grove - so look out for the "we're bringing 300 away fans" messages on YeltzTalk any day soon now :-)
Match Report from DJ
Hitchin Town: Wilmot; Lochhead, Okai, Ayres, Folds, Hicks, French (Daniels 72), Cavill, Jaggard, Sozzo, Ducket. Unused Subs: Baldry, Lamacraft, Hayes, Mills.
Halesowen Town: Coleman; Cooper, Haywood, Preston, Pope, Knight, Hadland, Lamey (Smith 84), Forinton, Amos (Skidmore 75), Forsdick. Unused Subs: Cowley, Pierpoint, Johnson
Referee: D. Margetts Attendance: 293 Booked: Forinton (68)
Halesowen's run of victories came to an end at Top Field where the home side ran out worthy winners.
The visitors suffered a blow when in-form wide-man Alex Cowley limped out of the pre-match warm-up with a recurrence of his groin injury.
Hitchin Town dominated both halves of the game and looked especially dangerous down the flanks. On the left wing Parys Okai combined well with Mark Duckett while Daniel French raided effectively on the other side of the pitch. It was from these attacks that Hitchin forced a series of early corners, although they failed to seriously threaten.
Instead it was big centre back James Ayers who twice got forward and forced Dean Coleman into smart saves from goal bound headers. Elsewhere Hitchin skipper Josh Sozzo caused problems and only a late block in the six yard box prevented him from opening the scoring.
At the other end it was left to Nathan Lamey to carry the Halesowen attack alone and the striker was unlucky not to latch onto a stray back pass in the 25th minute. As first half came to a close Lamey again threatened the home goal. First he struck a beauty of a free kick from 25 yards which Richard Wilmot did well to push round the post. And it was Lamey who rattled the woodwork from the resulting corner.
Halesowen were lucky to survive a frenetic start to the second period when Sozzo blaz 52nd minute penalty high over the crossbar. However, the miss spurred on Hitchin who continued to boss the match and took the lead in the 63rd minute when Gavin JAGGARD beat the offside trap to finish calmly.
Lamey and Simon Forsdick wasted chances with the clock running down but it was too little too late from an under-par Yeltz team.