DAVEY EVANS SPECTACULAR GOAL EARNS LILYWHITES THREE USEFUL POINTS.

The Lilywhites consolidated their mid-table position by completing the double over Tring Athletic on Thursday evening. This was another re-arranged game having to be shoe-horned in on a Thursday evening due to fixture congestion, and it was perhaps a blessing that the Lilywhites fixture two days earlier at Oxhey Jets had to be postponed. Tring were in a similar position with their Tuesday game at Stotfold having also been postponed. In the end a lively game, full of errors from both sides, was emphatically finished off in some style by substitute Davey Evans just three minutes from the end of normal time.

Simon Riddle made further changes to his starting line-up, perhaps the most encouraging being the return after injury of Jake Bowden who slotted into central defence. Jack Riddle joined Bowden in the back four, and experienced goalkeeper Alex Smitts was given his first outing in a Hoddesdon shirt after returning from injury.

Once again, the Lilywhites started really brightly, and with just six minutes gone three attempts at goal from just outside the Tring goal area were all blocked. After soaking up the early pressure, the visitors soon got into their stride, and on the quarter hour the Lilywhites enjoyed a stroke of luck. As the ball was crossed in from the left, a Tring players was left completely unmarked just six yards from goal, and perhaps thinking he had a little more time first settled himself and fired in a shot that was superbly blocked by a Hoddesdon defender sliding in.

Midway through the first half Hoddesdon won a corner on the left, and Connor Scully lifted the ball towards the far post. Kardan Campbell did well to rise above the defenders, but saw his header hit the near post and rebound away. Two further efforts on goal were then blocked.
Connor Scully was again in action just three minutes later, picking up the ball twenty yards out and with his back to goal, his neat turn completely outfoxed his two markers and left him one-on-one with the keeper. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred in a similar position, Scully would have slotted the ball away with ease. On this occasion from the left side he tried to bend the ball around the keeper and towards the inside of the right hand post, and missed the target completely.

Instead of being a goal to the good, Hoddesdon again nearly found themselves a goal down ten minutes before half time. From a corner taken on the right at the bottom end, there was a huge scramble just outside the goal area, and three on-target effort were blocked by desperate defending. Eventually the ball was hacked clear, but not before a couple of really good opportunities for the visitors had been squandered.

During the first half there had been a few silly niggles between players that the Referee had failed to deal with firmly, and a minute into time added on, with Hoddesdon on the break in a good attacking position near the top end, the Assistant Referee at the far end flagged frantically for an off-the-ball incident in front of him. Play was immediately stopped, and there were cautions for Connor Scully and Mark Riddick.

The end of an entertaining first half came, with still no goals, although both sides had squandered good chances to get their nose in front. From the way they were playing Hoddesdon would have been the happier of the two sides.

Just eight minutes into the second half, Cyrus Babaie had to come off as he succumbed to a foot injury he sustained midway through the first half. His foot was swollen and black and blue with stud marks from a big hit he took from an opponent as he tried to skip past him, and it absolutely beggared belief that neither the Referee nor the nearest Assistant considered it to be a foul and a caution. Cyrus was down in pain for a couple of minutes as he received treatment. Seems the opponent won the ball, and that the reckless nature of his challenge, and the clear contact made, wasnt taken into consideration. Davey Evans came on to replace Cyrus.

The second half had almost reached the midway point of a period of scrappy play when Davey Evans stole in at the near post and was inches away from converting another excellent left-sided Connor Scully free kick. In the sixty-eighth minute the deadlock was however finally broken. Some great football from Hoddesdon up the right flank saw Davey Evans selling a dummy to a couple of defenders on the edge of the penalty area allowing Connor Bolton to run around the back, collect the loose ball and drive it low into the middle where JOSS LILLIS was on hand to convert it. At this point, Sam Fletcher came on to replace Jack Riddle.

Now the Lilywhites were in a real battle as the visitors fought hard to get back in the game, and they came close to doing so just a couple of minutes after going behind. A sweeping move down the left ended with Max Hercules swinging in a dangerous cross, and the embarrassment of a Tring player who failed to get his head to the ball inside the Hoddesdon goal area was saved as the Assistants flag was raised for offside. With fifteen minutes of the game still remaining, Charlie Jones came on for Connor Scully.

Alex Smitts had been vocal but otherwise reasonably quiet during the game, but in the eighty-third minute he pulled off a stunning save, diving low to his right to palm away a shot hit fiercely from twelve yards. It was barely a minute later when Tring once again mounted an attack, and this time Smitts spectacularly tipped over his crossbar another firmly struck shot from long range to keep his sides narrow lead intact.

Hoddesdon were just five minutes of normal time away from victory when a sloppy piece of play allowed Tring back in the game. Trying to allow the ball to go out of play over the goal line wide left, instead of clearing it, Connor Bolton had the ball nicked off him and it eventually fell to Chris Vardy who drove it across the goal from the left and into the net at the far post. It was at that point that Tring started to look the most likely side to take all three points.

The two sides had been level again for just two minutes when a long pass found DAVEY EVANS on the left corner of the penalty area. Allowing the ball to bounce just in front of him, Evans then hit a superb volley that saw it fly over the keeper and into the top right corner of the net to notch what turned out to be the winning goal.
Tring tried hard in the final few minutes that remained, but the Lilywhites were now in no mood to allow their precious lead to slip away. The Referee finally brought to an end a decent contest between two evenly matched sides, and it took a special goal to seal all three points.

There were good performances from the Lilywhites all around the field, but the man-of-the-match award went to the returning Jake Bowden, who barely put a foot wrong all evening. He was very closely followed by goalkeeper Alex Smitts whose two stunning saves in the second half kept the Lilywhites in the game, and Kardan Campbell who enjoyed a solid ninety minutes.

Team: L Todd, B Johnson (J Sunderland), C Church, M Riddick, G Carbery, D O'Connor, J Fitzgerald, S Joliffe (Capt), C Vardy, J Read (L Little), T Twelves.

Crowd: 73

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