Sat 17th Oct 2020
Spartan South Midlands Premier Division
Harpenden Town 3-1 TAFC First team
TAFC goals: Callum Shortt
As manager I have to apologise for the abysmal display that masqueraded as a first half from ourselves. The result was similar to Leighton Town but that was the only similarity to this effort against unbeaten Harpenden Town.
We set up to defend in a similar way to Tuesday, to frustrate the opposition and try to get something on the break. To some extent we achieved the first part of the plan but too many poor touches in midfield, passes under hit instead of behind defenders resulted in very limited possession, one poorly delivered corner and one shot.
I won't mention the players but a couple need to have a look at their decision making, one pass across our own area for no good reason will remain with me for some time.
For 35 mins we limited our opponents to a couple of half chances and then from a corner a decision to change the way we defend resulted in a scrappy goal on the far post which had been vacated despite specific orders against.
On 43 mins quite why a Tring Athletic forward decided to make a tackle in the penalty area, that was poor in its thought process and in its execution, was quite hard to believe.
So within 10 mins the game had potentially slipped away.
As plan A had totally failed we changed the way to play and that together with Harpenden Town dropping off resulted in some good and potentially fruitful football being played. We kept the ball well and slowly worked our way back into the game. On 63 mins an opponent turned towards his own goal and presented Ollie Butler with the ball, he carried it 10 yards before playing a slide rule pass into Callum Shortt who finished confidently.
For 10/12 minutes it looked like the improbable might happen and we could yet get something out of the game but on 75 mins we again decided to shoot ourselves in the foot, which we at least is far more successfully done than we do at the real thing.
We never looked like recovering from this blow and our opponents played out time to secure a deserved win.
After 7 away games (which hasn't helped) we are at home to fellow strugglers London Colney on Tuesday when both teams will be desperate to get their first win of the season. Very soon but the proverbial 6 pointer!
Our supporters have been behind us 100% and are needed again on Tuesday.
David Saunders. Paolo Bagatti, Kevin Mcmanus, James Butler, Jack Sunderland (Gareth Terblanche), Frankie Hercules (Joe Naylor), Will Salmon (Steven Dodd), Harrison Cornick, Callum Shortt, Will Foley, Ollie Butler.