Hastings United 4 Greenwich Borough 0, Bostik League One South East, Tuesday
31st October 2018
On Saturday, at 3pm, while hundreds of thousands of people
the length and breadth of the UK were standing and sitting at football grounds,
eagerly anticipating the 90 minutes ahead, I was getting ready to spend the
next hour bouncing around an inflatable theme park with my wife and kids.
I’m not complaining. Well… not much. After all, it was the
first Saturday afternoon this season that I wasn’t at a game, and it had been
my idea to spend some family time together. Sort of. And anyway, the inflatable
theme park was quite good fun (if not extremely knackering – for me and the
wife, at least; the kids were fine).
Yet I can’t deny that there was a part of me that was pining
for a lost Saturday afternoon at the football. I think I may be becoming worryingly
addicted to this groundhopping lark.
Thankfully, due to Brighton council’s somewhat baffling
decision to have a two-week half-term holiday in October, there’s still no
training for my son’s football team, so Tuesday would give me a chance to make-up
on the game I missed out on. In truth, it was this knowledge which had
originally prompted my offer of a family afternoon on Saturday. How was I to
know that she’d take me up on it?
Anyway, after a quick scan of the Tuesday night fixtures I
narrowed my choice of games down to three. And after a Twitter poll it was ultimately
decided by my followers (my Twitter followers I mean, I don’t have disciples or
anything) that I should attend the Bostik League One South East match between Hastings
United and Greenwich Borough.
As a side note, the poll victory for Hastings was by far and
away the largest winning margin that I’ve had to any such Twitter poll so far.
Interestingly, of the six teams involved in the three matches, Greenwich Borough
were the only team who retweeted the poll. Whether this directly affected the
outcome or not I’ll obviously never know, but it does seem a trend from the
three polls I’ve done so far, that the clubs who get behind these things do
tend to come out on top. This translates to a bit of extra gate money for them and
some free publicity via this blog. Maybe just something to think about for
clubs desperately trying to attract more people to games. After all, there’s no
such thing as bad publicity!
So it was to Hastings I travelled on a bitterly cold Tuesday
evening. After a longer than expected drive to their Pilot Field ground –
seriously, what is it with already slow night drivers, slowing down even more
the moment they see headlights on the opposite side of the road?! – I managed
to park on a road a short walk from the stadium, pay my £10 entrance fee (then £2.50
for yet another decent program) and be in place just in time for the one-minute
silence that preceded kick-off.
While the impeccable silence was obviously in honour of the
horrific events which occurred outside Leicester’s King Power Stadium on Saturday
evening, it seems likely that United would probably have held one regardless
due to the recent death of a long-term club stalwart and father of a current
player. My wishes go out to all his family at this difficult time.
The Pilot Field is an impressive, old fashioned ground, with
a lovely looking 1920’s-built main stand dominating one touchline, and two
covered terraced areas behind each goal. Unfortunately, according to the
program, the Pilot Field may not be around much longer, due partly to expensive
structural repairs needed on the aforementioned main stand, and the general
running costs associated with maintaining an old ground. With United clearly
being an ambitious club, this could require a move away from their long-term
home to a more modern purpose-built stadium. While this is no doubt an exciting
and necessary step, it will be sad to lose the Pilot Field from the Sussex
football scene (providing no other club moves in, of course).
The first-half of the game was extremely open with both
teams attacking with real purpose. There were plenty of chances for both teams
and could easily have been more than the one goal which separated the teams at
half-time. The only goal of the half was scored by United’s Youssuf Bamba
midway through it, when he finished off a chance from inside the area following
good work on the right wing.
In truth, Borough will have felt a bit aggrieved to have been
trailing at the break. While United also had numerous chances, were it not for an
inspired performance frim Charlie Horlock in the Hastings goal, Borough could
easily have gone in at the interval level – or even ahead. The fact, Horlock
was later named the sponsor’s man of the match probably says everything that
needs to be said about his first-half performance. Borough’s TeShaune Tyreece
Walters was probably the away team’s stand-out performer, with most of the
danger coming through the pacey wideman.
The second-half was a completely different story. Hastings
upped the pace and Greenwich simply couldn’t live with them. I have to say,
that the speed with which United moved the ball in the second half and pressed
their opponents into making mistakes was a joy to watch. They doubled the lead
early in the second half through a thumping Sam Adams strike, and had many
chances to further their lead after that.
On the rare occasions that Borough did threaten their
strikers were either denied by Horlock, increasingly playing as a sweeper
keeper as the match wore on, or caught offside. Towards the end of the match it
was becoming harder to fathom if the Borough strikers had been told to intentionally
play on the shoulder of the last defender or just didn’t know the offside rules.
I can honestly say I’ve never seen so many obvious offsides by one team in a
single game – and the referee’s assistant missed a fair number of equally
obvious ones in the first half.
As Hastings’ dominance on the pitch grew, the crowd standing
on the side opposite to the main stand were increasingly entertained by the
antics of the two young ball boys manning (boyying?!? – generer-neutralling?!?)
that touchline. Well, I say ball boys. While I think this was their official
roll, they spent more time doing flips, wrestling and, as I said, generally
entertaining the crowd, than they did actually fetching stray balls. In fact,
on a handful of occasions players were left a little bemused as the ball boys
stepped aside to let them get their own ball. That said on the one occasion the
younger of the two did get a ball, he then kicked it in the air before
instructing the intended recipient to ‘head it’. Still it made me chuckle. I
personally think Wimbledon would be far more entertaining if the robotic ball
boys and girls behaved in such a manner.
Somewhat randomly I may even have spotted German comedian Henning Wehn at the game during the second half. No idea if it was actually him, or simply a case of mistaken identity, but if it was him then this marks by first celebrity spot of the season. if anyone can confirm or deny his attendance then that would be great.
Back to the game. Hastings continued to carve out chances,
but couldn’t capitalise any further. The Greenwich left-back was doubtless
pleased to see the end of United debutant Lanre Azeez, who was exciting to
watch thoughout, only to discover that his replacement, Dayshonne Golding was equally
as tricky!
Two late strikes, both from the home side’s top scorer
Daniel Ajakaiye, gave a more realistic gloss to the scoreline (at last as far
as the second half was concerned). That said, Ajakaiye’s attempt at the famous Ronaldo
celebration which greeted his second goal clearly needs some work – unfortunately
I haven’t yet noticed CR7 lose his balance upon landing and tumble onto his
backside… yet.
So, with my son due back to training next week, this should be
my last Tuesday night match for a while. But it’s not. Thanks to the wonders of
working away I’ll be at a game next Tuesday, too. And back at one this Saturday as
well.
Can someone dig out the phone number for groundhoppers anonymous.
I think I’m going to need it!
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