Hempnall FC

Walking with giants...

Finally the snow had cleared and the Anglian Combination fixtures had resumed. This week we faced Beccles Caxton, who had recently completed the signing of 2 or 3 new players from the Bungay overspill and were rising up the table. Their average age and height was double ours, with nearly all of them being over 6 ft 9".

The team we had available were unbelievably young, with only the 3 of them old enough to be served alcohol at the pub!! It was a youthful squad held together by 3 barnacles of local footbal, Nick Chapman, Dave Adams and Matt Oakley.

Our tactics were simple, we weren't playing football we were playing a game slightly different to what you would expect. It was a game which had very few rules and is part of the maturing process of the the younger player into the hard and fast paced division 2 football, it has become known as 'Parking the Bus'.

The first half went to plan, if fact better than expected with Beccles scoring 3 and with Matty Oakley saving a penalty (as expected). Not surprising that our goal was scored by Joel Howard, who ran from his own half round 3 players before knocking the ball through the Beccles keepers legs, making it 3-1.

The second half continued along the same path, until 10 minutes to go, with the score being 5-1 to Beccles, we had a player leave the pitch with an injury and leaving us with only 10 players on the pitch. Beccles capitalised on that scoring 5 more goals in the last 12 minutes of the game.

Final score Hempnall Res 1 Beccles Caxton 10.

There were way more positives than the score line suggested with Dave Adams made his first 90 minute appearance for over 2 years after an horrific knee injury, also the wonder goal from our golden kid Joel Howard. But most importantly the performance of every single Hempnall player, Matty Oakley, Jordy B, Alex, Dan, Nick, Mike, Chappers, Ciaran, Luke, Elts, Billy. The lads performed amazingly well against a good Div 2 side. We can take a lot from the game into next weeks fixture.

The man of the match award goes to the Hempnall squad for a monumental effort.

Onwards and Upwards!!