Hempnall FC

Hempnall Reserves welcomed Horsford Utd Reserves to Bungay Road for a Barnes Invitation Cup match with a squad rotation in place, a few different faces were on show, with Jordie batterham returning to his old stomping ground; we always like to see Jordie here, such a selfless, hardworking player.

After a stern talking to by the Manager (following a poor defeat in the previous game), the team came out looking to take his words to heart.

From the off, Hempnall looked to be on their game, and were taking the game to Horsford, aided by a stiff end to end breeze in their favour.

In the first few minutes, a cross shot narrowly missed the upright, then another effort from a corner was headed off the line before the excellent Cullabine outpaced everybody to latch onto a good pass to slip the ball past the keeper for 1-0.

The keeper than saved from Wright, and with the Hempnall midfield prompting continuously; Jamie Bennett was looking dangerous on the wing, and one ball fed Cullabine, who was caught offside so a goal was ruled out. Then Craske hit a cross shot, the keeper then saved with his legs, and we were wondering why we weren’t further ahead.

At the other end, Wharton made a good last ditch tackle, a corner was caught by the Hempnall keeper who was again looking very good, and in the main, the defence was holding out well.

Horsford went close again, but it was mostly Hempnall who were showing the better quality.

Cullabine was stopped again by brave keeping and then another shot went begging but soon after, he made amends with a superb header to make it 2-0.

It continued in similar fashion, Cullabine tearing the defence to shreds but not quite able to complete his hat-trick, and then, along came Jamie Bennett, to crash a shot against the bar.

At the other end, there were a couple of half chances, but we went into half time two deserved goals to the good, (which should have been more).

With the winds at their backs, Horsford certainly came back into it, but still Hempnall managed several very good moves, and with the Hempnall keeper again looking very secure, Horsford didn’t really look like scoring.

However, despite several decent efforts, Hempnall could not score again, and the inevitable happened, Horsford scored twice reasonably quickly.

Hempnall had the last of the chances, but the game ended in a 2-2 stalemate.

Hempnall will be disappointed to have let this slip, they should have won this comfortably on chances created, but it was not to be.

A massive improvement on their previous performance though.

An entertaining game in very cold conditions, there were a number of very decent performances, and whilst the goalkeeper was in the frame once again, my best player by a distance was Ryan Cullabine.