Hempnall FC

Saturday’s game against Spixworth in the cup was a totally different affair to that where we beat Bungay in the Wightman Cup a few nights previously, with only 5 of the Tuesday’s squad available, the rest either cup tied injured or working.

We had to call on reserves for reinforcements, we managed to get 12 players together against the club top of the premier division, we started off very well with the clearest opportunities on goal Knight and Thomas both pulling saves from the Spixworth keeper.

That is about as good as it got when Spixworth, after about 20 minutes, made a good move down the wing with a misplaced cross heading into goal. Haze jumped to collect but misplaced the push out over the bar onto the bar where it came back into play and was headed home. 2 minutes later Haze came out to clear and as he cleared his hamstring went and he had to leave the field.

From the restart Spixworth got their second beating the keeper with a flick header, half time saw us 2 – 0 down but still well in the game, the second half started as bad as the first finished with a foul on Mortimer being waved away by the referee, and a good cross was converted by Spixworth.

Hempnall then had a good spell of possession but could not find the net, a few minutes after Mortimer was cropped again and his game was finished we tried hard but managed to hold out again until 75 minutes after that the pressure was too much against a good quality side and they managed to put 4 more past the 10 men of Hempnall; anyone that watched the game would tell you the score was flattering but at least there was a good effort by all. There was only 3 first team starters left at the end of the game.