Pre Season Friendly, Wednesday 12th July
I was over at New Lodge for the second successive evening as tenants Hutton were in action against Buckhurst Hill, the hosts are preparing for their first ever season in Senior Football after winning the Essex Olympian Premier title last campaign.
They will be competing in the Thurlow Nunn South Division this season which is Step Six in the non league pyramid and were taking on a Buckhurst Hill side who will be embarking on their second season in the Essex Senior League, step five, so a level above tonight's opponents.
The visitors season didn't end well last season after a poor run of form saw them finish the season down in 17th, not the season they were hoping for after such a wonderful few years where they won the majority of games they played in after winning three promotions to make it to where they are today with a very good and settled side.
Last season saw some of that side depart for pastures new, and with more leaving in the summer it's a new era for the club in terms of personnel, and this was sure to prove a tough test against a Hutton side who won the Olympian Premier by ten points last term, losing only two league games all season in the process, and it was the hosts who got off to a flyer in this contest.
There were only two minutes on the clock when their number twenty, who was being called Casey by his teammates, produced a lovely finish over the keeper into the far corner, however the visitors responded with a goal of their own ten minutes later although the keeper should have done better with the effort, parrying what looked like a simple save above his head up in the air and into the net after the number ten had struck an effort from outside the box.
Miscommunication at the back almost allowed the hosts to retake the lead, as two Hill defenders got in each others way in trying to clear, and it ended with a thumping effort from the hosts cannoning off the bar, but eleven minutes before the break Hutton did retake the lead when after Hill had lost the ball in midfield, a clinical home side played a pass to the twenty one who produced a lovely finish into the far corner and punish the visitors to the max.
Hill tried to respond after the break and saw one effort tipped brilliantly onto the crossbar, and then saw their own stopper tip a free kick from the Hutton twenty one onto their crossbar, however with just over twenty minutes to go the visitors did have a leveller when their number ten turned provider this time, sending in a decent corner which the seventeen managed to convert first time from inside the box.
Both sides had the chance to win it, the hosts somehow firing over from point blank range after a brilliant ball in from the left, and then Hill saw an effort put just wide after a lovely ball into the box. It all meant the game would finish all square, a decent well contested game it was too.
Hutton 2 Buckhurst Hill 2
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