Pre Season Friendly, Wednesday 19th August 2020
Pre-season number ten saw me take the long walk to Garon
Park and the 3G facility there as Old Southendian took on Herongate Athletic in
an all Essex Olympian League contest on a damp night in Southend.
The visitors had stepped in late on to fulfil this fixture
after Old Southendian’s previous opponents pulled out a couple of days ago, and
the hosts were grateful for that having had the pitch booked and paid for.
OS of course will being playing in the Premier Division
again this season, and last season’s one ended with the team in form having
after a slow first half of the season had picked up somewhat in the latter part
until the season was ended early, sitting eighth with 25 points from their 22
matches.
Herongate Athletic finished in the bottom four of the
Division One table, having only gained two wins all season, so they were certainly
looking to build a side to do much better this time around, but this was going
to be a tough test against a side a league above, albeit it was only pre-season
of course.
Bit of a disaster before kick off though when after taking a
couple of pictures of the warm up’s, and was about to tweet my welcome to Garon
Park etc, my phone decided to flip out and die, and not come back on, so I was
left with no phone or any idea on the time, and soon came round to the
realisation that my phone was kaput and no tweets or photos would be forthcoming!!!
Bit of a pain but it’s not the end of the world but I had to
watch the opening half without it and it was weird I can tell you, and having
to remember everything that went on without tweeting it and referring back to
it later would be a test of my memory!!!
Anyway Herongate were the ones to break the deadlock when
they were awarded a penalty after a foul inside the box, and although the initial
spot kick was saved, the ball came back to the taker who put the rebound into
the net to give the visitors the lead although I have no idea when it happened
as had no phone and no time to refer too!!
OS though did response with a spot kick of their own after a
ball swung in had seen an attacker go for the ball but was adjudged to have
been impeded and a penalty awarded, and the kick was slotted into the corner
and the hosts had drawn level, again no idea what the minute was, but it was in
the first half I knew that much!!!
A few niggling late fouls were causing issue with each side,
in what was another hotly contested pre-season encounter, but the game reached
the half way point all square with both sides eager to try and grab the lead in
the second period.
Half Time Old Southendian 1 Herongate Athletic 1
Something amazing happened during the half time break, my
phone decided to start working again!!! Hooray!!! Normal service resumed, no idea what happened
to it but thank goodness it came back to life!!!
The second half was a bit like the first period, hotly contested
and niggly for the first part at least, and it took the referee to book a
couple of players for it to calm down a bit, however, in the 63rd
minute the hosts were awarded another penalty for a trip inside the box, just,
although it looked very close to being outside the box although some would
argue it wasn’t even a foul.
The referee though had adjudged it to be a penalty though
and this was duly rammed home in style and the hosts now had the lead in this
one.
Both sides continued to battle away and both saw chances
come and go with both keepers making decent stops to keep this one 2-1 going
into the latter part of the contest, but with time running out and Herongate
pushing up to try and grab a leveller, disaster struck as with their keeper
half way inside his own half, he mis controlled, allowing for the attacker to
nip round him and charge towards goal.
Suddenly it was two attackers against one poor rather defenceless
visitor player trying to stop them, to no avail, as one attacker squared across
to another to side foot into the empty net and seal this contest in the 90th
minute.
In the Herongate team huddle afterwards their manager actually
did say they were outworked by OS and they must aspire to be like them in terms
of how hard they must work, so he must have been impressed with the hosts work
rate.
He also mentioned that the Herongate side had only been together
for about ten weeks so considering that they did pretty well this evening and
will surely only improve before the season starts in September.
For OS boss Connor Lane, who came on for a late cameo at the
back for his side, he will be fairly happy with what he saw overall and has a
good squad to take forward into their Premier Division campaign.
Full Time Old Southendian 3 Herongate Athletic 1
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