Report
On a night where everything was set to go wrong, the Lilywhites showed their mettle and brought home a valuable point in the battle against relegation. Vase Finalists Berkhamsted took the lead after about twenty minutes with a close range shot. This came at a time when Leyton Pennant had to reorganise after Simon Tickner had to be replaced due to injury. This also represented Berkhamsted’s most effective period of the match.
Leyton Pennant, once again, defended brilliantly and sought to score on the break. Indeed, Jerome Matthews had two good chances to restore the equilibrium. As the first half went on, the Lilywhites’ control of their own half of the pitch meant that Berkhamsted became much more desperate in their passing and shooting but they too were soaking up most of our attacks.
In the second half things changed, the Lilywhites began to stretch Berko’s defence by using the wings more. A combination of the defensive work of Morgan and Tilley in the air and every other Leyton Pennant player tackling back and getting “bodies behind the ball” meant that, once again, the Lilywhites were looking ultra solid. Then came the breakthrough. On 65 minutes Jermaine Hughes raced for a ball that many would have given up as lost. With a defender trying to tackle him off the pitch, he somehow managed to curl his foot around the ball only inches from the goal line by the edge of the six yard box. He smashed the ball into the net. I don’t know how he did it. The angle was so acute Pythagoras would not have had a formula to work it out.
That left us with quite some time to play and a few scares. Craig Morgan was having an excellent game in the Lilywhites’ goal. On two occasions he managed to keep the ball out from close range shots. Once he managed to palm a fierce shot onto the bar. When the ball landed there were so many Leyton Pennant players on the goal line, that they managed to snuff out the danger. Once again, it was the excellent, non compromising display of defending that really rankled on the Berko players’ nerves. When we got the ball anywhere near our penalty area, no chances were taken: the ball went into the Grand Union Canal. On any other occasion of possession, we took the ball into our opponents half and kept it there as long as we could. On one occasion, Danny Whybrow forced Berko Captain Peter Lowe back from the half way line right to his own goal line by harrying.
Jermaine Hughes was withdrawn to the midfield and, from there, began to orchestrate through balls to the attack which the Berko defence always had trouble dealing with. After six minutes of injury time, Referee Mr Patterson (who had a good game) brought proceedings to an end.