Herald Cup 2nd Rd Harbertonford V Waldon 29th Nov.2014

[Dave]

Herald Cup 2nd Rd Harbertonford V Waldon Athletic 29th November 2014

Saturday 29th November 2014 Kick-off 2pm

Venue The Hams Harbertonford.

Match Referee Phil Webb

Final score Harbetonford 1 Waldon Athletic 2

Its been a good few years since I last watched a game at the Hams, it was a toss up between this game and Upton’s game at Brixham, which game was going to be the more spicy to watch?

Waldon have played seven games in the Premier Division and won four of them, they have drawn one and lost two. Harbertonford are in the second division and have also played seven games so far this season. But they have only managed just the one win and lost the other six games.

On paper this match looked and easy win for Waldon, but as it was a cup game nothing can ever really be predicted and teams from a higher division losing a cup match to a lower division team is nothing new. Well Waldon came very close to losing this match and what a great effort put in by every single Harbertonford player. I left the Hams wondering why Harbertonford are struggling in the league, on today’s performance they should be at the top of it.

What a great club Harbertonford are, they own their own ground and even have a club house built by the legend Steve James. I had a good long chat with Steve before the game, over sixty years he has been at the club and he is now 82 years old. Its people like him that make local football what it is and the only shame was his wife is not too well and he was unable to stay and watch the match, I hope she gets better soon.

The grass was rather long as it could not be cut in the week due to being too wet, but it did not affect the game in anyway shape or form. Waldon as you might expect had the better start to the first half, but despite all their neat passing, failed to create any good goal scoring opportunities.

There were so few goal attempts in the half and as it wore on, Harbertonford grew in confidence and got stuck into some pretty strong tackling that broke up most of the Waldon moves. The only good chance in the half fell to Harberton’s number seven (Daniel Bovey?)Who hit a good shot that just went wide of the right hand post.

Waldon finished the half just on top, they had five corners on the trop, but failed to make any of them count

That was it for the first half and the final words from the Waldon manager in his team talk to his players was “get the first goal and we will get four or five more” Well that did not happen as Harbertonford started the second half well on top, They had one shot go just over the bar and one just wide of the right hand post and then they took the lead.

It was as a result of some good work on the right and a determination to get the ball into the Waldon box. When the ball did finally arrive, Lee Soper hit an unstoppable shot into the back of the net. It was a goal worthy of winning any match, let alone in a game against a team two divisions higher.

Was a cup upset on the cards? Could Harbertonford hold onto their lead any maybe even add to it? For a while I thought they could, then came a bad mistake in defence that gifted Waldon an equaliser. The ball came into the right hand side of the box and Harberton had two defenders close to each other and closest to the ball. It just needed one of them to put their foot through the ball and clear it away from danger. But for some reason that did not happen and Waldon’s sub Josh Macklin? (Not sure I got his name right) said thank you very much as he took the ball off them and from a tight angle fired the ball home.

Harberton continued to work hard, but every time Waldon went forward they looked like scoring. Harberton’s Lee Soper did hit another good first time shot from the edge of the area that only just went wide of the right hand post.

Super sub Josh then broke the hearts of the Harbertonford players when he headed in a cross from the right, there were four Harberton players close to him and Josh is not the tallest players, but he did well to make sure it was his head on the ball.

A great game to watch and played the way you want a see a game played, credit to both sets of players but especially to Harbertonford who came so very close to being in the next round of the Herald Cup.