CHARLIE HORLOCK
Charlie Horlock has given me his latest interview and looks back on the last 10 games from Rushall to Coalville.
The Rushall game saw Charlie drop out on the morning of the game as he had chickenpox. He actually ended up in hospital as there was a thought it might be shingles and he listened to the game on HTFC Radio while he was there. He knew it would be a tough fixture and goals were conceded at bad times. Charlie returned for the Boxing Day game at home to Kings Langley and when he saw their line up he realised they had some good players so despite being at the bottom of the table he did not anticipate an easy game. As it turned out we gave a very flat performance on a day when Kings Langley clicked. Their third goal killed off any hopes we had.
Charlie has always regarded Needham Market as one of the hardest grounds to visit and he thinks they are an efficient well drilled side. Again we were not at our best and Charlie could not explain why our Christmas/new year performances were so disappointing. So we had suffered three successive defeats which meant the next game at home to Bromsgrove took on added importance. Charlie felt the players responded to the pressure and put in a very efficient performance and he had a very quiet game.
Next up was Stevenage in the Herts Senior Cup. Charlie said academy teams are usually very good technically but lack physicality but Stevenage seemed to flip this as they were unexpectedly physical and their touch sometimes let them down. He felt we dominated the game and were relentless going forward and he never doubted we would win.
Mickleover away followed and Charlie thought this was one of our better performances. We gave a gritty performance and showed character to come back to win after conceding an early goal. All in all an excellent result. The local derby with Bedford ended goalless and Charlie thought Bedford came looking for the draw and defended in numbers and we were unable to break them down. As the game went on both teams seem to accept the one point.
The 3-2 defeat at St Ives was the hardest defeat to take all season as we should have won. It was two well matched sides but Charlie felt we had the edge. Honest as ever he blamed himself for St Ives’ winning goal. Stourbridge saw Charlie involved in two controversial incidents. He received a yellow card for handling the ball outside the penalty area in the first half. He said he was caught in no mans lad outside his area but he deliberately kept his arms firmly by his sides to avoid any deliberate handball. The ball played in hit his hip and arm at the same time. Charlie did not feel it was handball but as the referee did penalise him he felt it should have been a red card. He realised he had to be careful from then on as the Stourbridge management were putting pressure on the referee.
The penalty incident was seen this way by Charlie. He felt both Bradley Bell and Toby Syme were fouled in the build up and he felt he touched the ball before the Stourbridge forward went down over his arm. Charlie feels the referee gave the penalty because of the first half decision to only award a yellow card. He did not think it was a penalty but the Stourbridge player was very clever in going down the way he did.
Charlie felt we showed great character to dig in for the draw and the back three plus Stan Georgiou when he came on were brilliant on the day. Coalville away was always going to be difficult and Charlie thought they gave the best performance of any team against us this season. Although we did make some mistakes they were clinical. But we did force their keeper in to making a number of good saves and we never gave up and kept our belief.
Charlie feels we have much better squad depth than last year and he remembered the game at Peterborough Sports where we did not have a fully fit player on the bench. We are stronger this season and the players feel we can beat any other team. The mindset is positive and we want to achieve a top half finish.
Thanks to Charlie for his summary of recent games.
BY ROY IZZARD