Report
An ignominious exit from the FA Cup in the very first game is hardly preparation for the visit of league leaders Coalville Town, and I will add that the oft declared intention of ‘concentrating on the league’ came earlier than expected.
There are games when your team is so soundly beaten that all you can really do is hold up your hands and say that the better team won, and so they did and by a country mile. Had the Swifts gone back to Essex with a six goal margin we could hardly have complained, such was the underwhelming performance of the Canaries today.
The major change for Hitchin was Tiernan Parker, who was needed to don the gloves since Charlie Horlock was unavailable. But I will add here that Parker’s second half saves were vital enough to keeper the score as merely ‘unrespectable’, and the frame of his goal as responsible for keeping out a further barrage of efforts. His counterpart was often just an interested spectator until a few late efforts from Hitchin in the already painful closing stages.
Excellent vocal support from the Essex club soon entered the swing of banter by describing Hitchin, somewhat imaginatively as ‘B Tec Norwich,’ which when you think about it is not as esoteric as it sounds. It was a bit more subtle than the suggestion that the Canaries ‘couldn’t score in a brothel’ and the derisory plea of ‘can we play you every week?’ Minutes into the game they were of the opinion that Top Field was a library, and at the end it was more like a mausoleum except for the jubilant Heybridge players mingling gleefully with their followers.
It does happen like this when you face a team that methodically plays you off the park, and every attempt at a positive move reminds you that the toast fell butter side down all match. Because it does happen like this on occasions, I will not be jumping onto the soap box and demanding wholesale change.
I do not think any goalkeeper could have held the magnificent second goal by Swifts when Jack Adlington-Pile piled on the misery for home supporters with a near forty yard screamer that seemed to declare we will not see a better goal at Top Field for some time. Yes, it was that good and it drew applause even from disgruntled Canary fans. The other two goals were also quality strikes and if nothing else underlined Hitchin’s inferiority in aerial combat.
Rain fell at the start, which would at least please our ground staff, and it was the Swifts who began better, forcing one of a number of eventual corners in their first attack. They could have taken the lead very early on when a Robert Harvey cross saw a shot on goal that was closer than it looked. The warning salvo had been fired. Harvey then embarked on a seemingly unchallenged run that resulted in another corner. Darren Phillips, who must have appeared to be at least seven foot tall rose to head a fair effort, but it was held by Parker.
Hitchin’s efforts were restricted to a couple of ineffective free-kicks and already Swifts, all in red today were far more enterprising in their play, and this did not lessen. However a cross from Callum Kane needed defending and the same player had his intended shot easily blocked. Swifts responded with a cross into the box from Andrew Fennell that was defended with a hint of awkwardness. A move constructed by Stan Georgiou and Josh Coldicott-Stevens ended in a limp effort, like so many successive attempts that were often error strewn. A cross from Finley Wilkinson found no-one remotely near to make something of it, but Georgiou did manage a shot that did not test Callum Chafer.
Impatiently we waited for Hitchin to settle but was had played almost twenty minutes when, five minutes later, the visitors deservedly went ahead from a corner where Phillips rose unchallenged to head a simple goal. Hitchin failed to embolden their play and continued in an inexplicably meek fashion and were fortunate not to concede another when Jack Adlington-Pile was only just wide with his low shot.
Ponderous play in their own half, with neat triangles and precise passes, which is all very well and quite trendy, but it should produce a little more than a final ball whose destination is easily anticipated and the move thus thwarted. Frustrated supporters were perhaps right in demanding that a bit more thrust might have produced some sort of goal chance.
The game was played in the right spirit but there was a minor incident when both Gleeson and Adlington-Pile received a paternalistic finger-wagging from the excellent young referee. It was the source of some surprise that Hitchin had reached the interval only the one goal in arrears. They needed a break as they were in need of some managerial exhortation in the form of tactical advice. In particular we needed to see a shot or two on goal, since it would relieve the awkwardness of defending grimly in your own defensive half.
I stress here that Hitchin did not make Heybridge look good – this Swifts team was good in every department and at no time did they ever consider simply holding on to their lead, and they were simply stunning in a second half that they dominated even more than they had done in the first period.
There was a Hitchin move involving Cawley and Wilkinson and brought a penalty appeal that was loftily and correctly dismissed. Another sprint by Harvey brought yet another corner and he then put in a header that Parker held. Harvey then had a chance with a ‘one on one’ where it was feared he was certain to score and again Parker made a memorable save, at the expense of yet another corner. Sartain sent this in and there was a header that went wide.
Then at last there was a shot from Hitchin and this was a long range effort from Cawley that was comfortably held by Chafer. Hitchin made inevitable substitutions but apart from Allotey’s general eagerness, the pattern did not change. Swifts were cruising and controlling. Harvey again latched on to through ball and really ought to have scored, but Parker was there to prevent this again. Phillips was on target with another header, and as I have mentioned, the visitors saw successive efforts his both the post and the cross bar.
Parker’s creditable performance was tarnished to a degree when Adlington-Pile’s forty yarder sailed into the net with appropriate majesty after sixty-four minutes. What a goal and it was suitably celebrated by the travelling faithful who had derided Hitchin, the town, as if it were a sleepy provincial backwater. Now come along chaps, Heybridge is not a focus of world trade or a nerve centre of important political activity. I will call it poetic licence, somewhat exaggerated. Yes, I know you have a lot of yachts.
But you cannot blame those lads for whooping it up, since they had made a mockery about being the so-called junior club, and they had dealt a bit of a hiding to the hosts who, as I have said, left it somewhat late to try to sting the gloves of the the gloves of the Swifts’ untroubled keeper.
After the next effort, from Sodje had struck what seemed the underside of the bar and, presumably Parker had managed a touch to see the ball over the bar in came the corner and, as you might have guessed a third goal was scored and two of them, including this header was from Adlington-Pile. We had played seventy five minutes and still had the penance of fifteen minutes to endure, plus stoppage time.
This gentleman and Phillips, the scorer of the first goal were soon substituted and they both left the field with a pose that suggested the phrase, ‘our work is done here’. And so it was.
Hitchin did manage shots from Wilkinson and Tearle, won a corner or two but all efforts were defended with a nonchalant ease. To be honest, Hitchin never looked like scoring and there is bound to be some soul-searching and resolutions made before the visit of Coalville Town next week.
The management , of course, do not need telling that the team was less than satisfactory today, and a collective responsibility must be accepted and the view that we are only as good as our next game.
Having been dealt such a blow might actually galvanise the team, but it is also necessary to mention that Heybridge Swifts played a superb game, deserved to win and the score did flatter Hitchin to some degree.
Right – let us move on. Good luck to Swifts for the next round.
HITCHIN TOWN
Tiernan Parker, Delsin Ackom, Callum Kane, Toby Syme, Stan Georgiou, Malaki Black, Bradley Bell, (Johnny Allotey), Stephen Gleeson, captain, Josh Coldicott-Stevens, (Arron Pike – who was replaced by Kye Tearle), Steve Cawley, Finley Wilkinson.
Substitutes not used- Leon Chambers-Parillon, Alfie Warman, Jack Green and Diego Freitas- Gouveia.
HEYBRIDGE SWIFTS
Callum Chafer, Tyler Brampton, Harrison Sodje, Samir Carter, Darren Phillips, GOAL, 25 MINUTES ,(Alexander Stephenson), Quba Gordon, captain, Andrew Fennell, Benjamin Sartain, cautioned, Ross Wall, Jack Adington-Pile, man of
the match, TWO GOALS, 64 AND 75 MINUTES, (Kieran Jones) Robt Harvey, (Rhys Henry).
Substitutes not used- Kyran Henderson, Joseph Whitney, GK, Abdul N’Daw, Samuel Cross.
Referee, Mr T Breen, assisted by Mr F Meng and Mr Mr O Potter.
Attendance 424
REPORT BY PIPEMAN