Alternative Report by 'Be Thankful'

[Greenfinch]

With respect, I didn't read this match as watched by another reporter. Brett said, that he wanted to play 'ugly' to secure the points to avoid relegation,and this was a damn good start.Telford came to Hitchin on an unbeaten run, playing a team that had lost twelve on the bounce.'Hitchin Expects' was my previous posting and I wasn't disappointed in the guts, determination and commitment from the players in earning a deserved point.Yeah of course, it wasn't pretty to watch at times, but playing out of the back looking pretty doesn't win games either.Nevertheless, Brett's style of play will be more apparent next season once we can secure our league status.
Finley, your goal deserves more credit, it was straight out of the Premier League, to the players, thankyou for your fantastic effort under extreme cicumstances, made me feel proud to be a Hitchin Town fan, and to Brett, congratulations on your first point, and many more to come I'm sure.

[Stuart]

Excellent summary Peter, not the prettiest game of football as you rightly say, but we need points for effort not artistic merit at this stage!

[Chris_N]

I haven't posted as a supporter for a long time, but am pleased that after yesterday, I feel the need to say it as I feel it is, having been at all bar one of the 15 defeats in the last 17 competitive games up till yesterday. And on the one I missed, I listened to Freddie and Spike portray a 0-6 defeat as positively as anybody could have on that evening.

I don't know about anyone else, but getting home last night having not lost was massive for me. Yesterday I saw fight and belief and us not totally losing it when conceding. It wasn't pretty but do I care. I saw a Hitchin player contesting a ball in the air in the opposition's penalty area - what's that all about?

Stopping the rot means we can now move on. Stourbridge did us a massive favour for sure - but fact is we still have breathing space. The players on the pitch yesterday proved that they have far too much in their lockers to allow us to go down. Think about it, the last six games are against:

- League leaders who got slapped yesterday by a team no better than us, hopefully getting jittery and having to pick themselves up
- An already relegated team who are playing for pride but for the most part still losing
- Four teams who are looking like they are going neither up nor down. Stamford have an outside chance of play-offs, but by the time we get there that's hopefully been knocked out of them

I've become used to a certain kind of lifestyle on Saturdays. I do not want to be home in time for my tea every Saturday, nor do I want top days out at Kidlington or Thame.

It's in our hands.

[SimonP]

With respect, I didn't read this match as watched by another reporter. Brett said, that he wanted to play 'ugly' to secure the points to avoid relegation,and this was a damn good start.Telford came to Hitchin on an unbeaten run, playing a team that had lost twelve on the bounce.'Hitchin Expects' was my previous posting and I wasn't disappointed in the guts, determination and commitment from the players in earning a deserved point.Yeah of course, it wasn't pretty to watch at times, but playing out of the back looking pretty doesn't win games either.Nevertheless, Brett's style of play will be more apparent next season once we can secure our league status.
Finley, your goal deserves more credit, it was straight out of the Premier League, to the players, thankyou for your fantastic effort under extreme cicumstances, made me feel proud to be a Hitchin Town fan, and to Brett, congratulations on your first point, and many more to come I'm sure.

Agree with the other comments here. Whilst the play was not as aesthetically pleasing as the football we had been playing earlier in the season, with confidence low with the likes of Diogo & Daniel no longer available for different reasons we hadn't played that well for a very long time and I suspect we are not going to see that fluidity again this season. Playing out from the back is great when you can move the ball quickly enough and with enough precision to pull the opposition out of shape but we have not been able to do that this side of Christmas and the important thing was being able to compete, making a decent stab at being first to every ball even if the result of that was the scrappy possession that was hard to turn into anything more dangerous. I think collectively there had been a loss of confidence that we could pass our way into threatening positions , something needed to change, and on Saturday I saw real signs for optimism.