ONE FIXTURE
Saturday 13 April home to Lowestoft League kick off 3.00pm.
There is no midweek fixture.

PLAYER NEWS

  • Josh Bickerstaff will be unavailable until the Banbury game.
  • Jay Dowie faces a fitness test ahead of the Lowestoft game.
  • Matt Nolan will return to the squad for the Lowestoft game after a long absence.
  • Jay Bird should be available for selection for the Lowestoft game after his recent concussion.
  • Al-Amin Kazeem will be in the squad for the Lowestoft game.

On Wednesday evening Hitchin played a team from Roehampton Academy. Most of the squad played at least part of the game which consisted of three 25 minute sections. Charlie Thake scored two impressive goals and Jay Bird a penalty in a 3-1 victory.

ISAAC GALLIFORD
Congratulations to Isaac who scored for the F A X1 against Bedfordshire F A X1 on Tuesday at Kenilworth Road.

HITCHIN TOWN UNDER 19’S
The academy side did not play last week and will not play next week because of the Easter break.

HITCHIN TOWN LADIES FC BY CALLUM ELLIS
‘It may well be that Division Two of the Beds & Herts Women’s League will have a title decider on Sunday 14th April 2019. Hitchin Belles come to Top Field to face title chasers Hitchin Town Ladies FC. Hitchin Belles only need a point to secure the title in what is their last fixture while Hitchin Ladies need to win the last three fixtures to draw level and it would then go down to goal difference! Come and join us and get behind our Hitchin Town Ladies FC as they look to cause an upset at Top Field. It is free entry and kick off is at 2:00pm!’

EJA TEAM NEWS BY NICK CARR
Our U14s were the only EJA team in action last weekend.

On Friday they made the short trip to Stotfold and came away with all three points with a 3-2 win. Having raced into a 3-0 lead after just 20 minutes, you would be forgiven for thinking the game was over for Stotfold however, two quick goals from a spirited fight back brought them back into the game and the teams went in at halftime with Hitchin leading 3-2.

The second half was played out almost exclusively in midfield without either side creating a goal scoring opportunity and the game duly ended at 3-2. Scorers for Hitchin were Ryan Samupita, Brandon Owen and Tyreece Bloomfield.

The boys were back in action on Sunday when they travelled to Epping to take on Bishops Stortford in another league fixture, this time going down 3-2 thanks in large part to some awful refereeing decisions. The man in the middle awarded a contentious penalty to Bishops Stortford to give them the lead. He then disallowed a Hitchin goal for offside despite the linesman not flagging, whilst he had allowed a Bishops Stortford goal to stand with the linesman flagging the scorer who was in a very clear and obvious offside position! To round of a nightmare performance he then ruled out another Hitchin goal for offside in the dying minutes of the game (if only we had VAR at grass roots😂). Scorers for Hitchin were Cathal Fee and Richard Kursorgbor.

Three of our teams are in action on Sunday and all are away from home.

The U13s are at The Valley, Stevenage against Biggleswade Town in their final league game of the season, kickoff is 10:30am.

The U16s travel to Ware FC in a league fixture, kickoff is 10am at Woodson Park.

Finally, the U14s are in Cup Final action when they travel to Woodbridge Town FC to take on Concord Rangers in the EJA Challenge Cup, kickoff is 1:30pm.

FA CUP AND FA TROPHY OPPONENTS
It is interesting to note just how well our FA Cup and FA Trophy opponents have done this season.

Starting with the FA Cup Godmanchester Rovers are currently third in the Thurlow Nunn Premier Division. Our next opponents Didcot Town are fifth in the Evo-Stik Southern Division 1 Central and in the play-off positions. Hastings United are currently third in the Bostik South East Division and virtually certain of a play- off position while Leatherhead are in sixth position in the Bostik Premier Division just one place off the play-off positions. Solihull Moors who eventually ended our run have had a fantastic season and are currently third in the Vanarama National League. I think this shows our F A Cup run was far from easy with the quality of the opposition we faced.

We lost in the first round of the FA Trophy but Hayes & Yeading secured the Bostik South Central championship last Saturday to again highlight our difficult draw.

IMPROVEMENTS UPDATE
Again work has continued on the social club roof and completion is not too far away.

MANAGER’S NOTES WITH MARK BURKE

ST NEOTS TOWN
As you can imagine I was very disappointed with this performance. It appeared many of the players were sporting their flip-flops and sun tan lotion as if the season had already finished. I actually thought we started the game well and had Jack Green taken his opportunity to score and not had a goal disallowed it may well have been a different story.

However that is football and credit to St Neots. They played very well and took the lead after a couple of errors from us. At half time I let the players know in no uncertain terms that the first half performance was not acceptable and made two changes. Once again we started the half well and produced a number of good crosses that were not capitalised upon when we really should have equalised. Then St Neots scored from a classic counter attack which made our task even harder.

We need to look forward and with the strong possibility that we will have the Herts Charity Cup final to play at the end of the season that means there are places up for grabs.

LOWESTOFT TOWN
It seems an eternity since we played at Lowestoft earlier in the season when we managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. We will be looking to avenge that defeat and we want to secure our safety without relying on other results.

Many thanks for your great support last week and the players are really determined to make up for letting you down by producing a much improved performance.

Ahead of our next game against Lowestoft Town, Betvictor Football have given us odds of 6/5 to win. Click here to sign up.
Please note, club players and staff cannot bet on football matches.

BY ROY IZZARD