FIXTURE
Saturday 15 September Home to Alvechurch League kick off 3.00pm.
There is no midweek fixture.

Please remember you can buy discounted tickets for this game up until 8.00pm on Friday evening. Please click here.

NORTH HERTS FM ARE AT THE ALVECHUCH GAME
The fabulous team of Hitchin Town FC supporters will once again take to North Herts FM airwaves commentating Saturday 15 September to bring you live action from Top Field, 2.30pm. Brian Gray will pre record an interview with Mark Burke for the build up for the show, so tune in to hear his thoughts on recent games.

Our Youthful Canaries could really do with your support at the match which will kick off at 3.00pm, but if you are unable to make the match please do support the commentary and the wonderful Becky Phillips who heads North Herts FM and has made this happen for us.

If you know any housebound people that may enjoy listening to some local football commentated in a highly professional way, it comes highly recommended.

PLAYER NEWS
Elliot Bailey, Kieran McCaffrey and Jay Dowie have been loaned out to Hertford Town as they need playing time.
Kieran Barnes, Dessie Da Silva and Craig Packham remain on loan at Stotfold.
There are no further injury problems.

SECOND GOAL AGAINST GODMANCHESTER
The second goal against Godmanchester has been officially credited as an own goal by the goalkeeper.

FA YOUTH CUP
Nobody could say the FA Youth Cup tie with Barking was lacking in incident. The first game was called off on police advice because of a lorry fire and Tuesday’ s rearranged game came very close to being abandoned. This was after a sickening collision left our goalkeeper Sam Simpson suffering from concussion and there ensued a 34 minute delay before Sam was taken to hospital. The referee told me he was within minutes of having to call the game off but luckily the game restarted and Hitchin won 1-0 thanks to Rueben Kestler’s goal. The best news of all was that Sam was released from hospital at 3.00am and he is continuing to make an excellent recovery.

I am fairly certain the second half which lasted 80 minutes was the longest half in our history. The game could have gone to extra time and penalties if the scores had finished level and the game would then have gone on to 11.00pm! The attendance was 71 and you can read an article about the game in this week’s Comet.

Hitchin are at home in the first qualifying round to the winners of the game between Woodford Town and Grays Athletic which is being played on Friday evening. Please watch the website for details of when the game will take place.

HOME GAME GLUT
Having been drawn at home to Didcot in the FA Cup it means we will have had five consecutive Saturday home games. As we were also at home to Harrow on 5 September we will have played 6 home games out of 7 with the away game our shortest trip to Biggleswade!

HITCHIN LADIES FC
Manager Callum Ellis produced this report on the Hitchin Ladies 1-0 win at Evergreen FC:

Guess who’s back, back again, the ladies are back tell your friends!

The 2018/2019 season arrived on a warm Sunday afternoon down at Evergreen FC.

The referee got the game underway and Hitchin were pushing from the early stages.

The game had started fairly even but newly promoted Evergreen had started to find their feet. Evergreen had started to play the long the ball deep into the Hitchin half but it was calmly dealt with and quickly turned around to counter. Hitchin strode into the Evergreen half and worked the ball around the field but the keeper reacted quickly and scooped up the ball from a sharp shot.

Hitchin won a free kick on the edge of Evergreen’s box but it was flicked out for a corner. After a messy corner Evergreen turned on the counter and pressed on to Hitchin. However with the ladies retreating back to their positions we calmly put an end to the attack and the first half finished goalless..

The second half stared and the sun went in and the wind picked up. Evergreen pressed for the opener but the Hitchin defence responded and held their nerve.

With half an hour left of the game things started to heat up. Both teams were pushing for the first goal and it seemed whoever scored the first goal would walk away with the 3 points. Hitchin pushed on the attack and won a corner. Chaffey swung the ball in from the right side and it was bundled into the goal by an Evergreen player.

In the last ten minutes of the game Hitchin started to pick up the tempo as they had one hand on the three points. The Hitchin defence was pressing into Evergreen’s half giving them no time on the ball.

Hitchin pushed for a second in the last few seconds but the pass was too heavy and was quickly collected by the keeper and the referee blew for full time.

Three points on the board and a clean sheet. The ladies managed to dig deep to get the points they needed. There is one goal this season watch this space…

Squad
N. Thompson
J. Hawkridge
A. Piper
K. Smith
G. Winter
M. Franklin
M. Cain-Murnane
L. Huffer
A. Holland
L. Gash
E. Chaffey

W.O.M – Amie Holland

PLAYER FINES
As with most football clubs the Hitchin Town players run a fines system amongst themselves with the money collected being used to help to subsidise their end of season tour. Over the next few weeks I will give details of just what the players can be fined for and how much it will cost them!

  1. No flip flops – £2 per flip flop.
  2. No towel – £2
  3. No shower – £2
  4. No cakes when it is your birthday -£10
  5. Worst trainer -£5
  6. Nutmegged in training or a match – £2
  7. Giving away a penalty – £5
  8. Scoring an own goal – £5

There will be more next week.

MARK BURKE ON ALVECHURCH
I must admit I do not know a great deal about Alvechurch who are another new team to play this season. However I think we need to concentrate on ourselves. We need to build on consecutive victories over Harrow and Godmanchester and the fact we have only lost one of our last five games.

We need to build on the confidence that had been fragile and I want the players to believe in themselves and the way we are capable of playing. I have always liked to build unbeaten runs after bad results and Saturday is another chance to keep this current run going.

I will not be at the game as I am on a spying mission and Adam Parker will be in charge but I will have been fully involved in selecting the team.

BY ROY IZZARD