2XI bounce back to hit 6

After the disappointment at being well beaten the previous week at Stevenage the 2s travelled to St Albans determined to make amends. The team welcomed back veterans Crawley and Law and hoped to replicate the form that had produced a fighting draw against top of the table St Albans 3s earlier is the season at the same ground. With Satwicks inspiring pre match talk ringing in their ears the 2s started in confident fashion retaining possession, recycling the ball round the back and attacking with the pace of Dan Henry, jack and Sam in the wide channels.

This led to the first goal with Henry making inroads down the right and squaring the ball. There was some debate as to the scorer among the back four, was it Sam or Kitch obviously the two have similar silhouettes and with a combined age approaching 200 the back four could do with an eye test. Following the goal what proved to be the most important passage of play occurred. St Albans 4s had a period of possession after some uncharacteristic Broxbourne mistakes. They overloaded down there right, and their young winger rode a number of Broxbourne challenges to square the ball to the penalty spot. With the St Albans player unmarked with only joe to beat it looked a certain goal. Joe made a tremendous instinctive save from point blank range, but his brilliance was not yet done he rose like a jack in the box to deny the centre forward again diving full length to push the ball to safety.

This proved to be a turning point Broxbourne regained composure and dominated the rest of the half. With Dan Ball scoring with a pinpoint flick to the bottom corner after a flurry of short corners. The continuing pressure led to a number of chances with the ball flashing across goal repeatedly but Sam, Kitch and Ed just couldn’t find the killer touch. Club chairman Kitch has a period of 5 minutes when his touch abandoned him repeatedly missing friendly passes from the tireless brown in midfield.

The second half proved to be the opposite of the first with Broxbourne struggling to retain possession and St Albans dominated for the first 15. However, this is a well drilled Broxbourne unit and the back four aided by the mobile midfield 3 of law, sully and brown managed to prevent St Albans having a clear chance even with them controlling possession. Having got through this period Broxbourne finally found their shooting boots scoring 4 more goals with Kitch and Sam both scoring screamers to finish with a couple each. Ed house rounded out the scorers. Brox continued to press for more goals and the final act was a 3 vs 2 break created by Sully and brown juggling the ball in midfield. Sam received the ball at the top of the D and as the keeper advanced at him, he ignored the screams of Kitch for the square ball and easy tap in to go for the glory of the hat trick and tamely lobbed the ball into the side netting.

MOM was Joe for his crucial double save with Kitch as DOD for his first half lack of first touch and footwork befitting dancing on ice. Special mention should go to Ed House who narrowly missed DOD having left the game with 5mins to go to go and watch his beloved Arsenal. Next week the 2nd XI host West Herts at badger field before the main event of the weekend with the first vets cup game of the season on Sunday