St Ives Town (H)

[Del]

Saturday 14 January 2023 .. kick-off 1500hrs

We extend a warm welcome to first-time visitors and/or away fans, here's what you need to know about the Race Stadium

https://www.hednesfordtownfc.com/stadium

We hope you enjoy your visit to the Race Stadium and we wish you safe journeys to and from the ground.

Local weather forecasts can be found here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2653883

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weat ... /gcqe9zm6y

[Foxinthebox]

Forecast doesn’t look great, hopefully the pitch is ok to play on!

[PitmanKeith]

Forecast doesn’t look great, hopefully the pitch is ok to play on!

And snow forecast for Mon/Tue/Wed which could scupper our midweek game as well.

[Glyn]

https://www.hednesfordtownfc.com/2023/0 ... ves-town-3

[Del]

Always a good away game though!!

[Perton Pitman]

Any idea how the pitch is after last night's rain?

[Del]

Any idea how the pitch is after last night's rain?

Looking good according to reports!

[Del]

Todays game v St Ives Town is ON

We can confirm after an early morning pitch inspection that todays home game with St Ives Town is on and we look forward to welcoming everyone to the RACE Stadium.
3pm kick off - doors open at 1pm

[Perton Pitman]

Ta

[Del]

PITMEN 2 - 2 ST IVES TOWN

League Table: https://southern-football-league.co.uk/ ... 22/2023/P/

Official 436 - thanks PP

Final Scores
Barwell 1v1 Stourbridge
Basford 3v0 Alvechurch
Bromsgrove 2v2 Bedford
Hednesford 2v2 St. Ives
Mickleover 1v2 Hitchin
Royston 4v2 Stratford

[Perton Pitman]

A missed opportunity today . St Ives were very ordinary, but we started slowly and were lack lustre for large parts of the first half. We were troubled by the pace and movement of the St Ives front two and failure to deal with a long throw properly led to the second killer goal.
We showed good spirit, but the quality was generally poor and it was a bit of a surprise to see us pull one back before the break.
The second half was painful viewing as we huffed an puffed. The game turned on the penalty save from the unfortunate Glover and his injury in the aftermath left us with a mountain to climb.
We were incredibly predictable with long balls being lumped forwards for our forwards to feed off the scraps. It seemed like the game was beyond us until a sublime free kick from Morley rescued a point. His goal was wildly celebrated, but the truth is a draw is simply not enough and with others outside the bottom four matching our result the chances of relegation have increased even more.
I have to say that O'Sullivan, Parker and Bennett had games to forget. McQuilikin was our best midfielder - his willingness to try to move the ball forwards and inject a bit of pace into our game shamed his younger, and in some cases more highly rated, peers. I was disappointed to see him subbed.
Payne made a difference to us when he came on as he held the ball up better than O'Sullivan and gave the St Ives defence something to think about. I'm afraid Bennett played too many loose passes and Parker simply went into his shell. O'Sullivan scored a goal, but did little else.
I thought Morley had a fine game and he has improved us no end. He shows a bit of composure that is lacking in the rest of the team and his free kick was the proverbial 'worldie'.
Good to see 436 turn up to the game, even though our fate appears to be sealed by this result.
Two extremely tough games coming up in the next week and after that we enter the final third. We've got 16 points and that just isn't enough.

[C D S]

In the context of the performance, it’s a little harsh to be too critical; rescuing a point deserves a bit of respect for the effort the players put in after they dropped themselves in it early on.

The first half hour’s performance was awful, chasing shadows all over the pitch and allowing St. Ives to bully us off the ball and supply their free-running strikers at will. A wonderful strike for the first goal, fair enough, but utterly woeful defending for the second. We made it too easy for them with some slack passing out from the back and some horribly tedious, slow midfield play. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - you can’t play Thorley and Parker in the same team. Neither is dynamic enough going forwards nor are they aggressive enough to stop the opposition going the other way. Both too safe, too square and not what we need. It was the correct decision to take Portman off at the break as he had looked totally off the pace and had been given a torrid time by the St. Ives strikers.

You felt that the game was heading the same way as the Nuneaton game in the second half, with the ball not dropping our way and the opposition doing just enough to clear their lines. We needed to move the ball quicker throughout the team once we got on top in the second half but consistently took the extra touch too many or made the backwards/sideways pass rather than a forward one. Glover’s penalty wasn’t great - you do wonder how the game would have panned out had he scored with the momentum swinging our way. Fair play to the lads out there at the end though, who kept plugging away and were rewarded for their efforts with a quite splendid free-kick from Steph Morley late on.

Some decent displays out there - Redfern was the pick of the defence once more, whilst Payne was bright and willing after he came on and linked up well with the very steady and calm Morley on the left. McQuilkin my man of the match though as he carried the static midfield behind him and linked play intelligently. Don’t really understand why he was taken off when you had the choice of any of the underperforming trio of Thorley/Parker/Bennett instead

I can see why St. Ives score plenty but concede plenty too; they play a very open, pacy game which will cause you problems at the back but give you chances at the other end. In many ways, they are the archetypal mid-table side, much like we were for most of last season - nowt flash but in no danger of either going up or going down

A point does very little to improve our fortunes; with Kings Langley & Rushden not playing and defeats for Alvechurch and Stratford it was a chance to claw back three points, but yet again our dreadful home form scuppers any chance of progress. I imagine a certain 38-year-old striker will be looking forward to his Ilkeston debut on Tuesday night (weather permitting).

[Lee K]

It was a very poor first half performance. We had no wingers on, nobody moving out to the wide positions and so it was all very condensed either trying to get through a packed middle or hit and hope balls up to the strikers. All we had was McQuilkin’s long ranger which came back off the bar and had our keeper not made two saves we could have gone in 0-3 down. For their goals I may be a bit harsh but their striker was a long way out when he had a shot and I think Ronnie should have done better although it was a powerful strike. The second was a bit of a scramble resulting from poor defending.
The second half was better although we still found it difficult to create a great deal. We improved when Payne came on and after the penalty miss and Danny’s injury you thought that was it. But fair play to the players they didn’t stop battling and we got the point I think we deserved in the end although it wasn’t enough. It has to be said in addition to the chances they had in the first half former Pitman Enoch Andoh could have put the game to bed when he came on in the second half producing a mazy run and a shot which came back off the post.
For us individually I thought there were good performances from Morley, Redfern, McQuilkin and Payne, indifferent performances from Ison, Glover and O’Sullivan and poor performances from Thorley, Portman, Bennett and Parker. Tilt and Kaninda came on and offered little. We’ve played three games since we signed the new Stanley and he hasn’t even made the bench yet in any of them so I’m not sure what’s going on there. I too was also baffled as to why McQuilkin was subbed unless the game had taken its toll on him as I can remember at least three occasions when he had been battered and bruised by illegal challenges from the opponents.
If we are going to go down let’s hope we go down fighting. We saw plenty of effort especially in the second half so fair play to the lads for that but for the most part the quality was missing as it has been for most of the season.

[TMVP]

Highlights

[sheriff]

surely as a manager Glover must realise you cant dribble the ball out of our own area

[Caroljohnson]

Thanks Dan

[Lee K]

Thanks Dan. I still think the keeper should have done better with the first goal, it was a very long way out. Unfortunate that it was Danny who did “a Bennett” and lost the ball in his own box for the second.
Although the penalty could have been better I’m putting it down as a great save by the keeper, and Morley’s goal looks even better on the TV than it did when I was watching it yesterday. I’d like to know what Gary Lineker et al would have said about it had a Premier League player scored it.

[Lee K]

The question is how long will it be before Morley is off to £tourbridge or Nunea£on?

[bix_the_dog]

The question is how long will it be before Morley is off to £tourbridge or Nunea£on?

Your think those options were on the table when he joined us, though? Hopefully that's a sign he's here for the right reasons.