Men's 1's bring back three valuable points

Havering have been missing the services of last season’s runaway top scorer Gareth Ingram all season. They travelled the 104 mile trip to Long Sutton without three other forwards in Ollie Cipa, Stuart Garnell and Chris Dunn who have scored 14 goals out of Havering’s 27 so far this season. Some position shuffling was therefore needed in order to make up for these absences. Marcus Hall had to move up to the forward line for most of the game while Paul Johnson escalated up to mid-field. Alex Simpson and Paul Dover also had their fair stints playing up front.

It was therefore no surprise that it took Havering a while to settle into this game while the out of position players were getting used to the responsibilities and movements that were being expected from them. The result was a spirited but non-fluent manoeuvre that failed to sting the Long Sutton defence as much as the away team would have wished. Havering did manage to create chances nonetheless, Glen Noller was a consistent threat down the left hand side while Paul Dover, Alex Simpson and once again man of the match Alex Defroand worked hard to ask questions through the middle. The deadlock was broken towards the end of the first half when Harry Andrews de-flected home Marcus Hall’s pass from a short corner routine. The half ended with Havering making sure to hold onto the narrow lead knowing that more effort was needed from each and every one of the players in the second half.

Play did pick up slightly in the second half even though the world was not exactly set on fire. The second goal came midway through the half when Harry Andrews put himself in the right place at the right time once again to score his brace when being setup by Paul Dover following a good team move. Paul Dover himself scored Havering’s third goal with a few minutes to go - Havering’s first attempt at goal from a short corner broke down but Paul Johnson collected the rebound and assisted Paul Dover who converted with an excellent deflection. It looked like the game was done and dusted at this stage with Havering closing in on another clean sheet but Long Sutton had other plans on their mind and scored a consolation goal with basically the last hit of the ball from a scrappy short corner move.

This was not the most convincing of wins for Havering but a very important one anyway as they get the longest away trip of the season out of the way ahead of the double fixture this weekend where they play COP 2s on Saturday in the league and Long Sutton away again on Sunday in the 2nd round of the England Now: Pensions Men’s Trophy.