Men's 1's move to Premier B summit

Havering hosted Harlston Magpies on Saturday and were hoping for another home victory in order to keep pace with table toppers Ipswich. A quick glance at the league table and it might have seemed this would have been a formality with Harlston propping up the Premier B table but last weeks victory over third placed Letchworth indicated this would not be the case.

A feature of recent weeks has been how well Havering have been starting matches and Saturday was no different. Havering controlled the ball from the outset and it wasn't long before they took the lead, Alex Simpson picked the ball up in midfield and beat two defenders on his way to the circle before playing a ball into the waiting Andrews who swept the ball over keeper. This spurred the home team on and Ollie Cipa went close from the first penalty corner of the match and from the second Paul Johnson deflected in Glen Noller's shot to double the advantage.

After the early onslaught Harlston began to work their way back into the game and had a good spell of possession as Havering's intensity started to drop but failed to trouble keeper Nick Males. As the half drew to a close the home side were unlucky not to add to their tally, Marcus Hall made a strong run into the circle and after his initial shot was blocked the ball came back to him and he made no mistake at the second attempt. However after the goal was given a conversation between the umpires resulted in a sixteen being given instead. Undeterred by the setback Havering launched further attacks and again felt they had scored from a well worked penalty corner but with the ball on its way to the bottom corner the umpire blew for
a foul and a second corner was awarded.

The second half started in a similar manner to the first with Havering starting on the front foot. A good passage of play through the midfield resulted in the ball finding its way to Cipa on the left who crossed the ball into the circle where Noller deflected into the goal from in front of the away keeper. It was soon four as man of the match Adam Lumbers played the ball down the line for Cipa who switched play to Simpson whose cross found Andrews at the far post for his second of the game.

Havering made it five as Stuart Garnell raced into the circle and rode a heavy challenge before flicking the ball into the roof of the net and Cipa got in on the act late on with a well placed flick from another penalty corner. However the scoring was not over as a lack of concentration in defence allowed a Harlston player space on the right to cross where an unmarked forward swept the ball into the back of the net. Final score 6-1

Another solid win for Havering who moved into top spot as Ipswich slipped up away at Norwich. The league now enters the second half of the season but with Havering involved in the East Indoor qualifiers this coming weekend the match against Letchworth has been moved to the new year.