5th Jan 2008 - Bernard's brave tactics pay off

With a large squad of players to choose from for the away trip against Sholing Bernard decided to take a chance and use a squad rotation system for the game, with everybody getting an hours worth of football.  Many fans and the press were worried about this decision and the pressure mounted on Bernard, but in the end it was to prove the right choice.  Unlike big Sam it looks like the players are fully behind Bernard.

Doug returned to Hedge End after a lengthy spell out and Hedge End welcomed two new players in Vincent and Jim.  Tim also returned to the team after a few weeks out.

The game started at a very fast pace and you could tell that both teams were up for this game and wanted to win.  After five minutes Andy lofted a ball over the Sholing defence and Dave ran onto in,  the Sholing defender completely took Dave out but unfortunately the ref didn't see it and waved play on.

Then out of nowhere Ali was allowed to run with the ball, passed two Sholing players, and lofted the ball from way outside of the area into the top left hand corner.  He swore that he meant to do this, but there were some doubts....

Shortly after that Hedge End won a corner.  Bernard turned to Ben and told him to ' stay back and defend ', to which Ben misheard and thought Bernard had said ' go to front and try to score '.  Needless to say a low ball was crossed in and Ben out stretched everybody to slice the ball into the goal.  The celebrations would have been wild, but Ben wasn't completely sure that he had scored.

Late on in the first half, with only a few minutes to go, Sholing's number 7, who had been one of their best players, got hold of the ball on the left and slotted in to make it 2-1 at the end of the half.

The second half saw a few more tactical changes with super Rob replacing Doug in goal, who had a fantastic game.  Rob was called into action almost from the kick off in the second half as he dived to his right to finger tip the ball away for a corner.  From the resulting corner though Sholing's big number 7 headed the ball powerfully into the net to make it 2-2.

As Ali had scored a long range shot earlier in the game he thought he would try it again, but this time his shot was fluffed, but in a bizarre twist of events the keeper was expecting a powerful shot and so missed the ball and it went in.

Sholing then drew level when they ran straight through the centre of the park and their striker thumped it to the right, there was nothing that Rob could have done.  Hedge End were defending very well but Sholing were throwing everything towards the goal.

Then disaster struck, when Sholing crossed and the ball hit Vincent's hand and Sholing were awarded a penalty.  It was a very cruel decision as he was just protecting his face.  However, justice was done as from the resulting spot kick Sholing's striker blasted it wide.

At this point a mention should go to the two new players for Hedge End,  Vincent was very strong at left back and won most of the headers and Jim had a fantastic debut working very hard in midfield and creating some great link play with Andy and Ali.

Sholing then took the lead when their striker got into a good position on the left and scored from a very very tight angle.  Super Rob and the Hedge End team were gutted, as with only five minutes to go they were losing a game that they had been winning for the majority of. 

With only a couple of minutes left and with time running out a hopeful ball was pumped into the air and Tim ran onto it and chipped it into the net.  The Sholing keeper did get a hand to it, but it wasn't enough to keep it out of the net. 

In the end it was one of those games where Hedge End were not sure if they should be happy with getting a good away draw to a good team, or should be upset at not winning a game that they controlled for most of.  The whole team worked very hard and the team spirit was second to none.  If this can keep going then Hedge End can secure their mid table status.