Saturday, August 20, 2011

The pre-season prophets of doom have suggested that a long and hard season lies ahead for United and their opening day opponents, newly promoted Wingate & Finchley. And on the evidence of the ninety minutes that the two sides produced at the Pilot Field this afternoon, those prophets may well be proved wise indeed come the end of April.

The visitors, last season's Division One North play-off winners, were at least able to celebrate a three point haul on the day though, with United's much changed side left to face up to the fact that they simply failed to adequately test a far from watertight looking Wingate defence enough to have merited anything more than they got from the contest.

It was no coincidence that Wingate's matchwinner just happened to be the game's most lively and dangerous looking player, striker Leon Smith causing the U's defence plenty of problems throughout, although even he would have been surprised to have been allowed to wriggle past two half-hearted challenges and fire low across keeper Lloyd Anderson from the edge of the area in the thirty-first minute. Whether or not Anderson could have done better is perhaps debatable, but that Smith ought to have been prevented from turning into space and getting his shot away is surely indisputable.

The goal capped a noticeably improved spell for the visitors, once they had starting to press the U's into mistakes deep inside their own half, and that after United had played some impressive passing football in the opening twenty minutes or so. But aside from a Ben Billings shot over the bar, and Fred Foreman's stretching header from a Scott Manning cross that also missed the target by some distance, the U's offered rather too little in front of goal.

Wes Tate, preferred to Kenny Pogue alongside fellow debutant Foreman in attack, showed himself well capable of holding the ball up and bringing his midfield colleagues into play, but having missed much of the friendly campaign with a broken toe, he also looked short of fitness and, along with United as a whole, faded the longer the game wore on.

At the other end of the pitch, Anderson was far from overworked, even though his defence appeared less solid than he may have liked at times. Smith aside though, Wingate's attacking options seemed a touch limited, yet David Laird's strong run down the left hand side of the area on the hour mark did tempt Ray into an injudicious challenge that earned the visitors a soft penalty, only for Laird himself to fire slightly too casual a spot kick against the crossbar.

By then, Smith could have had himself a hat-trick, twice bursting clear into the United area, only to be denied by Anderson. But after the penalty miss, with Arron Hopkinson, Jack Walder and Kenny Pogue all adding to the U's attacking dimensions from the substitutes' bench, the home side found the resolve to take the game to their opponents again, but not until the closing stages did they create a chance worthy of the name.

Pogue's breezy introduction was offset somewhat by Tate's increasing tiredness, but the two combined nicely in the eighty-eighth minute, Tate ultimately going down after turning Bobby Aisien in the area, only for referee Lee Venamore to answer the striker's penalty appeals in the negative. Tate then crossed for Manning to head wide at the far post, and maybe ought to have done better with a twenty yard effort in the last of four added minutes.

In the end though, the closest United came to scoring was from a free kick in the latter stages of the first half, a curling effort from the enigmatic Foreman, which took a thick deflection off the wall, and forced Bobby Smith into his only strenuous bit of action in the contest, an acrobatic, one-handed save, with Lee Carey and Billings tripping each other up in their rush to get to the rebound.

The U's have of course endured worse starts to a season than this, and they have naturally enjoyed better starts too, but how Jason Hopkinson's youthful charges could have done with a morale-boosting early victory in front of a disappointingly low opening day attendance. The away campaign begins at East Thurrock United on Tuesday evening, and last year's Division One North champions will surely start as favourites in light of their fellow newcomers' success today.

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Hastings United (4-4-2)							Wingate & Finchley (4-4-2)
1 Lloyd Anderson							1 Bobby Smith
2 Scott Manning							2 Marc Weatherstone
3 Dan Bolwell							3 Paul Wright
4 Lee Carey							4 Joe O'Brien
5 Sean Ray (c)							5 Danny Nielsen (c)
6 Josh Jirbandey							6 Bobby Aisien
7 Jack Dixon							7 Lewis Jones
8 Matt Hall							8 Mark Henry
9 Wes Tate							9 Leon Smith
10 Fred Foreman							10 David Laird
11 Ben Billings							11 Murat Karagul
Substitutes
12 Kenny Pogue (for Foreman 61)							12 Ola Williams (for Wright 71)
14 Arron Hopkinson (for Bolwell 48)							14 Milton Elenge
15 Jack Walder (for Carey 57)							15 Jordan Fowler (for Karagul 78)
16 Jamie Crellin							16 Chris Doyle
17 George Jones							17 Sam Sloma (for Laird 71)

Attendance: 297

Referee: Lee Venamore (Maidstone)

Assistants: Stuart Green (Eastbourne) & Paul Beadle (Sevenoaks)