This afternoon the ‘Robins again flew just over the Suffolk border, for the second time in four days. This time it was to Haverhill Rovers New Croft ground. The ‘Robins’ have always found Haverhill to be one of their bogy teams having never won in Haverhill since the ’Robins’ returned to the Premier League in 2008. Today was to be another bad day there with a 2 - 0 defeat. This was in fact not as comfortable as the score line may suggest. The Rovers were forced to weather a very spirited last 15 minutes from the 10 man ’Robins’ and the keeper had to make a number of first class saves to keep a clean sheet.
The weather, having been so wet lately, saw the pitch well soddened and at 3pm it didn’t help for it to be throwing it down. It was dark with the floodlights on at the start, a totally nasty day. Ely made five changes from the Boxing day game with Chadwick, Coe, Bridgeman, Wilson and Impey all starting. Rovers started off at a fast pace and the first few minutes saw Lee Pacey having to make a fine save followed by a scramble in the area before the ball was cleared. It was 10 minutes before Ely got in shots but Dave Wilson and Luke Parkinson both had efforts that went well over bar. Haverhill were doing most of their attacking down the right and were doing most of the pressing but on 18 minutes Dave Wilson got a cross in from the right towards the Haverhill back post and Luke Parkinson was only a whisker away from it, coming in from the left.
It was to be the 22nd minute when Haverhill took the lead. They won a corner out on their right, the ball came in to the near post, a scramble in the 6 yard box saw the ball end up in the back of the net, going in there via an Ely defender. ’Pace', claimed strongly that he was being fouled in his goal, after a bit of a melee, the Referee awarded the goal. 0 - 1
Haverhill were well lifted by the goal and this time an attack down the left saw another shot coming in but it was wide of the upright. It was the 26th minute when it got worse for the Robins. This time it was another corner out on the right again, it was cleared but not very well, back out towards the corner flag, Cogger took a touch and hit a cross cum shot back towards the goal and it sailed over Lee Pacey into the top left hand corner of the net 0 - 2
It was a difficult day for anyone to play good football, slippery and the ball fizzed off the wet turf but it was the same for both teams. The ball was often overhit and good passes were few and far between. On 30 minutes an Ely corner was only cleared to Josh Bridgeman, he hit a fierce volley that brought a good save from Anderson in the Haverhill goal, he then excelled even more with a second save as an Ely player tried to force the rebound home from very close in. Richard Chadwick then had a good header but it went over the bar. A long kick by the Haverhill keeper got a good bounce for his forward who hit a shot from distance but it went wide.
The last five minutes of the half ended in controversy. Luke Parkinson managed to get a pass away when he was caught late by a Haverhill player, this was not seen by the Ref. Luke then retaliated with a kick at that player, the Ref. did see this and produced a red card, it is in the laws of the game that kicking out like that is a sending off offence and so Luke had to go. A minute later a long ball out from the Ely defence went through the Haverhill defenders, Richard Chadwick chased it going between the two central defenders, Holmes turned after him and ‘Chaders’ went down in the mud. The Ref. blew for a foul and awarded Ely a free kick, Holmes was the last man and the laws of the game demand he sees red but the Referee showed him a yellow. (I don’t want to see anyone sent off in a game of football but the sooner that we get some real consistency from Refs the better for the whole game) The free kick came to nothing and the half ended just after
The second period started (Hooray its stopped raining I can read these notes now) Haverhill attacked down the right but the final effort was straight at ‘Pace’ Haverhill were playing it about keeping the ball forcing the 10 men to work even harder. On 53 minutes Darren Coe miskicked and the ball flew to a Rovers player, as he advanced on goal, ‘Coey’ made a great recovery tackle and the ball went for a corner which was then cleared safely.
On 60 minutes Ely made a triple substitution with Josh C coming on for Josh B, Liam Bolton for Dave Wilson and Tino Diaper for ‘Chads’ Haverhill continued to play it about and Ely fought manfully. On 70 minutes an Ely corner from the right was cleared to the back edge of the box where Tino hit it on the volley but the shot went just wide. Rovers attacked down the right and ‘Pace’ made a good save down low, the ball rebounded out to a Rovers player who saw his shot hit the bottom of the upright.
The last 15 minutes saw the ‘Robins’ ‘want it’ more than the Rovers and the 10 pushed forward, Nick Impey had a fierce shot scrape over the bar with the keeper beaten. Porky Claydon got in on the right and the keeper did very well to save his shot with his legs. He then had to put the resulting corner behind for another which was then cleared. Ben Lawrence saw yellow on 82 minutes but three minutes later his long throw into the box was headed on by ‘Porky’ and Chris Sterecki coming in from the right hit another low shot that the keeper again had to save well with his legs. Another effort saw Tino hit a shot on the half volley but this was again wide. Ely continued going forward with long throws and a couple more corners but were unable to breech the Haverhill back line and the Referee blew for the end with ‘Robins’ the stronger at the finish yet again.
Good luck and a happy new year to all for 2013 and the lets hope the rain stops before the Wisbech game. The team need to go forward and believe in themselves because they can beat anyone on their day.
This year, 2012, saw the ‘Robins play 47 games winning 27, drawing 6 and losing 14, conceding 65 and scoring 101 goals during that 12 months, lets hope that although this is a extremely good record 2013 sees even greater things for ‘THE ROBINS’