By Ben Watson

With 10 league games played, we are almost half-way through the season so lets have a re-cap on how things have been going!

A relatively short yet productive pre-season left us confident going into the season with 2 friendly wins out of 2. Surely Hardy Athletic were going to be there or there abouts for the title?

The 1st league game saw the anticipated debuts of Andy Willet and Dave Steadman with the very welcome return of Danny Gillham, all impressing as the team went on to record a 3-1 win against new boys Larron FC. Not to forget that this was also a new era as Aaron Setwart was made Hardy captain!

Next up was the game against Little Heath! After previous encounters, we knew this was going to be a tough game and it didn't disappoint, certainly one for the neutrals (if their were any lol).

Things didn't start off well with the news that Aaron wasn't available meaning Ben took over the captaincy with huge pride. Then just before kick-off, only 10 players had turned up with Andy Willet missing the 1st 30 mins or so. It was simply a case of playing with everybody behind the ball until Andy turned up. We managed to keep it 0-0 for this period although it left some players frustrated. It was simply a very bad coincidence that once Andy turned up and we were at full strength, our shape seemed to collapse and by half time, we were 5-0 down and confidence was incredibly low! The 2nd half was a completely different story with a slight change in team shape, Gary moved into the middle alongside Ben with Paul moving out to the right. Things really started to click and Dave now not so frustrated managed to score his 1st hat-trick for the club to bring it back to 5-3. This was the final score after the game was cut slightly short due to a fracas between Danny Gillham and the Little Heath striker which turned into hand-bags.

Our next fixture was vs West Ham Deaf and provided the league debut of Dan Kempster. With Danny Gillham missing, this meant a rare start in goal for Chris Watson. This was a fairly one-sided game with 3-0 looking about as comfortable as it was with Kempster marking his debut with a goal.

Newly relegated Emerhorns were the next opponents and we were looking forward to this match following previous encounters with them. I'm not going to go on about this game as there is a full-report already on the site but we managed to pull ourselves back from 2-0 down to 2-2 and then with not long to go and the score at 3-2 to Emerhorns, Ben scores the equalizer with his RIGHT foot (yes thats right, his right foot). Then in the final moments, Man of the Match Chris Watson pulls out a save for the cameras with a top draw save at full stretch to deny Emerhorns the 3 points.

The next game was at home to St Anthonys 'A' and is a game all of the team look forward to, especially the strikers! We made light work of this 90 minutes with the final score reaching 10-0 to Hardy. Bill managed to knock in 4 goals, Dave with his 2nd hat-trick of the season, Kempster popping up with another and it also lead to the unlikely lads of our skipper Aaron and Mike getting on the scoresheet.

The only problem with having such an easy game followed by a two week break was the fact that our next game was against Little Heath. This is a game that most of the team would like to forget as nobody played particularly well and we were on the wrong side of a 7-0 thrashing. The highlight of the game was an over-head kick from the edge of the area, flying past Brewers in goal, to cap off the game, the sort of goal you just don't expect to see in a Sunday league game.

The following game showed very little improvement, putting in a fairly poor performance, with the result finishing 3-1 to Dalton, Trevor getting on the scoresheet with a good individual goal.

Our 1st game in November was the arrival of Emerhorns at the mighty Central Park. This was a much better performance from the lads with some excellent football being put on display! With goals from Trev, Dave, Kempster and a screamer of a left foot shot from the 2nd highest record apperance holder, Jimmy Haywood! We did concede twice though leaving the final score at 4-2 to Hardy!

Next up was by far and away the best performance of the season so far in terms of excellent football being played, West Ham Deaf away. This was probably helped by playing on, in my opinion, the best pitch in the league. This was another game that the players thoroughly enjoyed, myself included and led to a very comfortable victory. The scoreline of 9-1 to Hardy was not harsh on West Ham Deaf because if we had finished more of our chances, we would have won by an even greater margin! Dave had one of those games when things just click for you putting 5 in the back of the net along with goals from Trev, Kempster, an awful attempted header to lead to a tap in from Aaron with Andy Willet also scoring his 1st goal for the club.

Lakeview away in the Premier Cup 2nd round was next up. Playing against a team who are 3 divisions above us, you could say that we were the slight underdogs, lol. This didn't affect us though with Dave flying out of the traps to put us 2-0 up. At half-time two payers from Lakeview had a little scrap causing the 2nd half to be slightly delayed but this must have been a wake-up call for them as they were soon level at 2-2. A fantastic penalty save fromDanny Gillham took the game to extra-time but this is when the quality of Lakeview started to show with every single Hardy player now blowing out of their A***! The final score of 6-2 to Lakeview was harsh on the lads but we were still proud of our performance regardless.

There was then a break of 3 weeks without a fixture until we finally played Larron away. With yet again more goal-keeping troubles, Bill offered to play between the sticks and thankfully he did. With goals from Trev and Kempster in the 1st half, it left the score at 2-1 at half-time. A poor 2nd half performance led to Larron scoring an equaliser and Hardy hanging onto this scoreline for dear life. The final whistle blew and everyone blew a sigh or relief with some slight disappointment at the performance but also a big thanks going to Bill for making a string of great saves to gain us a point.

The final game of the year was the Beitler Cup preliminary fixture against West Ham Deaf. Following our previous result against them, confidence was high and this was shown in our performance. Within the 1st few minutes we were 1-0 up after a quick attack down the left from Ben and a wicked cross being deflected into the West Ham Deaf goal by their own defender. This was followed by goals from Dave, Kempster and Ben (Ben's celebration was described as sexy-time with corner flag by Trev). West Ham Deaf did manage to also score twice in this period with a fantastic volley from outside the box standing out. The 2nd half was more of the same but only one more goal being added, a penalty from Dave which was expertly dispatched!

With half the season now complete, we currently lie in 4th place on 17 points from 10 games with 38 goals scored and 24 being conceded. A good cup run could also be on the cards and our best chance of silverware this year!

Not a bad start to the season but we will need an improved 2nd half to the season if we are realistically going to challenge for Silverware and Promotion!



Oh, and Tom broke his foot in the first game of the season, and is now back knocking on the door of the first team [Thanks for remembering me Ben! - Ed]