Mangrove's players will be kicking themselves all week! This was a game that slipped away despite almost total dominance with the ball. A game of chances taken by Broxbourne & chances missed by Mangrove.

 

Having been let down by the League's appointed referee, Alan Parkinson had to take charge in the middle & had to handle only two contentious moments in a hard-fought but well-spirited game. Broxbourne's sweeper should have been ordered off had Alan seen his outrageous kick at Stuart Smillie, but he remained on the park, whilst late in the game Mangrove were awarded a penalty for an obvious hand-ball. Sharkey desptched it into the corner of the net but it was too late to rescue the point that was the least the men in yellow deserved.

 

It took 15 minutes for Mangrove to get going by which time they were already a goal down. Having failed to press the ball on the Broxbourne left, a pass was played behind the defence allowing Lunness to lob the advancing Sharkey from 15 yards. The goal seemed to inspire Mangrove & the team produced good passing football only to either fail to find a good end product to their approach play or to find the Broxbourne keeper in fine form. It was 0 - 1 at half time, Opta stats would have given 60-40 possession to Mangrove.

 

The second half proceeded in the same vein & eventually Neil MacPhail rounded off a fine move taking Malin's header in his stride before firing a left-foot volley across the keeper & into the net. Mangrove pressed & pressed, the four man midfield dominating the five of Broxbourne. Andrews replaced Cave to bring some height to the front line, but soon afterwards the defence - pacy & hard-working throughout - failed to deal with a  bouncing ball & another lob, this time from Watkins, cleared Sharkey against the run of play to make it 1-2.

 

With Tebbutt making his debut on the left giving Malin a well-earned rest Mangrove brought three outstanding saves from the Badgers keeper but left gaps as they pressed forward. On one break, a mis-hit shot skewed into the path of Lunness who drilled it past Sharkey for 1-3. It was one-way traffic from then on but only Sharkey's penalty went into the plus column.

 

Manager Gordon Picker said "it was one we should have won. It was disappointing to defend so well yet concede two sloppy goals & another that to be honest was lucky. But that's football & we have to take a lot of positives from our overall play into the next three games. They're all real tests against teams that finished last season in good league positions. I'm confident we have the squad to do really well this season & I hope to have a couple of new signings available for us at Braughing."

 

Goal Times:-

 

0-1 Lunness 15 minutes

1-1 MacPhail 50 minutes

1-2 Watkins 67 minutes

1-3 Lunness 75 minutes

2-3 Sharkey (pen) 87 minutes