1st Team v Haverhill Borough

TURNER THE ARTIST FOR RAMPANT KINGS
No. 6    Saturday 2nd September 2016.     F A Cup – 1st Qualifying Round
Haverhill Borough     0         Kings Langley     8 (Turner 30,45+3, Price 31,58, Weiss 35,61, Ward 72,80pen)          
After a Bank Holiday weekend to forget, Kings travelled to Suffolk in the F A Cup and turned on the style to blitz Haverhill Borough with a four goal salvo in each half. The only team changes were the inclusion of Josh Coldicott-Stevens in place of the suspended Dean Hitchcock, while Kieran Turner reclaimed the left wing berth. Indeed it was the latter, whose style seems ideally suited to the artificial pitches such as this, that gave his opposite number a torrid afternoon and was hugely influential throughout. Gareth Price had the ball in the net in the third minute but was ruled offside, but Haverhill had two chances in the first fifteen minutes when Ross Hampton blocked a Charlie Holmes breakthrough before it was scrambled away and the same two players were involved in a similar incident from a Ryan Weaving cross with the same outcome. Both sides were using the long ball to accurate effect, but it was Kings whose incisive passing caught the eye and a second ‘goal’ was disallowed, this time by Stevie Ward. The breakthrough came on the half hour when Kieran Turner’s run and pass saw Mitchell Weiss’ shot blocked but rebound to Turner to blast home. Within a minute, a Weiss through ball was ideal for Price to convert and then a Lee Stobbs corner was headed home by an unmarked Weiss. Turner had the last word of the half when he again surged past the full back, cut inside and sent an acute rasper into the far netting for a 4-0 interval lead. Borough never stopped trying to play good football and held their opponents until the approach of the hour, when Gareth Price cut in from the right and his low shot beat the keeper. This again signalled the quickfire addition and Mitchell Weiss robbed the defence and sent a shot from the edge of the box past a stunned keeper. With three players on two goals each, Stevie Ward got into the act, taking a Matt Bateman through ball on the run to ripple the net and then convert a penalty after he was brought down by Ash Botten. Borough were welcoming hosts, battled to the end and were gracious in defeat, but first to concede that, in the end, the two step gap between the teams proved too much on the day.   RM