MoM: Sam Parkes
DoD & Match report: Ian T

A nice bright sunny afternoon, a crowd into double figures and an empty pitch to warm up on greeted us on arrival at Queenswood, and apparently pitch black toilets as reported by Jonah.

After an initial Hertford attack, Albans settled down and dominated possession in the early stages, with a lot of neat passing between midfield and forwards.
We were soon rewarded with a short corner which Liam cooly deposited thru their post man into the bottom right corner for an early lead.

The Albans dominance continued with several chances going begging (Sandi looking at you?) before Matt finished off a great team passing move from Ian's probing 16 clearance via Sam up the right hand side and a few others.

Cormac emerged from the bench into the heart of midfield, caused chaos for 5 minutes before heading back to a more familiar centre back role.

Hertford had a couple of chances of their own, Nathan pulled off a very smart save tipping it past the post and in another attack a wide shot bounced back into play off the goal wheel, and briefly threatened the goal until the umps figured out what had happened.

Half time was a comfortable 2-0, but not full reward for our play and possession.

2nd half we stepped the performance up a gear, although Ian decided a positive statement would be to lift the ball full into the shoulder of the Hertford forward. Ouch!

Liam and Sam P were creating havoc down either flank and Tommy was full of running at the base of midfield. A super run and pull back from Sam gave Jonah the chance to emphatically slam the ball into the back board from 3 meters, shortly followed by Sandhi, finally but deservedly getting on the score sheet with a neat finish.

Ian gave a great demonstration of how to win at "tangled stick pull" sending a Hertford youngsters stick a good 20 metres across the pitch, making the most of his 5 stone advantage. Thug!

We then had a comedy of errors from both teams. Russ played what should have been a great attacking sideline ball back to Ian on the pivot, only he hit it a tad behind Ian on his weak side, who made a pretty lame attempt to pick it, but sadly old age and stiffness was having none of it and Hertford picked up the ball on the half way line and quickly transferred it towards their forward high in the D. Whether his shoulder was still smarting or whether he had a yearning to write his own match report we'll never know, but letting it hit his foot under no pressure at all was defo the comedy moment of the afternoon.

We then had a short which was dragged well onto the postman foot (by Cormac), and rebounded to Matt (possibly off his foot too) before he stuck it in the goal, which was given for 5-0.

At least it prevented Cormac from scoring the P flick that perhaps should have been awarded.

We still had time for another interesting situation, with both Ian and Cormac up for an attacking short, Jonty, Russ and Tommy decided that marking the central forward was optional when Hertford turned over the ball and attacked.

Ian beat Cormac in the foot race back and Jonty did enough to stifle the attack out wide to ensure we kept a clean sheet.

So back to winning ways and a good result and some great performances with Sam just shading Liam for MoM and, comedy moments aside, an assured defensive and GK display ensured a clean sheet.

On a day when Quentin racked up his 1000th game at Oaklands, we had a young lad making his umpiring debut. He had a solid game along with his more experienced colleague, communicating well & playing good advantage. Our thanks to the pair of them for a job well done.