Whitton United 0 v 2 Hadleigh United

Tuesday 8th September 2020, kick-off 19.45
Eastern Counties League Premier Division
King George V Playing Field, Whitton
Admission: £6.00
Programme: Online only
Attendance: 132

Back in late July, I took advantage of a "two nights for the price of one" promotion by Travelodge by booking a stay at the Beacon Hill hotel near Ipswich for £35. That was with taking in some Eastern Counties League fixtures whilst I was in the region, but before the League fixtures were announced, and I was ideally hoping that Woodbridge Town or Debenham LC would be at home, to visit a new ground close by. Unfortunately that wasn't to be, and the nearest new grounds for me were about an hour's drive away, at Swaffham Town or Norwich United, a further long drive that was unappealing after a long drive getting to Suffolk earlier in the day, and taking in an eight mile countryside walk under warm sunshine en route. And so I opted for a revisit to King George V Playing Field, which I rather wearily visited as the last game of three on the rather wet 2016 Eastern Counties League Groundhop, but was only about a ten minute drive from the Travelodge.

There have been no major changes to the ground since my previous visit, and as always this season, plenty of Covid precautions were in place, with hand sanitizing gel dispensers available and a QR code to scan for track and trace purposes. A new housing estate is being constructed close behind one length, to give a new backdrop in place of the open space that was there previously. A programme was produced for this fixture, but was only available online, downloadable from the website, containing 16 pages and including histories of both clubs, predicted line-ups, penpics of the away team, and this evening's League fixtures.

In last season's abandoned season, Whitton United were in a comfortable tenth place in the 20 club division, following 12 wins and six draws from 28 league games, whilst Hadleigh were facing a real battle to survive in the division, and were only off the bottom of the table and the one relegation spot on goal difference, following five wins and five draws from 27 games. In their opening league games of this season, Whitton United won 3-1 at home to Thetford, while Hadleigh lost 0-1 at home to Kirkley & Lakefield. In the FA Cup, Whitton won 4-3 at home to Ipswich Wanderers, and face a tough looking trip to Dereham Town in the next round on Saturday, while Hadleigh lost 3-4 at home to Mildenhall Town.

On a very mild evening, with the sun setting beautifully on the horizon, the deadlock was broken as early as the fourth minute, after the ball was pulled back and drilled home first time by Joel Glover. The game became competitive and even, with Whitton having a few chances to get back on level terms, but Hadleigh held onto their narrow lead at the break, with the feeling that the match could still yet go either way.

But within a minute of the restart, the visitors doubled their lead. The referee played advantage after quite a bad tackle on the left flank, and Joe Yaxley dribbled into the area before passing to Glover, who swept the ball past the keeper. Although there was plenty of huff and puff by Whitton, they lacked quality in the final third and it looked like one of those nights that they could be playing for a week and still not score, as Hadleigh did a good job managing the game and staying organised. And they came closest to scoring again, on 66 minutes a free kick from the left went through a crowd in the area, taking a faint deflection before hitting the post, and five minutes later, a free kick whipped in from close to the corner flag forced the keeper to tip the ball over. And even despite being reduced to ten men for ten minutes when Max Donnell was sent to the "sin-bin", they quite comfortably saw the game out to claim their first three points of the season.

The electronic matchday programme can be viewed by clicking here.