Essex Senior League
The Hawthorns, Stanway
Admission and Programme: £6.00
Attendance: 75
Match Rating: 3
The Hawthorns is located off a quiet suburban lane a short distance from Junction 26 of the A12, with a plentiful car park immediately before the ground. The clubhouse is located next to the road, with the turnstile towards one corner of the ground. Once inside, one discovers a ground full of character and individuality, with plenty of facilities built in-house, with virtually everything finished in club colours of yellow and black. Behind the goal where the entrance is there is covered standing of one step, extending about a third of the way along one of the length, which just has flat standing. In the corner, there is the player's tunnel, a couple of portakabins, and a burger van with a couple of bench seats close by. Beyond the other side of the dugouts, there is a small covered area, whilst behind the other goal, roughly the middle two thirds is covered, although the path is quite tight. Along the remaining length there is a modern metallic stand, very smart and most of which contains four rows of seating, but with a small flat section too. Either side of this stand there are further small, more rudimentary stands to provide cover of the hard standing. A very basic 8 page programme was free with admission, and although it lacked the league table, it otherwise served its purpose.
After spending their entire time in senior football in the Eastern Counties League - with the last 12 seasons in the Premier Divisions, mostly finishing comfortable inside the top half of the table - Stanway Rovers were transferred to the Essex Senior League for this season, and had a tough time to begin with, losing their first three games, but have steadied the ship since, coming into this game in 11th place following six wins and three draws from their opening 15 league games, and were unbeaten in their last seven league games. Redbridge looked a good bet for promotion last season, eventually finishing in fourth place, but they have found this season more of a struggle, coming into this game in 16th place in the 20 team division, following three wins and five draws from their opening 15 league games. Today would be the third time the two sides have met already this season, with the reverse fixture in the league finishing 3-3, whilst just last Saturday, Stanway Rovers triumphed 3-1 at home in the Gordon Brasted Trophy.
On a sunny afternoon which was very chilly when exposed to a stiff breeze blowing, the first half was evenly balanced, the home team having slightly the better of things and certainly looking more likely to score, and they thought they had on 21 minutes when the ball was headed firmly into the net following a corner, but the goal was ruled out for a push. They came very close again on the stroke of half time, when the Redbridge keeper could not cleanly gather a shot from a very tight angle, but the loose ball couldn't be prodded home - the Stanway players appealing that was partly due to one of their players being held back. But goalless was how it remained at the break.
The scoreline was only to remain blank for a couple of minutes after the restart, when Redbridge took the lead. A low ball found should have been dealt with by a defender, but he skipped, allowing Michael Ogboin to run on with the ball and fire it low across the keeper and into the net. The visitors were gifted a second goal just a couple of minutes later, when the ball was poked goalwards, the keeper fumbled the ball and Ayodesi Adelekan prodded the loose ball home. Redbridge almost made the game virtually safe on 52 minutes, when they saw a low shot well parried by the keeper, and on 54 minutes, Stanway pulled a goal back when Gaz Dauti fired in a good low shot from the edge of the area which beat the keeper. There was plenty of huff and puff from Stanway as they did plenty of attacking in the final half hour, but the final ball was never quite good enough, and in the end, Redbridge held on for a decent 3 point haul on the road, although Stanway could feel hard done by not to get anything from the game.
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