St Ives Town 3 v Hitchin Town 1
Pitching-In Southern League Premier Central 30-11-2024
Nigel Howlett reports
Will Glennon’s hat trick claimed Ives first home win since early October and moved them up three places to tenth and back onto the coat tails of the play-off chasing sides. The hosts played well enough at times to have made this a comfortable victory over the struggling Canaries but as has been their way this season they gifted the visitors a goal midway through the second half to make life more difficult for themselves than it need have been.
Ives manager Ricky Marheineke made two changes following last weeks defeat at third placed Telford with skipper Alex Collard returning after serving his suspension at the expense of Albie O’Keefe and Kymani Skyers dropping out of the back three to be replaced by Ethan Creary. New Canaries manager Michael Jones, in the hot seat for his first game since taking permanent charge of the visitors made only one change from the previous game bringing in hard working striker Henry Snee in place of Joseph Chidyausiku who dropped to the bench.
The first half started in very open fashion with both teams looking to get the ball forward and attack at every opportunity. Ives were holding the early edge and Amir Hadi could perhaps have done better in the first dangerous move of the game in forth minute. Battling hard to get around the outside of Toby Syme he got to the bye line but failed to get the ball past Canaries keeper Seb Stacey at his near post with team mates arriving in the centre.
Ten minutes later it was Stacey who was left red faced as he allowed himself to be beaten low to his left by a well struck thirty yard effort from Glennon that skipped off the surface in front of him and bounced under his dive. But the keeper may have good reason to feel that his defenders were at least partially to blame as Glennon was given time and space to range forward with the ball before letting fly.
The power and pace of Hadi was still giving Syme problems and the Ives centre forward again battled past him in 18th minute. But this time a well positioned Stacey held on well to Hadi’s fierce, rising, drive from the edge of the box.
The visitors enjoyed a good spell around the midway mark in the half with wing back Lewis Franklin firing wide with a powerful effort from the right hand corner of the box in 20th minute. Only ninety seconds later it took a brilliant reaction save from home keeper Dan Wilks to preserve Ives lead. Franklin got fed in down the right by Luke Stokoe and delivered a cross to the near post where Snee met it cleanly. Wilks reacted smartly to turn the close range effort onto the crossbar and was relieved as Solomon Sambou following up screwed the loose ball wide.
The Canaries final opportunity in this purple spell for them came only two minutes after Wilks brilliance. This time Syme managed to hurl himself through the crowd to get on the end of Luke Stokoe’s in-swinging free kick from the left. But the visitors centre back met the ball a little to cleanly and powered his header wide.
Having survived that brief period of Canaries pressure Ives started to get back in the ascendency. Josh Allen almost burst through the centre on the half hour. But his surging run was halted illegally 25 yards from goal by the combined efforts of two visiting defenders. Johnson Gyamfi’s resulting free kick deflected off the Canaries four man wall and almost fell for Allen six yards out but the Ives striker failed to make sufficient contact on the spinning ball to beat Stacey.
Ives second two minutes before the break will probably be in the running for goal of the season and I would suggest that you all take a look at it on the website. Meade battled hard to win the ball off a defender by the left corner flag. A clever back heel put in Allen who had the presence of mind to look up and pick out his man with his low cross, a clever dummy at the near post by Gyamfi took out defenders and keeper and allowed the ball to roll on to the unmarked Gleeson arriving at the back post where he gleefully thumped it home.
Two nil up at the break Ives came out looking to kill off their visitors with a third early in the second half but the Canaries held firm without really creating anything of their own until the hosts needlessly gave them a route back into the game. Aaron Smith is capable of hurling the ball a long way along the touch line but inexplicably he chose instead to throw the ball back to the feet of Wilks who was forced to take a touch before attempting his clearance. The touch was enough to give the ever willing Snee chance to close him down and block the attempted punt. Even though the big striker was falling he was still able to get to the loose ball first and prod it home past the prostrate Ives keeper.
The goal lifted the visitors to renewed efforts but Ives, rallied by inspirational skipper Collard, held firm and the introduction of Peter Abimbola and David Adegbola to replace Gyamfi and Benji Mensah respectively gave them new legs to push forward again. A raking cross field ball from Abimbola put Allen away but the striker fired wide from the edge of the box in 76th minute.
The goal that relieved any remaining nerves that Ives may have had and the one that completed Glennon’s hat trick came with ten minutes to go. Meade picked out Allen in space again down the right. This time the young striker used his pace to get around the tiring Enock Ekongo before unleashing a driven cross that keeper Stacey palmed out straight to the feet of Glennon by the penalty spot. The powerful midfielder did the rest, keeping his composure and side footing home to deservedly claim the match ball.
With the game now gone a quintet of Canaries substitutes and a trio for the hosts followed the goal to effectively break up the remaining time. A couple of opportunities for a second consolation goal did come the way of the visitors in the added five minutes. Snee managed to get the ball in the net in the first of those added minutes but the assistant’s flag had gone up some seconds before he fired home. The last action of the game saw substitute Chidyausiku volley wide from 20 yards after an Ives defensive header had dropped to him.
Despite their run of decent result during his time as caretaker manager the verdict must be that Jones has a tough job to lift the Canaries out of the bottom four. For Ives if they could find some consistency that has so far eluded them this season and string three, or four, results together they could suddenly find themselves genuine contenders for one of those top five spots.
Final Score: St Ives Town 3 Hitchin Town 1 Half Time 2 – 0
Goals:
ST IVES: Glennon 14, 43, 79
HITCHIN: Snee 67
Team Line Ups:
ST IVES: Wilks, Mensah (Adegbola 67), Smith, Meade (Skyers 83), Williams, Collard (capt), Gyamfi (Abimbola 64), Glennon, Hadi (Wilson 79), Allen (O’Keefe 87), Creary, Unused subs: none
HITCHIN: Stacey, Franklin (Dixon-Smith 79), Ekongo, Sambou, Syme, Jones (capt), Tearle (Barker 79), L. Stokoe (Bell 79), Snee, D. Stokoe (Chidyausiku 79), Titchmarsh (Gleeson 83), Unused subs: none
Referee: Matthew Friend
Cards: Yellow: ST IVES: Allen (77) HITCHIN: Franklin (48), Titchmarsh (49)
IVES SUPPORTERS MAN OF THE MATCH: Will Glennon
Attendance: 330