Premier League: HBU vs Manchester

Herne Bay United were to face Manchester on Saturday and wanted to get back on to winning ways following the last result against Middlesbrough. United are currently top of the table but have played more matches than some of the other teams and know they must keep the pressure on as many of the other teams have very difficult fixtures in this part of the season.

United really didn’t want a repeat of the last fixture where the visitors took an early lead that United were fighting to get back for the remainder of the match, and initially it looked as this was not going to go to plan again when Manchester got the first just after a minute from the start of play, but the early fears were soon settled with a string of goals from United going 5 -2 in the next 4 minutes, a thrilling start to the match.

United then went into a more holding formation looking for possession and all seemed to be going to plan until the last five minutes when Captain Fabio Vicente was sin binned for two minutes and Manchester scored on the power play after a fine save from Eddie Mount to stop the spot. Tension was rising and United lost a little bit of concentration and a further Blue was shown to United’s Neil Austin and Manchester on a power play brought the score back and went into the half time break 5 – 4 down, with all to play for.

United made a few changes and really attacked Manchester to rectify to final part of the first half and with a further 5 goals in the next 7 minutes had put the game back on track and Manchester needing a miracle to be able to come back. Manchester only scored a further one in the second half and United remained in control and finished comfortable winners 14 – 5, and a dominating performance from a fixture that was expected to be a lot closer. United’s Brendan Barker after the match commented: “the team was really positive today and this really helped us, once we got going it felt good and we really stopped Manchester doing anything that would enable them to come back at us and is great to get a convincing performance in at home”.

Feedback from the spectators endorsed this saying ‘it was the best game of the season’.

United are still top of the table with Bury and Middlesbrough catching up but with Kings Lynn suffering two defeats at the weekend, and Letchworth making a surge the season is looking like it is going to get interesting over the next couple of months. HBU’s will face Halifax at the Bay Sports Arena on the 14^th February and please keep an eye for times on the clubs website: www.hernebayunited.co.uk.

Team List: Kris White, Tom White(1), Karl Smith, Lewis Greenwood(1), Jordi Saldana(1), Josh Branchett, Neil Austin(2), Fabio Vicente©(3), Brendan Barker(6), Eddie Mount

---