Hugin travelled to Hawkinge looking to improve on the result from the previous week against the same opposition. Hugin lost the toss and Hawkinge elected to play downhill with the wind behind which was a huge advantage straight away.
The game kicked off and Hugin were caught asleep straight away and conceded a poor goal almost instantly. From the restart we started to put some pressure on and hit the post twice before we again conceded cheaply. Failure to clear an easy ball saw Hawkinge double their lead.
Almost instantly they won a free kick and crossed the ball into the area for the Hawkinge player to head the ball home totally unchallenged and unmarked.
With the conditions not helping things we could not get the ball out of our half, credit to Hawkinge as they definitely deserved to be ahead, they scored another 2 goals before half time to make it 5-0 at the break.
At half time for the first time I could not hide my disapppointment in the way the team had played. Yes the windy conditions don't help and it's difficult to play in those conditions. However Hawkinge were good for the 5-0 lead and if we continue to play the game the way we did in the first half then we can expect many more results like this.
I have no problem with losing, but there is a way to lose and this wasn't it. I challenged them to win the second half, knowing that turning around a 5-0 deficit would be difficult we could not afford to let in another 5.
The game restarted and we played most of the second half with 1 defender sat back, it was all Hugin Vikings, we pulled two goals back within 10 minutes, Matteusz tapping home a cross, and Nathan Stout hitting a great free kick into the top corner. The comeback was on, the Hawkinge manager was becoming concerned with the way Hugin Vikings had come out wanting to have a real go.
Nathan Stout then reacted to a kick out from a Hawkinge player and raised his hands and pushed the player in the chest.
At this point the Hawkinge Manager started jumping up and down, shouting and screaming like a man possessed for me to get on the pitch, he was shouting and screaming that 'This is disgusting', 'Get on the pitch and sort him out' etc etc. Whilst doing this he was incensing the parents etc didn't help. I told him to calm down, be quiet and let the referee deal with it as that is what he is there for amongst other things. Needless to say he didn't calm down and continued with the shouting unfortunately
The ref blew the whistle to call Nathan over and correctly sent Nathan off, Much to the delight of the opposition who actually clapped and cheered at the sight of the red card disappointingly.
Now down to 10 men Hugin pressed and tried to force more goals, credit to the Hawkinge keeper who made some decent saves to keep his team firmly in control. Hugin pressed and got caught on the break and Hawkinge scored another to make it 6-2 final score.
At the final whistle I made it clear to the Hawkinge manager that I thought he was an embarrasment the way he behaved and hope he learns from that in the future as there is no need for that, it's a kids game of football.
Unfortunatley the Manager then wanted to try and justify the way he behaved once I had voiced my opinion but I walked away and looking back maybe I should have listened, however im not sure it can be justified .
The referee spoke to me and said not to get involved and was quite shocked by the behaviour of the opposition manager which summed it up really.
All that nonsense aside we were handed a beating in the first half and need to learn a lesson from this performance. In all honesty the second half was much much better but that is how we need to play from the first whistle. Too often we didn't challenge for the ball, we did not challenge for headers, we stood off the opposition far too much and let them run riot in the first half.
Let's hope we can get back to playing as we know we can next year.
Hope you all have a Great Christmas and Happy New Year.
