Purfleet 1 - 0 Hendon

HARD AGAINST HENDON

Hendon provided Fleet with one of the hardest games of the season in last night's fixture.

For the purist this would not have been a game to remember, but for the goal. It was a case of grinding out a result to take all three points, which is what it's all about. Both sides were determined not to get beat and made life as difficult as they could for each other.

There was no real pattern to the game it was a case of reacting to what ever happened as soon as it happened. It was a hard but fairly fought contest from the first to the last whistle. Both sides tackled hard and both sides defended well. Therefore goal-scoring opportunity's were kept to a minimum. Terry Bowes made some telling runs down Fleets left flack whilst Paul Linger grafted in the centre of midfield. Jamie Southon won his usual high quota of headers, as did Jimmy McFarlane at the back.

Neither of the two keepers had a shot of any real worth to save. The only incident of the first half was the sending off of Dale Binns. He was shown the red card when he appeared to have used his elbow on Lee Allen.

In the second half as players began to tire there was a bit more space to exploit and the game opened up. Ten-man Hendon played like all teams who lose a player and it seemed to make no difference to them. They battled for every ball and worked Fleet very hard.

Colin McBride sent on George Georgiou for Terry Bowes and he was soon in the thick of things. The Fleets top all time scorer, Georgiou received a pass midway into the Hendon half he laid off a perfect pass out to the right for Cliff Akurang to run at his marker. Akurang accelerated past his marker and from the byline whipped in a low hard cross where Wayne Vaughan was on hand to head the ball home in the 72 minute.

Dean Smith and Colin Simpson were introduced to action replacing Paul Linger and Wayne Vaughan. The last few minutes saw Hendon press as hard as they could for an equaliser but the Fleet defenders stood firm and refused to concede.

Still unbeaten and still no goals conceded from open play and third in the league, not a bad start by anyone's standards