HARWICH AND PARKESTON 1

LAWFORD LADS 1

Essex and Suffolk Border League premier division

THIS game was marred by a catalogue of injuries, as Harwich and Lawford drew 1-1 in a bottom-of-the-table Border League clash.

The slippery, heavy surface meant players had difficulty keeping their feet and four of them had to leave the field with muscle or ligament problem.

Ben Murray limped out of the game after 20 minutes but not before visitors Lawford had lost one of their strikers.

Matt Stace got injured seconds before half-time when he jarred his knee.

He tried to carry on after the break but it was obvious he was too badly hurt to continue.

With 30 minutes left, Michael Hammond was carried off on a stretcher and taken to hospital by ambulance with a suspected broken leg.

Fortunately, it was later revealed that it was not a break but instead badly damaged ligaments.

The game itself was an end-to-end encounter, with Harwich scoring in the second minute.

Darren Bethell raced clear, rounded the keeper and fired into the bottom of the net.

Ten minutes later, Charlie Cook equalised when he received the ball in space and went round Reynolds to fire past keeper Felgate.

Harwich had the better of the chances during the remainder of the opening half and created several good openings.

They probably missed strikers Ben Elliot and Matt Geen, who were both missing as the Shrimpers failed to convert any of them.

The second half saw Lawford come more into the game and they too found it difficult to convert several opportunities.

Bethell tested the Lawford keeper on a couple of occasions and the outstretched keeper’s leg saved a certain goal.

Felgate got down well to a fierce low drive to keep the score level at the other end.

Both teams gave their all in the difficult conditions but, in the end, the pitch was the winner and a 1-1 draw was probably a fair result.

Harwich will be hoping Geen and Elliot are back tomorrow, as they travel to the Colchester Garrison to visit Tollesbury (kick-off 3pm).