30/1/01: Ryman League Division Three

Arlesey Town 6 Tring Town 0

Two good things came out of Tring's fourth encounter of the season with Arlesey last night. The first is the knowledge that they will not have to play them again this season, the other is that, unusually for games against Arlesey, Tring finished the game with eleven men on the field. The bad thing was that once again Tring failed to show anything like their best form against the awesome league leaders. The rain-soaked pitch with areas of standing water did not help matters, but can't be used as an excuse for the magnitude of the result.

Ironically, Tring made a better start to this game than in any of the previous encounters, having a couple of good moments in the opposition box and allowing Arlesey few chances of their own. However, two moments of hesitant defending saw them go into the break two down. On 23 minutes Dave Kitson ran past four Tring defenders unwilling to tackle him before shooting home the first, and on 41 minutes Kitson reacted first when a cross stopped dead in a puddle inside the area, reaching the ball before two Tring defenders who were nearer to put away the second goal.

Tring again had some good moments early in the second half, with Mark Underwood hitting a long-range shot just wide on 51 minutes, and Simon Bartley pulling off an outstanding save to deny Kitson his hat-trick from a header on 61 minutes. However, two minutes later Tring were caught out by a quick counter-attack which ended with Dean Harding firing home an angled shot, and within two minutes of that Tony Fontenelle had headed the fourth from a corner to leave the Tring following fearing the worst. Fontenelle added the fifth on 71 minutes with an unstoppable dipping shot, and although Arlesey continued to attack from all angles, they did not score again until two minutes from time when Harding rounded off another quick attack with a decisive shot.

Team: Bartley, J.Gibson, Harrhy, Bartlett, Armstrong (Davis), Boad, Underwood, Sangster (Walters), C.Gibson, Kinsley (Swales), Beamish.