18/9/01: Ryman League Division Three

Croydon Athletic 8 Tring Town 0

Tring suffered a nightmare evening at Croydon Athletic, although the odds were stacked against them from the start. With Croydon having scored 16 unanswered goals in their previous three games, Tring would have been up against it even without having four first team regulars missing and arriving only minutes before the kick off due to traffic hold-ups.

Tring held out for 20 minutes until a miscued clearance from Wayne Barber was met with a first-time drive from Justin Brauer-Jones into the corner of the net.Ten minutes later Paul Baines scored with a shot on the rebound after Tony Quinton's header had been cleared off the line. The prolific John Fowler opened his account on 40 minutes with a solo run and shot and the floodgates were beginning to open as Baines was left with an embarrassing amount of time and space to shoot home the fourth just before the break.

The second half was just as much of a struggle. Every time Tring gave the ball away they were punished by Croydon's lightning-fast counter attacks. On 50 minutes Fowler was about to score the fifth until he was brought down by Simon Bartley, but Fowler got up to put away the penalty himself. Baines added his third on 57 minutes, and substitute Simon Liddle shot home the seventh on 65 minutes as Tring simply could not stem the constant flow of Croydon attacks. But for a number of impressive saves by Bartley, the scoreline could have been even more embarrassing by the time Fowler completed his hat-trick with the simplest of goals five minutes from the end.

Team: Bartley, Read, Barber, Bartlett, B.Johnson, Boad, Sangster, Underwood (Hibbert), Butler, Kinsley, C.Gibson.