11/11/98: Herts Senior Cup Second Round
Potters Bar Town 1 Tring Town 0
Tring are out of the Herts Senior Cup after this narrow defeat at Potters Bar, but they will gain more encouragement from this performance, and they had no luck whatsoever with a number of chances created in the second half.
The first chance of the game fell to Jason Evans in the second minute, as the ball fell invitingly for him ten yards out, but he lifted his shot over the bar. Tring went close again on 12 minutes, but this was more down to the home side, as defender Matt Conbould, under pressure from Wayne Gladdy, pushed a back pass past his own keeper, but it dribbled agonisingly wide of the post.
Potters Bar took the lead in bizarre fashion on 22 minutes when they won a free kick just outside the Tring area. The referee allowed the kick to be taken quickly, and the shot was in the Tring net before the wall had been formed - even the crowd were caught out as there was no reaction when the ball went in, and it was several seconds before it was realised that the goal had been allowed to stand.
Tring had been on the back foot for much of the first half, but the second half was played almost entirely in the Potters Bar half. The first man to be denied was Peter Owen, whose downward header from a corner was cleared off the line by a defender's stooping header on 56 minutes. On 70 minutes Roger Jashek got on the end of a free kick with a powerful header that beat the keeper's outstretched arm, but again a defender got there to head right off the line. Four minutes from time came the closest chance of all, when Gladdy connected with a Ben Williams cross with an overhead kick that had the keeper beaten. However it came back off the post, rebounded onto the chest of the keeper who knew nothing about it, but again the rebound went inches wide. Despite their best efforts, Tring could not force the equaliser.
Team: McLoughlin, Lay, Dale, Turner, Jashek, Gladdy, Williams, Jones, Evans (Heywood), J.Siddons, Owen (Scott).