First win for Crusaders

This was another tight game with little between the two sides, but we managed our first league win of the season thanks to a Mark Draycott strike early in the second half and kept the youthful visitors at bay for the rest of the game.

With Histon just down from the Conference it was always going to be a hard game, but the tough programme continues with a trip to Truro on Tuesday, before entertaining league leaders Cambridge City next Saturday.

The first excitement came when Harry O’Malley appeared to handle a cross from Alan O’Brien but a corner was given, which came to nothing, and when the visitors attacked Robert Hastings was just off target with a good effort. There was another dangerous moment when Joe Burgess fired into the goalmouth, but we had everybody back and survived the goalmouth melee .When we did counter-attack a Charlie Mpi header was saved by Enol Ordonez in the Histon goal before Joe Pearce tricked his way past Jon Boardman but shot wide as we struggled to find our best form but at halftime the shore-sheet was still blank.

We had one or ttwo injury problems with Michael Pook replacing James Pilling in the first half and Scott Rees replacing Ian Herring at the start of the second half, but with the slope in our favour we began to put more and more pressure on the Histon defence and were rewarded in the 58th.minute when Mpi sent Draycott through the middle to slot the ball low into the net. Nick Stanley shot into the side netting and Mpi headed just wide , but the visitors continued to battle well certainly did not give up, even, goalkeeper Ordonez coming up to the halfway line in the closing minutes, but we held on for over 5 minutes of injury time to record a narrow win.

Team; Strudley, Stow , John, Boardman, Day, Herring(Rees),Stanley( Clark ),Pilling(Pook), Mpi, Draycott, O,Brien. Subs,Goodger, Parsons.,