Nine man Hungerford snatch a draw

The score-line tells nothing of this dramatic game, a script a fiction-writer would scarcely dare to write. A goal up less than 90 seconds, we had goalkeeper Paul Strudley sent off midway through the first half, conceded two goals in a 3 minute spell in the second half to go 2-1 down, before having another player sent off, only for the nine men to salvage a point 5 minutes from the end. All this on a night when Paulton Rovers , without a win to their name, earned a draw on the plastic at Merthyr.
We almost scored right from the kick-off, when Stefan Brown’s shot was deflected wide, but we soon earned a free-kick, Mike Jones scoring from James Clark’s kick with the watch showing 80 seconds. Midway through the half however Strudley raced out to the edge of his area to break up an attack, only to be sent off for his challenge. Harry Goodger (pictured) went in goal with Kelvin Bossman being sacrificed to allow the change. Although we adopted a purely defensive set-up, Chesham were unable to build up any real threats, Bruce Wilson’s shot which flew just wide was their best effort as Goodger calmly dealt with most of the Chesham efforts.
With Chesham’s numerical advantage, we obviously faced a difficult task as the second half wore on, but held on fairly comfortably, although it needed a finger-tip save from Goodger to protect his goal. Just as it looked as if we had found a way to block any home attacks, Bruce Wilson fired in a shot through a crowd of players after 68 minutes which gave Goodger no chance, and 3 minutes later Nick Beasant gave the Generals the lead.
When James Rusby was sent off there seemed no way back for the 9 men, but with Mark Draycott now up front, we began to threaten the home goal and with 5 minutes to go, Dean Stow appeared to be the player to get the final touch to make it 2-2, a remarkable comeback .
Team; Strudley,Tyler, John, Rusby,Day, Rees(Draycott),Clark,Jones(Stow),Jarvis,Bossman(Goodger),Brown. Subs;Horgan, Collins.