Shawbury started the day leading the WMRL Premier Division and all Haughmond had to do was take the three points on offer and change places with the leaders.
Since being part of the Premier Division we have not taken a point off Shawbury’ let alone three and currently they are the form side in the league so everything was set up for a challenging local derby albeit more of a Telford- Shrewsbury Derby with the vast majority of the Shawbury team being Telford based.
Haughmond had a strong squad available but were missing Matt Jones Dan Williams and Ed Ashlin who is getting close to being fully fit.
The game kicked off after a minutes silence for the atrocities in Paris.
From the off Shawbury looked in great form and in the opening 10 minutes found themselves 1-0 up when in truth it should have more. But just as the visitors were getting themselves a foothold in the game another mistake let in Stu Ellis who fired past Sam to make it 2-0. It was time to see what character is in the team and up stepped Dave Howarth who created to pieces of magic firstly with a 25 yard screamer and then a poacher’s goal set up by Steve Hole to make it 2-2 and that’s how the first half ended with both sides being applauded off the pitch.
The second half started with Shawbury picking up the imitative in the opening ten minutes but again back came the visitors who started to create chances in an open match. Haughmond brought on Tom Hewitt and Scott Ruscoe and changed the shape to try and force a win. Within a minute of the change the visitors were down to 10 men when George Taylor was adjudged to have pulled back Matt Elsmore and shown a straight red.
Forced to change again Haughmond had to weather some pressure as they adjusted to 10 men but on 60 minutes Dave Howarth walked past Matt Stallard out wide and pulled back for Steve Hole who hammered his shot past Spittlehouse to make it 2-3.
The lead lasted just 5 minutes as Ellis again slid in to make it 3-3 and the Haughmond fans feared the worst’ but again it was left to Dave Howarth to get his third with a great finish after a storming run by Kev Renshaw ripping the Shawbury midfield apart..
3-4 with 15 minutes to go and some tasty challenges going in as legs tired and tempers flared. It looked like it was going to be season defining moment until a defensive lapse again allowed Shawbury to pull level and take a share of the points.
For the neutral it was as good a 90 minutes as you are likely to see at this level and for each of the teams supporters a real derby game with nothing conceded and well refereed by Micheal Gallo who allowed the game to flow as much as possible and apart from the red managed the game through his personality rather than his cards.
Haughmond have still not taken three points off Shawbury in four attempts’ but the difference going into the next game is now they know we can.
With no midweek game it was a good warm up for the main event next week down the A49 and managing expectations might be the biggest challenge on the day for both the players and all of the fans and families travelling down to watch the game. We are up against a team that has conceded one goal in 17 games, no pressure there then’ but at the end of next Saturday night and we are off the coach and sat in the Coracle’ irrespective of the result the club will have grown a little bit more and we will have taken another step to where we want to be and the Hereford game will make that step a big step.