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| Two More Goals For John Mills Last Night At Stratford |
Just two games took place last night in the Southern Prem. Steve Whitney wrote this review.
The Bulls travelled to the beautifully-named MoodChimp Stadium to take on mid-table Stratford Town, looking to close the gap on the top two.
And Peter Beadle`s side did move into third place, just a point behind the Poppies and two of leaders King`s Lynn Town, following a 2-1 success.
A terrific crowd of 707 – the majority of who had made the trip from Hereford – saw a goalless first 45 minutes.
Then on 57 minutes, Hereford broke the deadlock when Lance Smith was fouled by Stratford keeper Louis Connor and the reliable John Mills duly converted the resulting penalty.
Seconds later and the packed away end were cheering once more as Hereford doubled their lead with a second for Mills, who drilled the ball home as Connor came out.
However, just 4 minutes later, the visitors went down to ten-men when Michael Taylor went through and was brought down just outside the box by West Bromwich Albion`s Dara O’Shea who was shown a straight red card, just hours after extending his loan for the remainder of the season.
Ben Stephens was unlucky to see his free-kick hit the bar and bounce on the line before being scrambled clear.
Stratford did manage to reduce the arrears 2 minutes from time when Taylor headed home, but a solid Bulls defence held firm.
Tuesday`s other game was the battle of the Saints as struggling St Ives Town took on mid-table neighbours St Neots Town at ProEdge Westwood Road.
On a really difficult, heavy pitch, St Ives did really well in the end to earn a share of the spoils from a 1-1 draw as they played with ten-men for over three-quarters of the game following the dismissal of Johnny Herd for two bookable offences after just 24 minutes.
Indeed, it was the ten-men who broke the deadlock 4 minutes into the second half when a 20-yard effort from Declan Rogers somehow managed to beat visiting `keeper Mike Emery.
This was always going to be a spikey affair as there were seven former St Neots players in the home line-up, and they battled really hard with a man down, until the 82nd minute when recent signing Nabil Shariff’s effort found its way through a sea of legs and past St Ives `keeper Tim Trebes.