Evo-Stick Southern 1 Central
Monday 17th April 2017
Jemale McKenzie-Lowe struck a 95th minute winner at The Glassworld Stadium on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon and our fate was sealed as relegation to Step 5 was confirmed.
After an impressive run of form since the turn of the year Lance and his team had gone from relegation certainties to going ever so close to taking the fight to the last game and for that they all deserve great credit but on this Easter Holiday afternoon it just wasn’t going to be our day.
Lance welcomed Lewis Clayton back into his squad but was still without the injured Matty Allan whilst Elkanah Sibanda picked up an achilles injury the day before and Danny Gould started despite a cracked rib sustained in Saturday’s game at Farnborough.
It was Evan Key who had our first chance of the game when Tommy Wright’s driven ball across goal came to him 8 yards out but under pressure from more than one defender the ball was lifted up and over the bar.
On 20 minutes a better chance presented itself when Jake Chambers-Shaw found Gould in space 12 yards out but Ordonez made himself big to block Gould’s shot and keep it goalless.
Bedford started to get into an attacking rhythm then and the dangerous wide man Omar Naseri brought the best out of Sam Roach with two decent efforts around the half hour mark whilst Ryan Auger spurned a decent opportunity, firing over when he really should have done better.
With 37 minutes gone Bedford broke the deadlock. Tommy Hull picked up the ball in midfield and advanced before letting fly with a shot that Roach did well to tip round the post. From the resulting corner McKenzie-Lowe rose highest to head the ball into the far corner and give the Eagles the lead. Within seconds the visitors nearly doubled the lead when Lee Roache went on a run through the Histon defence before (our) Roach saved.
Once we had gotten our heads straight after the goal though we threatened again, this time Chambers-Shaw seizing on Ordonez’s poor clearance to make progress down the right before firing over a low cross that eluded everyone. Soon after and Lee Smith’s cross to the back post was headed back across goal where James Carman, six yards out, acrobatically diverted the ball goalwards before Ordonez pulled off a superb diving save to deny us what looked a certain equaliser.
Lewis Clayton joined the action ten minutes into the second half and was amongst things straight away, his surging direct run ended only by a lunging tackle that resulted in a free kick 20 yards out. That free kick came to nothing though but pressure was building on the visitors as we looked for that equaliser.
That equaliser came on 66 minutes when a corner from the right wasn’t cleared and as the ball came down Dan Gleeson was on hand to drive it home from close range and make it 1-1.
We were on the front foot now and pushing for a vital winner but that was leaving spaces for the visitors to break in to. One such break came with 15 minutes to go when Ben Sawyer picked up the ball deep inside his own half and took it all the way into our area before Roach closed the angles down and snuffed out the danger.
It was all getting somewhat nailbitey for the supporters as we continued to push forward but we just couldn’t find a way through. Deep into added time Lee Smith sent a curling shot headed towards the far corner that was, again, superbly saved by Ordonez. From the resulting corner Town broke quickly and with us outnumbered McKenzie-Lowe made no mistake from close range to secure the points for the Eagles and seal our fate.
Histon: Sam Roach, Tommy Wright, Evan Key, Lee Smith, Max York, Dan Gleeson, Joe Carden (Shaun Jenkins 67), Simon Unwin, James Carman (Lewis Clayton 53), Jake Chambers-Shaw, Danny Gould (Cameron Wason 53).
Histon subs not used: Pat Bexfield.
Histon yellow cards: Tommy Wright, Jake Chambers-Shaw.
Histon goal scorer: Dan Gleeson (66).
Bedford Town: Enol Ordonez, Jamie Lofthouse-Smith, Ronayne Marsh-Brown, Jemale McKenzie-Lowe, Ollie Swain, Tommy Hull, Ben Sawyer (Steven Karkari 86), Ryan Auger, Lee Roache, Chris Marsh (Devante Stanley 75), Omar Naseri (Andrew Phillips 78).
Bedford Town subs not used: Adam Harpur.
Bedford Town yellow cards: Tommy Hull.
Bedford Town goal scorers: Jemale McKenzie-Lowe (37, 90+5).
Attendance: 268.
