More than a bit worried about the result on Saturday. Lewes should have been awarded a penalty in extra-time at the Pilot Field and the same ref apparently gifted their opponents 2 goals on Saturday. Lewes will be really up for this match-I hope Hastings are fully committed for the full 90 minutes-especially when things begin to go badly during the match.
From their forum its a mixed bag on whether they deserved to loose or not. The disputed goal some are claiming that the keeper was fouled for has some photos of on their forum, I'd say keepers are over protected though, these days you fart near them and they get a free kick.
Hope we start with Matt in goal, Elliot and Jono as fullbacks, Sean and Ben centre halves. Tom and Jamie in the centre of midfield with Jack and Rory playing just in front of the full backs. Sam and Zac up front. 4-4-2. Mr. Spain to be referee.
Prob worth a punt John but wouldn't Murphy and Dixon be better on their stronger sides? Not much natural width with then cutting in on their stronger feet?
Glad we got the 3pts today. Went along with my son. Played well 1st half but once again looked shocking in the 2nd half. I dont get that. is it a fitness thing? Nice to see my first Hastings win of the season. How's our keeper? Keepers are gonna wanna stop playing for us at this rate!
Anyone know what the attendance was? Looked good from where we were sitting. 600+ ??
For anyone that was at Lewes today lets get one thing straight..... we were very poor against an equally poor side but who gives a sh**. I have wanted us to win 3 points "messy" all season and we certainly did that today. I dot think either keeper made a save all game and the quality on the pitch was dire but like i said, who cares. 3 points and a fantastic atmosphere from the Hastings supporters today. 100 + sung their hearts out today and even Jez jot a mention!! Great 3 points and big up to Sam Adams who did us proud in goal.
Cannot really comment on the new signings as it really was that bad but who cares. I feel ecstatic!
Big up to Dave Walters and the other directors who really looked after the fans today. Roll on monday
Vital 3 points for Hastings today-battled well and a few decisions went our way. Ben Judge the best player on the pitch. Wish we would stop giving away silly free kicks and then get out of position by arguing with the ref. So unprofessional and can only help the opposition. Difficult game now on Monday.
Agree with John, two poor teams but the correct result, if you're a Hastings fan. Ref was wrong on several occasions for both teams although I thought it was a penalty but I was at the other end of the ground. I thought the new guys did OK considering they must have only met their team mates today. Roll on Monday.
Not much more can be added to that, I thought the lads showed a lot of character in the second half, Ben Judge was superb all game, some good loan signings.
JohnW great to meet you today enjoyed our brief chat and look forward to more of an in depth one in the future.
Delighted with the result today ! You only have to look at the league table to see how vital those three points are. We're still well in touch with the pack with games in hand. That said, Monday's gonna be seriously tough....can we get somthing...who knows ?
So that's all good news. Sadly for me though that's the end of the good news !
The bad news is that the performance of the team and certain individuals has done absolutley nothing to convice me that we will survive. I appreciate that with Sam in goal we had to ensure we stayed solid and compact at the back but surely these are circumstances when half decent players can look good on the break, making the most of the extra space afforded them. However it didn't happen and it didn't even look like happening. We had no-one good enough to create anything. Second half we were simply pitiful as a counter-attacking force.....we desperately needed a third goal to kill them off and we never even came close !
Did the new signings do OK ? Well I'm really not so sure they did....I sort of get the feeling we're just getting in the odds and sods who've been pretty hopeless for their parent clubs all season. At a time when clubs have many fixtures to fit in and will be getting hit by injuries/suspensions, you have to ask yourself why are these players suddenly available on loan ?
Hopefully , somehow, we might just survive...thanks in the main to only two going down. Then I suggest we give Gary Wilson a ring and, if he's willing, get him on board a.s.a.p.
Half this squad simply aren't good enough...that's a fact ! Forget the FA Cup...league positions don't lie as you go into April. We need someone like Gary whose reputation will be able to attract the sort of players we need to make a decent challenge in this league.
Sorry if I've hugely offended the loyalists...but we do now need to open our eyes to the fact that things need to change to get the right people in the important jobs in time for next season. Because the current "if they've got a pulse, get 'em on loan" philosophy just feels like reactionary knee-jerk desperation to me. OK...we got the result today...but this relied on a lot of good fortune against a poor Lewes side who gifted us a two goal start from dead balls kicks.
Three points were "Oh so welcome" but deep down surely many people at the club must recognise that both the team and certain individual perfomances like today will bring us no reward on many other days.
Good performance in the first half today, the second deteriorated slightly, but we won! And that's all that matters! The new signings and loanees look promising, which is ace! Hope Matt Cruttwell is alright but at this rate, no keeper will want to sign for us! My match report is here; http://hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk/hastings-life/sport/sussex-derby-sparks. I would appreciate it if you can read and tweet/share the link! Thank you - come on you U's! PS. Even Pat gets a special mention in my report!
Not bothered about the performance - 3 points is all that matters. And don't really care who we're playing on Monday, if we out battle them, out fight them, out sing them, and stand shoulder to shoulder as a club then the results will come.
Love it how on the Lewes forum they are slated Sam Adams catching am I not right in thinking that there sponge bob square pants goalkeeper can't catch and he's a full time goalkeeper where sammy Adams was taking one for the team? Very bad losers Lewes!!!
Glenn, You say you're not worried about the perfomance, only that we got three points. If that was the last game of the season I would agree with you....but with 33 points still to fight for I suggest that performance is still VERY important. What a lovely sentiment that 'standing shoulder to shoulder' and outsinging our opponents will bring the required results. Personally I think survival depends largely on the quality of the players on the pitch. Yesteday we played against a very poor side; they gave us a two goal start and we still needed a large dose of good fortune, some favourable decisions and backs-to-the-wall defending for the last hour to manage a win. And before anyone has a go at me...I was behind the goal singing and encouraging like the rest of you...so this is the place I come to express my concerns and doubts as to whether we really are good enough. OK ?
My honest belief is that, if you look at the Met Police/Leiston/Richmond games from the last few weeks (can't comment on Lowestoft as I wasn't there!); that the only real difference between those games and Lewes yesterday was that we got the ball in the back of the net when we had the chance. Were any of these sides actually that much better than us? From what I remember they were scrappy games which we lost because they put away the few chances they had, whereas we didn't.
I certainly wouldn't have said that any of them were a mile better than we were, but on the day, they took their chances and we didn't. These are teams that are 7th, 12th and 14th in the table and we could've had results against any of them.
So maybe what our boys are good at is making the other teams look worse than they are, making the game scrappy, and trying to put away those 1 or 2 chances we do get. It hasn't worked, as we haven't scored those 1 or 2 chances recently, but yesterday we did...
This is why I think the three points is more important than the performance - because I personally couldn't care if we had destroyed Lewes yesterday with a Barcelona-esque slick passing game, but walked away with a 1-0 reverse when they scored on the break.
We have 33 points to get... I reckon if we get 12 of those we'll be safe... And I think that is do-able with what we've been doing.
Edit - I don't want that to come across as an attack on you, Mick, as I think what you have written is an entirely fair point of view, actually one of the best posts I've seen on the subject for a while, but as it's contrasted with my POV I just wanted to explain why I wrote what I did
-- Edited by glenn10 on Sunday 31st of March 2013 11:23:40 AM
nice main stand they have, be nice if we could have that to replace our pigeon infested decaying old wreck.
But I like our pigeon infested decaying old wreck stand And if we have to replace anything with a new main stand, it is surely Bank-side?
But we're now starting me on one of my favourite whines... And will inevitably lead to me starting on Hastings Borough cu**sil as always... So I'm done for the day
-- Edited by glenn10 on Sunday 31st of March 2013 01:01:03 PM
Massive 6 pointer! New players did their job well enough and surely will only get better once they actually get a chance to properly get to know the others.
Good to see Daniel East back in on loan as well as our GK injury crisis is showing no sign of letting up!
Great support from everyone behind the goal too in the second half, fantastic stuff!
a very poor game against probably the worst team ive seen this season. They really are shocking. I thought we played some nice football to start but after we went 2 up kind of happy to sit back which after goalkeeper injury was even more evident not surprisingly. New players to early to tell if any good until they have settle in. based on that we should easily finish above lewes and with carshalton losing yesterday im happier we will survive. nice main stand they have, be nice if we could have that to replace our pigeon infested decaying old wreck. their supporters are very quiet, could only hear noise coming from the hastings end. and re Micks post agree with some of it but for now just happy we got 3 points
Glenn, You say you're not worried about the perfomance, only that we got three points. If that was the last game of the season I would agree with you....but with 33 points still to fight for I suggest that performance is still VERY important. What a lovely sentiment that 'standing shoulder to shoulder' and outsinging our opponents will bring the required results. Personally I think survival depends largely on the quality of the players on the pitch. Yesteday we played against a very poor side; they gave us a two goal start and we still needed a large dose of good fortune, some favourable decisions and backs-to-the-wall defending for the last hour to manage a win. And before anyone has a go at me...I was behind the goal singing and encouraging like the rest of you...so this is the place I come to express my concerns and doubts as to whether we really are good enough. OK ?
Any truth in the rumour that instead of hunt the Easter egg tomorrow we are going to have a hunt the Goldberg contest?
We are dire the game was dire but we got 3 pts, if we can repeat that 3 more times it should be enough, thought our support was great, and Sam was superb when he came on.
Agree with Mick about the quality of our loan signings. The best ones tend to be young players looking to move forward with their careers and Doug Loft, Harry Pell, George Porter, Harry Beautyman and of our present loanees, Liam O'Brien and Rory Murphy are all of that type. However, now is not the time to be picky as we are going to need all the players we can get in the next few hectic weeks. Hope we can find a place on the pitch for Sam Adams in our next match. He hasn't shown his true form in his matches so far but he is a much better player than a number of our starters on Saturday. He is probably one of our fittest as well if the Sam Adams who did the half-marathon in 1 hour 35 mins is the same person. Quite a few of our players look as if they struggle for fitness-could be one of the reasons why we fade out of games. Definitely need to praise our defence on Saturday and well done to Rory Murphy-only17 but doing a great job for Hastings.
Bradley should be available next Saturday when asked if he would be fit for Wednesday Mark, his Father said he may possibly be able to get 20 minutes. He has not gone from the club and I can confirm that a conversation was had with his Father yesterday.
Agree with Mick here in that its gonna take more than fake smiles and singing to get the results. We beat the team with some of the worst recent form in the league yesterday. They really are a bad team Lewes. We're only just better and yes we got the win but I don't agree that this is "all that matters" with a load of games ahead of us.
April is a killer month for fixtures. I thought we looked unfit in the 2nd half and I believe that's part of the reason we struggle in the 2nd half. It tells a story when at 2-0 up most of us were wondering whether we'd be able to hold on, and lets face it, we came close to conceding a second. It could have easily been a draw.
Yes a win is a win, but for me to feel confident and comfortable I'd like to see us playing much better football. We're playing poor football going into a massive fixture pile up. The win will raise spirits and hopefully turn our form around, but tomorrows game is crucial. A loss and were back to heads down and continued poor form. A win and everyone may actually start to believe we're coming out of this mess. When was the last time we pulled 2 consecutive wins together in the league???
I'm also not convinced Carshalton won't gain a load more points yet. Lewes looked poor but Carshalton have notched up some results recently and look more capable of getting some. Wingate also notching up the points slowly but surely. We'll need a good 10+ points to get out of this and I've not seen enough to convince me we'll we'll get them against sides fitter than us who aren't going through a massive fixture backlog. But we'll see.
And if we have to replace anything with a new main stand, it is surely Bank-side? 
