Hawks defeat neighbours Waltham Abbey

Harlow gave a first start to new signing Fabion Simms in midfield, and there were a few familiar faces in the Abbey side for Harlow, with former player-assistant boss Christian Wheeler at the back, Tom Bruno in midfield, James Peagram in attack and former Hawks boss Marvin Samuels on the bench.

Harlow took the lead after only seven minutes. Simms stormed forward and played a neat ball into the right side of the box for Junior Dadson who rifled a powerful strike which gave Abbey keeper Matt Gill no chance.

After Matt Attard cleared Shane Stamp’s overhead lopping shot off the line, Harlow netted a second through Read on 39 minutes. A long ball from the back found the striker who used his pace to nip through the static Abbey defence and lob Gill, finding the top right corner.

And on the stroke of half-time a wonderful piece of individual skill made it 3-0. James Smith beat two defenders before skilfully slotting the ball beyond the reach of Gill and into the bottom right corner.

When Chris Sargent’s shot hit Darren Blewitt’s hand, Abbey were awarded a rather fortunate penalty which was tucked away by Joe Pearman on 84 minutes into the top right corner, but Harlow were worthy winners. “It was never a penalty. I don’t know how Darren Blewitt was supposed to get out of the way of it,” said Chapman.

Thanks to the Harlow Star for the match report.