The Hawks played our final home match before Christmas at the weekend as we welcomed Crawley Green in an attempt to secure our first league double of the season. However, things didn’t quite pan out so smoothly for Danny Chapman’s team against the Luton-based, relegation-threatened side.

Not an awful lot happened in the first half. It was a good start for the reds as a defensive error left Raheem Gray a chance to finish, following a ball over the top from Jack Willson. The Harlow forward went round Groom in goal and slid it home on his left foot to give Harlow a ninth minute lead.

Harlow tried to find a second before half-time and, although we were never massively threatened from the opposition, we didn’t really get our rhythm going, with two half-chances falling for Arley Barker and Fabion Simms but little else to shout about before the break.

It was an energetic start to the second-half for Harlow, but three decent chances from Denzel Effah, Teddy Jones and Dwade James went amiss from close range before Crawley Green forced a save out of Krusinski down the other end.

Dwade James was thwarted with another chance before Bailey Knight unleashed an emphatic effort to curl one past Krusinski and equalise for the away side sixty-seven minutes into the half.

Harlow needed to react but instead Crawley Green had them on the ropes for a short period, winning every 50/50 and almost scoring as Kissiedu struck one which was saved by Krusinski and the follow-up hit the post.

In need of a goal, Teddy Jones produced the goods as he was left unmarked in the box and after Josh Gruby crossed it in, Jones side-footed it home to regain the Harlow lead.

Unfortunately for the home side, Fabion Simms committed a foul in the box just five minutes later in an attempt to prevent Bailey Knight from scoring with a sliding challenge and Ciaran Maher smashed home a penalty to equalise once again for Crawley Green.

One further chance followed for Crawley Green which wasn’t a million miles away but drifted over the bar before both sides had to settle for a point.

All things considered, as frustrating as the game was for Harlow, who have ambitions most definitely on playoff places as we close 2025, it was probably a fair result as Crawley Green showed great hunger to chase the game and go toe to toe with a side that have been in fine form as of late.

We thank you for your continued support and hope to see you in our next game as we travel to Colney Heath this Saturday. If you won’t be there, we wish you a very merry Christmas.