It’s safe to say that our pre-season campaign so far has been a mixed bag; there have been a variety of different results against strong opponents, and with that there has been some strong moments, and some recognisable things to improve on. Most of all, it has provided a chance to experiment with different players that we are yet to have tested competitively, and to see how they may fit into a Harlow system for the upcoming campaign.
Although I have written a full match report on our opening game away to Bishops Stortford Swifts, as well as the following game at home to Buckhurst Hill, it’s still important to mention them.
Travelling to Bishops Stortford Swifts for our opening game proved a good challenge for us, however we were simply a level above Swifts and created countless chances, with Jordan Burnett scoring a marvellous free kick, and Cav Clarke netting a rebound; a solid opener for the Hawks.
It was clear that Buckhurst Hill at home would be a trickier task, as they play in the Essex Senior League, which is a step above us, so we expected a challenge. In fairness to us, we were not worse than them on the day, and made a plethora of changes, with the away side emerging 1-2 winners in the end, in a game where we were comfortable on the ball, and played decent football.
We followed this up with another home game, this time against Fisher FC, another Step 5 side who notably had a team full of giants, and they gave us a tough game. The first half was one in which Fisher dominated, going into half time 2-4 up, with the two Harlow goals a result of Ruben Santos penalties.
The second half was a totally different story, though. The Hawks battled and went toe to toe with Fisher, and it paid off. After giving them no breathing space, we held them to a 5-5 draw, and with the momentum at the final whistle. There should have been more added time considering the stoppages in the game, one of which caused Ishaq Ameen’s nose to be broken after he challenged the Fisher goalkeeper for the ball, and the huge goalkeeper attempted to punch the ball away with two hands, instead going straight through Ishaq.
The second half goals for the Hawks came from Ruben Santos with another penalty, making it a hat-trick of penalties, Ishaq Ameen and Dan Heald in what was a scrappy moment, where the ball rolled into the Fisher goal. Overall, it was certainly a tale of two halves, and the Hawks gave a good account for themselves in the second half.
The following Saturday, we travelled to the local village of Takeley to face the Essex Senior League side. Former Harlow player Alfie Attrill recently signed for Takeley and played against us for the first time since lifting the Thurlow Nunn League Challenge Cup with us back in May.
It was once again a game in which we didn’t massively underperform, and nearly matched Takeley, however the scoreline said otherwise.
The first half was fairly uneventful, with our biggest opportunity coming from a long-range effort from Syrus Gordon, which almost found the top corner, or Dan Heald’s effort as he ran into the box, which was saved well by the Takeley goalkeeper.
There was more action in the second half, with Takeley gaining a lead in the 62nd minute, beating James Pellin at his near-post. Takeley did have a number of chances to shoot, given space from around 25 yards on a number of occasions. However, they rarely executed well from these, and found themselves ‘sky-ing’ the ball several times.
It wasn’t long before we got our foot back in the game, from a moment of undisputed brilliance from Ishaq Ameen, who scored a wonder-goal to make it 1-1 after 69 minutes. The young striker received the ball and quickly hit it on the half-volley towards the top-left corner from around 20 yards out, at an almost impossible angle. The strike was so good that a flying Takeley goalkeeper had simply no chance, and could only commend Ishaq for his incredible goal, a touch of class.
It looked as though we were about to get into our groove, but when we gave away a penalty, it looked like that momentum would be swiftly killed. Just 6 minutes after Ishaq’s equaliser, Takeley’s number 10 dispatched the penalty, and Takeley regained the lead with 15 minutes to play.
Young goalkeeper Smith played the second half for Harlow Town and notably made a great diving save from a great Takeley effort that was bending in. He looked solid, and was only really beaten by what was a beautiful finish from the Takeley number 15 which, in the 87th minute, had wrapped up what was a good win for Takeley, and a performance that showed promise for Harlow, but one that we were on the wrong end of the scoreline for.
Most recently, we faced Cockfosters at home, a side that we played last December in a mid-season friendly, beating 4-3 on the day. A Step 5 side, it was yet another game that promised to be challenging for us.
It looked as though Danny Chapman was trialling a 4-4-2 formation initially, with a midfield two of Syrus Gordon and Tom Jelliman, a contrast to the 3-5-2 formation we had been playing previously.
The first chance of the game came from Jordan Burnett for Harlow, who made an incredible run down the right wing, with bags of pace. His strike hit the crossbar and went out, but it was a promising start for the Hawks.
From this point on though, it became clear that there was a slight weakness in the side, and our ball retention had become very poor, constantly gifting possession back to Cockfosters and this inevitably led to an opener for them.
From a long-ball over the top, the Cockfosters number 11 had managed to get in behind ahead of Jesse Ansen, and finished well past James Pellin to give Cockfosters an early lead. They continued to apply the pressure and a sloppy James Pellin mistake gifted them their second goal through Matt Campbell.
There were little positives from the first half, but the home side went out in the second half determined to flip the score on its head. A big opportunity landed in the form of a free-kick from 25 yards. Harvey Livings stepped over it and finished well, cementing himself as a set-piece specialist in this pre-season campaign, having now scored 2 free kicks so far.
Harlow continued to knock on the door of the Cockfosters defence, and almost found an equaliser through Jack Haley, but in the end the game concluded and Harlow lost again, this time 1-2 at home to Cockfosters.
It has been an interesting pre-season overall, and I don’t personally believe we have massively underperformed. We have come up against some strong opposition in all of our games, and many of the new faces are settling in well. We already know that there are players within the squad who are very reliable and put in a great performance on most games, but it’s important to try out new players and see if they fit into our side, and I think we have succeeded this pre-season so far in trying them out.
Our focus now turns to our final games of pre-season, in which we will play in the Cheshunt Community Cup this Saturday, a round-robin tournament in which we will face Cheshunt and Clapton Community, kicking off at 1pm for the first game. There will then be a week’s break before our league opener at home to Newbury Forest on 27th July.