It could have been so much better

That was a great disappointment to the many Harriers fans that had travelled over to Cambridgeshire hoping to see the Reds take one more step to cementing their place in the play-offs.  With three teams all on equal points, and a tough trip to Stevenage coming up on Tuesday, we really did need to gain maximum points from Histon.

Instead, through negative and defensive tactics, we failed to capitalise against a poor side that would have been more happy with the draw than we were.

With the game kicking off in glorious sunshine but a bitter cold wind we saw the return of Justin Richards to the side following the end of his three game suspension.  Andy Ferrell dropped to the bench to accommodate him and apart from that the team was unchanged from the one that had beaten Burton so easily last Monday.

Following a scrappy start from both sides it was Histon that took the lead after just four minutes when Jack Midson was left alone to head in from a well placed corner.  It was a bit of a setback but at least we had the remainder of the game to pull something out of the hat.

After eighteen minutes came another setback for us when Mark Creighton went in slightly too hard on a Histon man and injured his leg.  After a few minutes of treatment, and a yellow card, he hobbled off to the side of the pitch and Luke Jones came on in his place.  Mark was taken for x-rays at a Cambridge Hospital.

Our first real shot on target came from Keith Lowe on twenty four minutes and that came following a free kick played in by Lee Baker that Lowe met with full force to send it hurtling towards the goal through a ruck of players.  Somehow the Histon second choice keeper got a hand to it to keep it out.

Four minutes later and we did draw level through Lowe.  He collected the ball out on the edge of the area but couldn't find anyone free to give it to so, with his left foot, he sent over a stupendous swooping shot that nestled itself into the corner of the net.

You got the impression then that both sides thought that they'd done enough and the chances for the remainder of the half dried up.  Histon came the closest to scoring an all important second goal through Matthew Langston but his header from a corner was cleared off the line by Russ Penn.