Measured approach proves successful for Henley

Henley’s final match of 2014 was against a well-established West Hampstead side, who despite their current mid-table standing, were a strong team with plenty of attacking fire-power.

Keen to maintain an unbeaten first half of the season, Henley started the match sluggishly and it was West Hampstead who had the better chances in the early stages. Henley goal keeper Roy Cox was called upon on several occasions in the first 15 minutes, and pulled off some excellent saves to keep the score at 0-0, yet he was unable to stop the opening goal of the match after 20 minutes. Following a defensive mistake, West Hampstead crossed the ball and found an unmarked forward, who lifted the ball over Cox and into the vacant goal.

Henley were visibly rattled and numerous misplaced passes increased the sense of frustration around Jubilee Park. However, after some excellent work in midfield from Foster, Joyce and Hibberd, Jody Measures slammed home an equalising goal just before half-time, after a well-crafted through-ball.

Buoyed by this goal just before the break, Henley started the second half much brighter and went close to taking the lead through Luke Gupta and Chris Green – the West Hampstead goal keeper pulling off two fine saves to keep the score level. Despite these chances, it was West Hampstead who took the lead on the hour-mark, as poor marking from Henley allowed a free shot on goal which was duly punished.

This sparked Henley into life and sparked a brilliant comeback by the home side. First Chris Green latched on to a loose ball in the West Hampstead D to level the scores once again after Tom Walter and Jonny Taylor had linked skilfully through midfield. Just 3 minutes later, Measures converted his second of the day with an astute reverse stick shot following Richard Woolfrey’s pin-point cross, making the score 3-2 with 5 minutes to play.

With the comeback all but complete, there was one last chance for man-of-the-match Measures to grab his hat trick, and he did this with an unstoppable drive from the top of the D, which flew past the helpless West Hampstead keeper to seal a 4-2 victory.

Not Henley’s finest performance, with West Hampstead the better team on the day; but having been missing two key players it must be seen as a valuable 3 points for the home side. The team’s record for the first half of the season stands at: played 10, won 9, drawn 1, lost 0.