89th minute equaliser snatches victory away from Harwich

it was an 89th minute equaliser that robbed Harwich of a hard earned victory at a very dilapidated Spotted Dog Ground, home of Hackney Wick, on Wednesday evening. With massive road congestion due to an overturned lorry on the A12 delaying Harwich arrival until 30 minutes before kick off, pre game preparation was severely hampered. The pitch was probably the worst that Harwich have played on this season and totally restricted the qualiity of football that could be played with the home side particularly playing long ball throughout. Furthermore with 6 bulbs not functioning there were several 'dark' areas on the pitch. Harwich tried hard to play their passing game but the awful surface meant a lot of passes were going astray. In fact the first half was pretty dire with neither side creating any chances at all.
After the interval Harwich improved massively and strung together some much better movement of the ball and certainly looked the better side. After 75 minutes they took the lead when following good build up out of defence found Jordon Heath 25 yards from goal. He went past two defencders in superb fashion before crashing the ball into the roof of the net from the edge of the penalty area. Harwich replaced Callum Griffith with Shaun Mathurin and he had a great effort go just over the bar. The game then became a little aggressive as the home side became more frustrated and the Harwich physio was busy as several late challenges left Harwich players with injuries. As a result Harwich were forced to use their two remaining substitutes, losing Jordan Heath and Shaun Kioussis and this seemed to upset the Harwich balance and spur Hackney on to try and get the equaliser. This happened in the last minute of normal time when an unmarked winger found too much space on the right and from a long cross into the box a home defender unmarked headed home to share the points. A very hard point on the road won by the Shrimpers but it is a certainty they won't want to rush back to a very poor ground in a hurry.
REPORT BY TONY ARMSTRONG