Saturday, September 8, 2001

WITH the league's two most prolific strikers on display and an average of six goals a game at St George's Lane this season, it was Sod's law that Worcester City and Havant & Waterlooville would produce a goalless draw in this Dr Martens Premier Division clash.

But despite City's Mark Owen and the visitors' James Taylor enduring a fruitless day at the office, the 1,004 strong crowd was still treated to plenty of goalmouth entertainment.

Worcester's first team coach, Mick Tuohy, drew encouragement from the result although he admitted to being slightly disappointed his side had not taken three points.

"Over the last few years teams like Nuneaton Borough and Boston have come and turned us over and this was a test against a big and strong team and we did well to survive the first 10 minutes," he said.

"But after that it was nip and tuck for the whole of the game. Obviously this season we've had some eventful finishes and we probably feel a little bit flat that we didn't get the opportunity to take three points near the end.

"For a 0-0, though, I thought it was very entertaining and after surviving the first few shaky minutes I think we finished stronger.

"We're down to the bare minimum with staff but the encouraging thing is that we've picked up another point.

"Okay you might say its two points dropped at home but it is against a team that is certainly going to be challenging."

The Hawks, flying high and unbeaten in top spot, started brightly and after just four minutes, City's Andy Ellis had twice cleared off his own goal line following corners.

Keeper Paul Wyatt flapped at an inswinger after just two minutes forcing Ellis to clear Jamie O'Rourke's goalbound header while the midfielder did the same a minute later from a Liam Daish header as again Wyatt failed to deal with a difficult ball into the box.

The visitors' Dean Blake then forced Wyatt to save smartly with a right foot volley.

O'Rourke spurned his side's best chance of the half when he fired over from 12 yards while under pressure from Marc Burrow.

But City, keeping a clean sheet for the first time this season, clawed their way back into the match and on 22 minutes Owen had his first sniff of goal with a shot from 20 yards after a Phil Stant flick on.

A flurry of activity in the Hawks goalmouth saw Stant hurl himself at an Owen cross while soon after City's leading goalscorer shot through a ruck of players, forcing a good save from Paul Nicholls after his side failed to clear a corner.

City started the second half well and an Owen snapshot after 47 minutes had Nicholls scurrying to save to his left for a corner.

Five minutes later came Worcester's best chance of the match when Owen won the ball on the left beat his man and crossed to an unmarked Darren Middleton but with the goal gaping, he headed straight at Nicholls.

The home side continued to threaten and Burrow had a shot deflected by skipper Carl Heeley into the hands of Nicholls on 77 minutes.

Tuohy was impressed with the Hawks and believes the title challengers could begin to show themselves in the next three to four games and has not ruled out City being among them.

"I think Havant are very organised in every department, they look lively, have good runners in midfield and they'd done their homework on us," he added.

"It's now on to Merthyr, then Folkestone and by the Kettering game a week on Monday we'll have a real flavour for the teams who will be challenging because we'll have played 10 or 11 games.

"One of things about City and home games is in the past our home form has been poor. Last season if we had matched our home form with our away form we would have been challenging.

"But we're now unbeaten at home and with one defeat in seven who knows?"