HERTS CHARITY CUP FINAL
St. Albans City 5 Hitchin Town 0
Saturday 2nd May
Striking their best form, St. Albans City gained a convincing victory over Hitchin Town at Clarence Park , on Saturday, to recapture the Herts Charity Cup after an interval of four years. They played with marked confidence throughout, were the more thrustful in attack, where Ron Burke was in a deadly mood, and the steadier in defence, where their covering tactics were far better than those of Hitchin, whose backs and centre-half played too squarely.
But the final score was not a fair reflex of the run of the play in fact Hitchin, whose wing half-backs showed considerable constructive ability, did almost as much attacking as the Citizens, and certainly had the greater number of scoring chances in the first half, when they had the advantage of the wind and slope. They could not, however, overcome the St. Albans defence, in which Reid, Hall and Powell did particularly well.
St. Albans opened the scoring after ten minutes' play. A big clearance by Cook, following a corner-kick on the Hitchin right wing, put Pipe away. He drew Chamberlain and then pushed the ball through the middle to BURKE, who had a clear course for goal and shot past Jones as the goalkeeper ran out. The Citizens might have increased their lead in the next minute, Saunders centred and Burke deceived defenders by jumping over the ball, which went to Pipe, but the outside-left, with the goal at his mercy, shot too high.
Halley failed to utilise an equally-easy opportunity to equalise, but Powell did well to divert hot shots from L. Clarke, Halley and Goddard out for corner-kicks. Chamberlain went the nearest to scoring for Hitchin before the interval. One surprise shot from him scraped the foot of the post and went behind, with Powell completely deceived. Following a corner-kick well placed by P. Clarke, Chamberlain got in a header which Powell had difficulty in dealing with. He pushed the ball against the underside of the crossbar, but managed to catch the rebound and clear.
Within two minutes of resuming, St. Albans added to their-score. Pipe, meeting a tong pass, headed the ball to the toe of Robinson, who pushed it through the middle for BURKE to shoot past Jones. Kirkham and Crossley started many good movements, while Richardson and Robinson kept their wingers going with well-judged passes, and Burke, very quick off the mark, was a constant menace to the Hitchin goal. Fifteen minutes after the interval he gathered a pass from Pipe and forced his way through to deliver a shot which hit Jones on the shins as the custodian ran out. The ball rebounded to ROBINSON, who netted with a low shot before the goalkeeper could recover his position.
For twenty minutes the exchanges were even• and Hitchin, who played up strongly, made some attacks which promised well in the approach to goal but which petered out when shooting range was reached. Goodall cleverly manoeuvred one good opening, only to waste it by weak finishing, and L. Clarke got in one hard drive which Reid kicked clear. But St. Albans' attacks were always the more dangerous and Jones made grand saves from Burke, Robinson and Saunders before BURKE got the Citizens' fourth goal with a glorious header following a corner-kick, admirably taken by Pipe, ten minutes from the end. JACK RICHARDSON completed the scoring five minutes later with a remarkable first-time shot from a centre by Saunders, the ball travelling into the bottom corner of the net at great pace.
The Mayor of St. Albans (Mr. J. Tacchi) presented the cup to J. Richardson, the Citizens' Captain. He said it had been a good, clean game and congratulating the Citizens on their success, said that although Hitchin had lost by five goals, it would be agreed that there was not that amount of difference between the teams on the day's play.
St. Albans City: H. F. Powell; J. Reid, E. Cook; H. Crossley, L. Hall, S. J. Kirkham; W. Saunders, T. Robinson, R. Burke, J. Richardson, B. Pipe.
Hitchin Town: R. Jones; S. D. Chapman, E. R. Isaac; P. Clarke, P. H. Chamberlain, A. D. Bowman; S. Hailey, B. Hough, G. Hood, L. Clarke. R. Goodall.
Referee: Mr. J. M. Jenkins (Watford).