Hemel Hempstead Town Match Preview
City play their second home match in five days on Saturday when they entertain Hemel Hempstead Town at Twerton Park.
Their supporters will be hoping for a similar performance to that produced against Slough on Tuesday but with the reward of two extra points!
The Hertfordshire club currently lie in 13th position which they are presumably very content with after a poor first half to the season.
The Tudors had spent most of it in the bottom three but gradually climbed the table and this was almost entirely due to their excellent record on the road.
They have won seven of their fifteen away matches including notable wins at Chippenham, Hungerford and St Albans.
It was their form at Vauxhall Road which was the problem and when City visited in mid-January the home supporters had yet to witness a single victory.
However they were celebrating wildly come the end of the match when a Cody Cooke equaliser just before half time couldn’t prevent a 3-1 defeat for his team.
Hemel went on to win their next three home matches but strangely went off the boil elsewhere and have lost three out of the last four on opponents’ grounds.
This includes Saturday’s defeat at Dorking, who had an outfield player in goal for most of the match following an early red card.
Like so many of the clubs in this league Hemel have only been competing with City since the early years of this century.
In all they have made nine visits to Twerton Park, plus an FA Cup tie in 2017, and have only been victorious on two occasions.
The most notable of City’s five wins came six months earlier when Axel Andresson, Shawn McCoulsky, Nick McCootie and Shaquille Hunter all found the net in a 6-0 triumph.
And a moment of humour two years ago from Sam Beasant, the Hemel keeper, went viral although it was Tom Smith who had the last laugh!
One of the earlier visits by Hemel was notable for the large contingent of very young supporters getting behind the Tudors.
They hadn’t travelled down from Hertfordshire but were in fact a class from a local primary school who had decided to adopt Hemel as their favourite club!
It is hoped that there will be similar interest by children on Saturday as it is the annual Club Family Day. Details of special ticket deals and attractions can be found here.
