United line-up: Barrett, Matt Joseph, Granville, Thompson, Craddock, Raynor (Hayes 68), Richards, Hyde, McGleish (Benjamin 79), Barnwell, Beall.
Sub not used: Wanless.

Ace match reporter Ben Mynott is still exiled in France but his Dad has again provided an excellent report:

An amazing contrast - more in keeping with different days and different opponents than 3/4 hours separated by just a 1/4 hour!

Cambridge were quite simply impressive, almost awsome, in the first half. Most players were composed on the ball, thoughtful and distributed it well. The ball was kept on the ground and a lot of moves involved many passes before Hartlepool got a touch. The final ball let CUFC down, with Richards the main culprit. On three separate occassions he either tamely shot from way out (twice, and not even on target) or ran into trouble and took the wrong option. On all three occassions McGleish had pulled to the left and was totally unmarked.

Raynor, playing centrally just in front of the back three, was making himself available at throw ins to good effect. Hyde, McGleish, Granville, Joseph, Thompson and Barnwell (in that order) were the most composed with only Craddock and Richards unimpressive in this department. This time however Craddock was playing pretty solidly at the back.

Thommo was again dangerous at corners. His peeling away to the back post left him unmarked a number of times and he went close with a far post header that was scrambled away. McGleish controlled a firm pass from Raynor about 40-45 yards from goal in the inside left channel and unleashed a tremendous dipping shot into the far right corner of the net only for Pears to spectacularly tip round for a corner.

Pears made another fine save, this time diving full length low to his right to foil the U's. Just when it looked like we were not going to get the reward our play deserved, Raynor, cutting in from the right, dribbled the ball across the penalty area, spotted a gap and let fly a left foot shot that just eluded Pears at the left hand post. He then led the 'elephant' celebration.

McGleish and Hyde had linked up well in the first half and early in the second they conjured up an exquisite move. McGleish fed the ball square to Hyde from the left touchline on half way. Immediately he raced down the touchline and Micah delivered the sweetest of passes slicing diagonally through the defence. McGleish's cross was met by Richards but not quite on the button and the header sailed over.

In the second half the team were unrecognisable. They looked slow on the ball rather than composed. Passes were blocked or mis-directed. There was hardly a CUFC move worthy of the word, except the one above and one other when a goal looked certain as Richards broke through on the right as a result of a good ball from Barnwell. Barnwell raced to the far post, unmarked, only for Richards to fall over the ball instead of cross!

Somehow the team held out, despite Hartlepool's superiority. That said, they did not come even light years close to our first half dominance. We even thought for a moment that they had equalised as Barrett let a long range shot bounce off his chest (shades of Sheff at Peterboro!), into the path of an on-rushing forward who calmly slipped the ball into the net. Everyone (bar one) thought they had scored. CUFC heads dropped and they began trudging back for the kick off, when we suddenly noticed the linesman was flagging. Offside - what a relief! Houchen(?) remonstrated with the linesman who then called over the Ref, but he did nothing more than have a few (firm?) words with him.

The ref had a bad game. His handling of the aforementioned incident was feeble. He inexplicably failed to award two penalties in the first half. Early on, McGleish had skipped round a defender only to be grabbed round his waist. Decision? A goal kick. We (and McGleish) were not impressed. Thommo then brought down their No 11 (their only really dangerous threat) on the edge of the area (it may have been just outside) but the ref gave nowt. These were not his only strange decisions.

Raynor's substitution (Hayes came on) was a second half highlight, part of which I missed (but Mandy saw). He did not look a happy bunny as he walked off and it looked as if he was about to take off his shirt and throw it down in disgust. Instead he violently threw down the jacket he was handed and thumped the back of the dug-out so loud you could hear it in the Habbin. I did not feel he was the right one to go off (I felt Billy or even Micah were more appropriate), as he was certainly rolling his sleeves up for the rearguard action and had covered well. Mandy rated his performance much lower than me.

Benjamin came on for McGleish who had to be stretchered off with an injured ankle in 75th minute. Entertaining as usual! In the last few minutes Richards and Hyde used up time in the right hand corner to good effect, but we were having to resort to such tactics to hang on to our slender lead.

Ratings are hard because no-one played well second half. Beaumont gave Danny MOM and he was good first half. Barnwell had his best game to date at left wing back. Micah was poor second half apart from the McGleish move mentioned earlier. Apparently he was stuck in traffic for 3.25 hours and only arrived 20 mins before KO. Everyone bar Richards would have scored well on the first half display although Barrett had nothing significant to do on which to be rated. My MOM is between Thommo, Joseph, Barnwell, McGleish and Raynor (probably much to Mandy's disgust). At 4.45 Sat it was Thommo but by 5.15 I was leaning toward Barnwell. Having reflected as I write this, at 5.00 Sunday it has become Paulie, Paulie, just edging out Scott.

Often not spectacular, and certainly not error free, he kept making himself available, scored a fine goal and delivered a virtuoso performance on being substituted.

Player ratings: Barrett 6 (lucky on the offside goal), Joseph 7.5, Thommo 7.5, Jodie 6.5, Danny 7, Barnwell 7.5, Hyde 6.5 (because there were a few great moments, otherwise it would be more like 5), Raynor 8, Beall 6, McGleish 7.5, Richards 4. Subs: Hayes 4 (totally anonymous), Benjamin 7 (great fun as always).

Terry Wilby and his yellow "Moose" hat were at the Abbey:

Match reports pretty accurate, we were good in the first half, crap in the second.

We made lots of chances in the first, Pears made some blinding saves. Paul Raynor's long angled shot was accurate to the far corner for our goal, Pears could have been unsighted. Barrett had nothing to do in the first half, about their only attack resulted in a tackle from Tommo in the area that some referees would have penalised, although the player had pushed the ball too far and seemed to me to dive as well.

Two main chances in the second, firstly when Micah threaded the ball to Scott McGleish who crossed but Richards couldn't get the angle right with his header. Soon after Richards did well on the right and crossed to Scott who put the ball over while stretching. This seemed to aggravate a hamstring or something.

The substitution of Paul Raynor seemed a little odd, I would have replaced Jamie Barnwell who did little. Adi Hayes didn't do much except get in the way of Micah or run without looking for the ball until it was past him. Trevor Benjamin for Scott was the obvious choice and put himself about. If we can play for only half the game and still pick up 3 points we must be good for promotion. Nice to see a crowd of around 3500 as well, it made the supporters club busy though.

Terry Wilby

Many thanks to Ben Mynott and Terry Wilby for the reports.

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