Category: First team

Adult teams, First team, Reserve team

2020/21 Season begins!

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Saturday 5 September 2020

First Team beaten by Hinton in opener

First Team Manager Adrian Turner reflects…

After a really positive pre-season, we started the season at home to a very big and physical Hinton side. The first ten minutes were very frantic but once we settled into the game the visitors struggled to work out our system. It was a game of few chances but we were in control up to half time. In the second half Hinton went more direct and we started to really struggle with this as the game went on. Unfortunately in the 70th minute Hinton scored with a corner that deflected into the net off one of our players. We tried to push for an equaliser but Hinton kept hitting us on the counter and in fairness could of extended their lead as we tired. So really great positives as we learn our new system and get fitter. We will learn and improve.

Stevenage Couriers man of the match: Dan Smith

If you missed the matchday programme, download it here

Next Saturday, 12 September, the First Team travel to Tring Athletic Reserves for their second Herts Senior County League Division One fixture; 15:00 kick off at The Grassroots Stadium, Cow Lane, Tring, HP23 5NS.

Reserves kick off with a win at Evergreen

Roving reporter Henry Harbottle-Day made the trip to Abbots Langley…

Knebworth Reserves started off the season with a comfortable 2-0 away victory to Evergreen in the Herts Senior County League. With Knebworth looking to build on momentum garnered from pre-season, the game started off with little to no chances.

The first real threat to either side’s goal was on around the 15-minute mark when Evergreen’s first corner of the match resulted in a goal mouth scrabble in the Knebworth box. Alfie Pettitt was put under pressure by numerous opposition players before the ball ended up in the back of the net; however, thankfully for Knebworth the goal was chalked out for obstruction.

It wasn’t until half an hour gone Knebworth got their first big chance of the game. Kieran ‘Flynny’ Flynn, who was making his first start since his return from injury, threaded an excellent ball behind the Evergreen defence which Tom ‘Greffo’ Grieveson took advantage of with a brilliant top right-hand corner finish on his competitive debut for the Club.

As the second half kicked off Knebworth again looked to attack from the off. A well-instructed high defensive line meant Evergreen struggled to get in behind, which was seemingly a large part of their game. Knebworth fullbacks, Luke ‘Wilko’ Wilkins and Owen Hatfield ensured the Evergreen wingers didn’t get a sight at goal throughout.

Knebworth looked to have made it two when winger Sam Nelson rushed through on goal with Grieveson beside him but decided to take it on his own before hitting the bar.

Grieveson went on to score both his and Knebworth’s second of the afternoon on the 60-minute mark, using his pace and power to beat the centre half, before finishing past the onrushing keeper with a curled shot into the bottom right hand corner. Yet again assisted by Flynn.

Pettitt went on to keep a clean sheet in the game, making a vital stop late on to collect the three points away from home and give Knebworth, and their passionate away support, a great start to the season.

Extrastaff man of the match: Tom Grieveson

Next Saturday, 12 September, the Reserves welcome Hatfield Athletic to the Recreation Ground (SG3 6AH) for their second Herts Senior County League Division Three fixture; 15:00 kick off.

First team, Mick's Football Memories, Reserve team

Mick’s Football Memories – part 3

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By the start of the 1954/55 season, now eight years old, I would go up Knebworth
Rec. in the evenings and watch some of the early season mid-week matches. I would
lean against the goalpost and talk to the goalkeeper, whether he was playing for
Knebworth or the visitors. I was not allowed to go up the Rec. on Saturdays as I had
to go with my mother to visit my grandmother in Stevenage, who had recently lost her
husband, my granddad, who I was very close to. As the season progressed my mate’s
parents said I could go there for tea on a Saturday afternoon, enabling me to watch
football up the Rec. Frequently we would kick a football around on a piece of grass
adjacent to the pitch.
Up until this point I had never been allowed out to play on a Sunday as I had to go to
Sunday School but times were starting to change and we were beginning to be allowed out to play on Sunday mornings. There was no organised youth football at that time and nor would there be for many years to come.
Just about every boy in the village would turn up to play. We would play on the piece of
grass next to the tennis courts, where the amusements are now. We would use two trees as one goal, much to the displeasure of a local councillor and throw down a couple of coats for the other goal. By now I had a maroon track suit and thought I was the bees knees. Most of us wore canvas basketball boots and the football was leather with an inner tube and laced up. This got extremely heavy when wet and it was not a good idea to attempt to head it. We all wanted to be our favourite footballer and supporting Wolves I would always be Peter Broadbent, the very best footballer I have ever seen play.
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Missed an installment of Mick’s Memories? Catch up here…

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First team, Mick's Football Memories, Reserve team

Mick’s Football Memories – part 2

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Towards the end of 1953 I became close friends with a school mate and we would both visit each other’s houses several times a week after school. For Christmas he was given a football annual which highlighted in both words and pictures the 1953 F.A. Cup Final between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers, known as the Stanley Matthews Cup Final.
This was the first time I had heard of or become aware of the F.A. Cup. We both learned a lot from reading about this match and looking at the many photographs. Bolton, including Nat Lofthouse, the England centre forward had led by three goals to one but Blackpool fought back to win 4-3 in arguably the best cup final ever seen, with Stanley Matthews running rings around and tormenting the Bolton defence.
The 1953/54 season ended with Wolves winning the First Division Championship for
the first time ever, making one little boy extremely happy.
By now I had a pair of football boots, the only problem was I didn’t know what to do
with them. They were plain leather with a toe cap and a strap going across the top of
the boot. They went right up over the ankle and had wooden studs. The laces were as
long as I was tall and went underneath the boot, then round the back of it, before
being tied at the front. No sooner had I mastered the art of tying them, than together
with my school mate we became the envy of all the boys. His granddad had a
cobbler’s or shoe mender’s shop in Knebworth High Street and he removed the
wooden studs from our boots and fitted rubber studs, almost unheard of at the time.
For the remainder of our time at Knebworth Primary School I was able to play

football in the organised matches and wearing a school football kit.

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Mick’s Football Memories – part 1

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Mick Cooper is a Club volunteer and former Knebworth player, and was a long-standing committee member of the Herts Senior County League.

In nearly seventy years of playing, administrating and watching football I have many happy memories to look back on.  My earliest memory takes me back to 1953, as a seven year old.  That was the time when Knebworth Primary School decided to provide football training as part of our games lesson.  On a Wednesday afternoon we would queue up at the school gates, waiting to be taken up to Knebworth Rec. to play football on what is now A2 pitch.  The only problem was that I, like many of the boys did not have a pair of football boots.  Times were difficult after the Second World War and finances were strained.  The boys that did have football boots were given a football kit and played a match under the jurisdiction of the teacher.  Those of us who did not have boots were designated to play in what was known as “The Scraps”.  This meant we chased a football around the rec., still dresse    d in school uniform and under no control what so ever from the teacher.  As there was only one teacher available he would choose to organise and control the boys with boots and a kit who were playing a match.  This proved to be a regular occurrence, much to the dismay of my parents, as I would come home plastered in mud from head to toe, with my school uniform filthy.

At about this time we were given an old television with a nine inch screen and a large glass object, tinted pink, which was placed in front of the screen, this was a magnifying glass.  On this I watched my first football match, a floodlit friendly between Wolverhampton Wanderers and a team from Argentina, who they comprehensively thrashed by five goals to one.  Having watched this, with Wolves becoming the first English team I had seen play, I immediately became their number one supporter.

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Missed an installment of Mick’s Memories? Catch up here…

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Adult teams, First team, Reserve team

Seniors’ season underway

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The First team have had a mixed start to their Herts Senior County League premier division campaign; beginning with home draws against Weston (sixth in the table) and Cuffley (currently third), before defeat at Chipperfield (now ninth). A morale boosting win at home to bottom-of-the-table Sun Sports moved them to 11th and will hopefully ignite their season.

You can view their fixtures and results here; pop down to a home game where the kettle is always on, and you can get a front row view of the action.

The Reserves began with away defeats to Stevenage Borough Community (fourth in Reserves Division One) and Wheathampstead (seventh) before drawing at Bengeo (fifth), and currently sit eighth in the table. Their fixtures and results are here.

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Jian Earle on the ball against Sun Sports – image courtesy of Alan Sleator, Wonderful PR, http://www.wonderfulpr.com