Wigston FC 3–1 Hitchin Athletic: a late flurry

Match report

Wigston FC beat Hitchin Athletic 3-1 on Friday 21 August, after 74 minutes that had promised nothing of the sort. To my mind, a goalless first half between two sides separated by two points and a scoreless draw earlier in the season tends to be either a promise or a warning. Friday's version was a promise, but only just.

Wigston had arrived out of sorts; Hitchin had arrived with a record that a sympathetic friend would call balanced. The first hour resembled a form guide read aloud, with neither side willing to commit enough players to pressing to make the other uncomfortable. The entertainment arrived late, and then it arrived all at once.

Olivier Boivin-Lemoine, who limped off against Brixton on Monday and clearly decided that was enough of that, opened the scoring in the 75th minute. Owain Carwyn supplied the pass and Boivin-Lemoine supplied a calm finish that the previous 74 minutes had conspicuously lacked. The game then descended into a kind of frantic chaos, as if the players had collectively decided to make up for lost time with a sudden, desperate urgency reminiscent of a rush-hour commute in Central London.

Hércules Décio-Maranhão added a second in the 86th minute after a pass from Oscar Trent. Hitchin managed a brief respite when Célio Mascarenhas headed home for the visitors in the 87th, assisted by Olivier Bachelard, but the relief lasted only sixty seconds. Owain Carwyn put the result beyond doubt in the 88th minute, finishing a move started by Théo Vatel to secure a victory that arrived with a suddenness that would have baffled any neutral observer of the first hour.