Hornets boss John Maggs avoided the dreaded Manager of the Month curse as debutant striker Tom Lyons secured a first away point for Horsham against Hendon in a scrappy affair at Wembley's Vale Farm. A 100% record during November meant that, the Hornets travelled to North West London in confident mood, despite having lost each of their last 5 meetings with the Greens, but they suffered an early setback when stalwart Gary Charman suffered a double fracture of the cheekbone that caused play to be held up for 21 minutes. The contest, that can only be described as dull prior to this incident, barely flickered in to life after the restart with chances very few and far between.

Having defeated high-flying Hastings at the weekend, supporters might have seen this meeting with struggling Hendon as a comfortable victory for the Hornets but Maggs confessed to having been delighted to earn a point from what he expected to be a testing challenge for his players. "Six weeks ago we would have lost this one 2 or 3-0", he said. "It was a wet and muddy pitch, a very cold night, we had players out, lost Gary to a nasty injury and went a goal down so I'm delighted with a draw. We've never won up here so, yes, I'm pleased with that."

Hendon have become something of a bogey side for Maggs' men in recent seasons and came in to the match on the back of a fine win at Aveley at the weekend that lifted them out of the relegation places. "I was told that their position was a false one," Maggs continued. "They're a difficult team to play against, a spoiling side, they get in your face and try to stop you playing your game but I thought we matched their workrate and gave a good account of ourselves. Some games aren't going to be pretty and this was one of them. The first half never really got going because of the injury and there wasn't much going on after that either, to be fair. I wasn't too happy with their goal. It was a bit fortunate; the ball ricocheted around our box back to the lad who scored but we didn't track back with their midfielders and we got punished. But credit to the boys, they never gave up and we deserved a point. Tom took his penalty really well and we might have won it at the end when we've gone and hit the post and Sam's missed a great chance to score but I'll take that. It's another game unbeaten and keeps us ticking along nicely."

Horsham were unchanged from the side that had ended Hastings' recent fine run, with Lee Carney and Delando Smith still not fit enough for inclusion in the squad, but Steve Sargent was on the bench after arriving back from Las Vegas early on Sunday morning.

The opening exchanges brought nothing but 'hoof' football from either side although the first chance of the match fell to Jack Page as Hendon's Craig Vargas miskicked a clearance that fell at his feet, 30 yards from goal. However the in-form midfielder's shot was comfortably saved by goalkeeper James Reading, now in his 10th year with the Middlesex club. The biggest talking point of the game came in the 17th minute when Charman jumped for a header in the box, following a free kick, only to meet an unfortunate and unintentional incident involving one of the Hendon players. The travelling fans could only watch on as the veteran midfielder fell to the floor in agony, clutching his face. An ambulance was immediately called, and under the solid advice of team physio Andi Marfleet, 'Gazza' wasn’t moved until said ambulance arrived. It was later discovered that the unfortunate player had broken two bones in his cheek and faces at least 6-8 weeks on the sidelines. All at Hornets Review and the club's supporters wish Gary a full and speedy recovery.

A delay of some 21 minutes resulted but, having shown their appreciation of the departing Charman, there was precious else to warm the fans before half-time, despite the introduction of Steve Sargent. Hendon created patches of pressure on the visitors' back four but provided little in the way of creativity. Alex Haddow looked to create a piece of magic from a free kick outside the box, which hit the outside of the post, but Reading had it well covered for Hendon. Another Haddow free kick a few minutes later saw Sam Page, playing against his former club, make an attempt at goal but his header was more of a defensive cushioning touch and was comfortably gathered by the veteran goalkeeper.

Hendon put a touch more pressure on the Hornets' goal towards the end of the lengthy period of stoppage time and a long shot by Scott Cousins went going wide. Their hard work was to pay off a few minutes later, though, when Cousins provided a fast and dangerous cross, low into the box for Kevin MacLaren to side foot home, just inside Craig Bradshaw's left-hand upright. Horsham felt hard done by although, judging by the state of play so far, neither side could really say they deserved a lead.

A few minutes later, Reading appeared to make a mistake when attempting to collect a ball on the corner of the box. It was tricky for Hendon's ‘keeper and the ball spilt out of his hands into the path of Pat Harding who, from a tight angle and under immense pressure, could only put the ball wide of the open goal and the sides belatedly reached half time with the Londoners leading by the solitary goal.

H/T Hendon 1-0 Horsham

The second half was to be another of few chances once again, the players of both sides still seemingly shaken by Charman’s horrific injury. Some stop/start play in the first 10 minutes ended with Harding going down in the middle of the park under a challenge by defender Bradley Thomas, resulting in a bout of 'handbags' in the centre circle involving Claude Seanla and an opponent but, thankfully, referee Robert Smith chose to keep his cards in his pocket.

Maggs used the remainder of his substitutes in one go, 5 minutes later, Lyons making his debut up front in place of Seanla and there was another good run out for Tony Nwachukwu who replaced Jack Page. Young Tony would have been keen to make an impression on the game, having been the brunt of the dug-out jokes after arriving into the dressing room with gold painted toenails, and perhaps it was a little golden touch for the teenager who played a part in Horsham’s equalizing goal. A fierce ball played in from the right wing took a slight deflection, just enough for the ball to strike James Parker in the box. The referee blew straight away and pointed to the spot; understandably the Hendon players and officials felt a little hard done by with a play that looked almost certainly ball to hand.

However, as the Irish experienced in France a few weeks back, once the referee’s made his mind up there’s no turning back. Lyons picked up the ball and fired home an absolute rocket into the top left hand corner with virtually his first touch in a Horsham shirt.

The equalizer failed to ignite the rest of the game, though, with some isolated Hendon pressure failing to amount to anything and Horsham unable to play their free-flowing football on a pitch which cut up rather easily. It certainly seemed as though the game would peter out into the draw but there was to be one more moment of excitement before the end for the travelling faithful. With Ben Andrews pushing forward after another immense display at centre back, a fizzing ball across the box from Anthony Acheampong evaded the 'keeper but the ball just went under Andrews in front of the empty net.

Both sides come away with a point then, in a game marred by the unfortunate injury to Gary Charman. Next up for the Hornets a trip to in form Canvey Island where they try to keep up their 6 game unbeaten streak, hoping for a result similar to the opening day 4-2 win of last season.

Coach Mark Hawthorne echoed his manager's words after the match “I’m really happy with a point this evening whilst not playing our best on a difficult surface, going 1-0 down and also losing Gazza early and with an unfit Claude.” On the subject of debutant Tom Lyons, Mark commented “having only seen him train once, and unaware of his fitness levels, he showed some great touches and confidence, especially with the way he put his penalty away in the top corner. We also have a full squad for training on Thursday with Mark Knee retuning along with Jack Lyons, Delando Smith and hopefully Lee Carney which will give some good competition for places amongst the current starting eleven for our trip to Canvey on Saturday.
I’m incredibly happy to keep the unbeaten run going, and although I know dropping points is inevitable, I still believe the playoffs are a strong possibility”

NEXT MATCH: v Canvey Island (a) Saturday 5th December ko 3pm