Harpenden Town ‘ecstatic’ with victory as they set sights on London Colney

A first win for Harpenden Town since the departure of manager Martin Standen has been greeted with a mixture of relief but mostly delight.

The former boss made a move north to become the assistant manager at Bedford Town with Harps opting to stick with first-team coach Micky Nathan as interim gaffer until the end of the season.

And after a couple of narrow defeats, including a 1-0 reverse to leaders Colney Heath, they got it right with a 4-2 victory over Harefield United at Rothamsted Park.

"I'm ecstatic," said Nathan on the club's Twitter account. "We've have three losses on the bounce so for us as a team it was massively important to get that victory.

"It was a weird game to go from 1-0 up at half-time to 2-1 down.

"But for them to react the way they did and get the win, I'm over the moon, not just for me but for the lads.

"They fully deserve it."

Sean McMonagle, Tarik Dallas, Nathan McGreevy and a first for new striker James Todd were enough to bring them an important three points and the head coach has challenged them to use this as a new beginning.

He said: "The losses were unusual and the boys are not used to that so this will give them a morale boost.

"I told them before the game not to let the hard work they have done with Martin go to pot.

"They have worked too hard to throw it all the way and the season isn't over yet. We've still got 13 games to go and we can still finish as high as they want to.

"This win will kick start our season again and we can go on to bigger and better things."

Harpenden's next game is back at home to London Colney who had hoped their 2-2 draw at Eynesbury Rovers would be the catalyst for an upturn in their own fortunes.

However, they hit another stumbling block in their attempts to climb off the foot of the SSML Premier Division when they lost 3-0 to Oxhey Jets on Tuesday.

Liam Andrews had got both goals for the Blueboys in Cambridgeshire.