Luton Town made the short journey to Top Field where they faced non-league outfit Hitchin Town. A tough test for Hitchin Town but they did give Luton Town a very good game.
The game began and as expected, Luton were on top. The Wales u21 international Elliot Thorpe came close for the away side early on but forced Charlie Horlock in goal for the Canaries to pull off a cracking save. Hitchin were also applying pressure onto the Luton defence causing Harry Isted to make a few saves. Luton Town soon had the lead after some great build up work from the Hatters resulted in a goal. Elliot Thorpe's ball down the line to Cameron Jerome force him into doing a few skills to get past the defence. He got past and played a lovely ball to full-back Dan Potts and it was his shot that found the bottom corner from distance giving Luton Town the deserved lead. It wasn't long until Luton Town had two. It came from some more impressive work from the Luton team which got the ball to the right flank to Elliot Thorpe. He beat his man and delivered a cross which was flicked on by Carlos Mendes Gomes to Cameron Jerome who tapped in from a yard out to give Luton the 2-goal advantage.
The Luton Town team swapped all 11 players at half time. The second half got off to a lively start. Luton soon got a third goal thanks to a brilliant run from Elijah Adebayo. His shot hit the post and rebounded to Harry Cornick who played it to Woodrow to slot in on his return to Luton Town. It was at this point that I knew there was only one winner. Luton kept applying pressure but Hitchin defended very well. The front line for Luton Town was firing in the second half as Elijah Adebayo, Harry Cornick and Cauley Woodrow were all causing lots of problems for Hitchin Town. In the 81st minute Luton Town were awarded a penalty after Harry Cornick was obviously tripped up by the Hitchin defender. Cauley Woodrow stepped up to take it and it was brilliantly saved by former Luton Town goalkeeper Tiernan Parker. Cauley Woodrow also hit the rebound off target. The game resulted in a 0-3 win for Luton Town.
A solid start to pre-season for Luton Town and it will prepare the squad for their trip to Slovenia. Hitchin will be proud as they presented themselves well and also packed 2,213 people into Top Field which was great to see. Hitchin face Stevenage on Tuesday 5th July and if you enjoyed this game you will enjoy Tuesday too!
