Emotions can swing massively in just a single moment - as a late winner for Welwyn Garden City U23s against Hatfield Town proved.

A penalty converted in injury time by Harrison Cage was the difference in a 2-1 win for the Welwyn youngsters, as grassroots football made its long-awaited return from lockdown.

The game, part of the Herts Senior County League's Premier Division Cup, a hastily-created competition to fill in for the curtailed league season, looked destined for a draw after Charlie Jones' header two minutes after half-time was cancelled out by a penalty from Tommy Howard just over 60 seconds later.

A foul on Welwyn's Greg Adinna though gave Cage the opportunity to provide a winner, and it capped a perfect resumption of action.

He said: "I’m bored of all the 5k and 10k runs so it was good to back among the intensity of a competitive match and see all the boys.

"And it’s always a good feeling to win a game like that and especially in a derby when you know there is so much history between the clubs.

"It was a tough game, they were physical in the middle, and at times we made it difficult for ourselves, but the best thing is we’ve come through it and got the win to start the cup off.

"Hopefully we can go on and win it."

Having only emerged from lockdown six days earlier, there hadn't been a lot of time to develop match fitness but for Cage, that just means there is even better to come.

He said: "There are definitely parts we need to improve but that comes with not playing football for four months.

"It’ll come with training. We’ve trained quite a lot this week and it showed at times."

For Nathan Studholme though it was the exact opposite in terms of emotions.

Hatfield's skipper, a former WGC junior, said: "It was good to be out there. It’s obviously been a while so it was good to get the ball down and play with the fellas again.

"But to give away a penalty in the last minute and lose, especially in a derby match, it is gutting.

"I thought it was an even game and we could have taken it, we had some good chances.

"We played well, it was a good performance. We contested, we put them on the back foot a few times and the general feeling is we can hold our heads up high."

And while the team has one eye on setting a platform for next season, Studholme says the aim remains to go as far as possible in this tournament.

He said: "We have a couple of new players that have come in and we wanted to see how we can play.

"We’ve tried some new stuff out with the formation and tried some new tactics.

"We'll use this as a pre-season for next year so we can start that really well but we’ve got two more games in the group and we really needed to win them now if we want to get through.

"Fingers crossed, we’ve got the potential to do it and I think we still can."