Mark Burke felt the need to apologise to fans after a sending off changed the whole of Hitchin Town's pre-season friendly with Stevenage.

The Canaries had frustrated the new League One side for 35 minutes before Jamie Reid scored the first.

Three minutes later though Stan Georgiou was sent off for a foul on Elliott List, Reid making it 2-0 from the penalty spot, and that made Hitchin abandon all pre-match plans and tactics.

Manager Burke said: "I was really pleased with the first 35 minutes, it was a good competitive game. I was pleased with our performance and I think Stevenage will have been pleased with theirs. 

"I was a bit disappointed with the first goal and then unfortunately the game got spoiled by a lack of common sense really. 

"I’ll have to look at the foul again. If it was reckless and would warrant a red card in a league game then I have no qualms about it. 

"But if it's a pre-season friendly, just tell us to take the player off and replace him because I’m sure Stevenage would have wanted to play against 11 players and for us to continue to play the way we were playing.  

"Unfortunately we've had to resort to game management and for us, the whole thing went out the window. 

"We had a whole plan of bringing subs on and then we couldn't do that. It became a fitness session. 

"It's just, like I say, disappointing that common sense wasn't taken on board." 

The match finished 3-0, Jake Forster-Caskey stabbing home in the final 10 minutes but Burke's thoughts were still with the supporters.

He said: "We played Luton on Saturday and [way we played in the opening 35 minutes] was similar and that's how we wanted the whole game to be. 

"What we’ve got to do is try and take the positives from the game and that is we were very well organised, we defended for our lives and defended very well. 

"The lads got a good fitness session. The game management was good and so those are the positives coming out of it. 

"But I want to apologise to the fans. We don't want to play like we had to, but we were forced into it because of going down to 10 men.  

"So I apologise to them and I can say to them, it won't be like that again unless you know we are down to 10 men again. 

"Hopefully that won't happen and they'll come back again." 

They have certainly turned up in the first two pre-season games, four figures recorded for both clashes, and the boss is expecting and hoping for more of the same, if not better, when Arsenal arrive at Top Field.

"It was a magnificent crowd [against Stevenage]," said Burke, "over 1,000 again for the second game running. That's brilliant.

"We’ve got Arsenal a week on Saturday for Dan Webb’s testimonial.

"It would be great if fans can come and turn out. He's been a great servant to the club and obviously he'll benefit from it."