A tale of two halves

Early morning snow had given way to a cold wind with sunny periods. Cranleigh had a squad of twelve from which they rotated both goalkeeper and umpire. We started with a bare 11, which included an unchanged back five, plus former player Joe Coelho, who had come to watch. Progressively, however, our numbers increased to 15, with Rashid, Liam, Scott and Robbie. We started with the same formation as last week, ie 4 backs, 5 halves and a lone striker. Cranleigh had won their first two matches 8-0, and today earned two penalty corners in as many minutes. A powerful shot, wide and high, suggested that our defence was in for a tough time.

It was therefore a pleasant surprise when we raced upfield, and a ball across the face of their goal fell to Joe, who blasted in through their keeper. This was proving to be a fast open game and Cranleigh quickly equalised via a penalty corner, and then took the lead. However our spirited attacking play soon led to a clever move, culminating in an equalising goal for Scott. Then another penalty corner for Cranleigh led to their taking the lead, 3-2, with only about 20 minutes played.

Chances came and went at each end, but there were no further goals by half time, whereupon Chris decided that we would change formation to 3-4-3. This led to our having slightly the better of the second half but, in spite of good skills being shown by both sides, in particular the Cranleigh left back, there were no further goals. Afterwards, the injured Jon took our team photo and we struggled back to our clubhouse through a series of roadworks and other delays, only to find our changing room locked and the key missing.