Mens 2nds go down to Chertsey

Unusually, HHC 2nds defended the far end of the Ifield pitch in the first half, thus avoiding playing into bright sunshine. By the time the 2nd half started, cloud cover had appeared. At push back, we only had 11 players, and opted for our 4-5-1 formation. CTV had a mixture of 13 year olds and rugby props, but included a 1st team player returning from injury. He played a strong game in midfield and made good use of high aerial balls. They also had another, injured, 1st team player on the touchline as coach. We were pleased to welcome back Sam in goal, recovered from his knee injury.

A good standard of hockey was seen throughout but, with their midfield powerhouse, CTV were able to push more players forward in attack and they took the lead following a goalmouth scramble. Once again we earned a penalty corner just as the half time whistle was about to be blown. CTV deliberately hit the ball back behind their goal-line, but we were not awarded the further penalty corner which the rules decreed. During the first half, first Tom and then the oversleeping Rashid had arrived (it was a 10.30 start), so at half time we switched to 4-4-2. However, early in the 2nd half, one of the CTV 13 year olds managed to make contact with a ball lofted powerfully into our D, and deflect it into our goal. Fluke or skill?

Tony accidentally clashed heads with a rugby prop, but both survived. With 5 minutes left, we were awarded our second penalty corner. In an unrehearsed move, Hugh received the ball and pushed it sideways to Rashid, whose powerful hit left their keeper stranded. End to end hockey continued, with Chris, Alex and Abdul all sustaining injuries but, in spite of our throwing more players forward, the equaliser eluded us. We were left to reflect that all the matches so far this season have been very even.