SV 2s made it three wins on the trot at the weekend with another solid performance. After the warmth of last weekend, it was back to the cold winds of the microclimate of Sutton Valence Prep School pitch. And that coldness extended to the start of the match, with Holcombe initially in the ascendancy as their young guns charged at Sutton Valence. The defence stood firm though, and eventually Sutton Valence started to edge it. Chances came, and were missed, with Tom primarily at fault with two air shots after getting in good positions, but all across the pitch there were issues with final rushed passes and hot headedness near the D. Holcombe still threatened too, particularly on the break when their fast youngsters took advantage of Sutton Valence’s errant passes. However, somehow half time came with the no goals scored by either team.

A half time team talk around being more sensible with some of our passes, and maybe stopping the air shots, was not completely heeded, as within seconds of the restart young Bear decided to show that whatever Tom could do, he could do better, and swung and missed so badly that he almost fell over. However, we still were largely the stronger team, but just could not find a goal. Chris Sheldon had a couple of well struck shots saved, Duncan almost got on the end of another strike at the back post, and Alex unfortunately slipped a shot narrowly wide after a wonderful run past three defenders. It seemed Sutton Valence were going to be punished for their profligacy, as Holcombe went up the other end, won a short corner which was dragged at goal. Ross will insist he had it covered, claiming Zak deflected it past him. But as Ross didn’t have his personal photographer with him this week, we can only take his very dubious word for it.

Sutton Valence did not give up though, and upped their intensity. Tom eventually made up for his previous misses when James broke up a Holcombe break and slipped the ball through to Tom, who beat his man and then, in the words of Gavin & Stacey, put the ball “right in the stanchion”. With the scores back level, Valence pushed for a winner, which came in an unusual way. Lewis, back from 2-3 months away with his ‘wrist injury’, just failed to control a through ball, with it deflecting off his stick. Whereupon the Holcombe keeper had a bit of a brain fart, and stepped over the ball as it rolled into the goal. Cue a bit of a debate about where Lewis had been when he touched the ball, but the reality was that he was in the D, and so the goal was given.

Sutton Valence finished the game strongly, with Chris Stille going on a mazy run of his own that ended with him being brought down before he could get in the D, Ali somehow planting a 0.99xg shot wide from yet another Hodges cross, Final whistle went, and a deserved victory. Holcombe were not completely happy, but we should take it as a complement when the opposition think we have a bunch of 1st team players in our team – it shows how far we have come this season.

MoM was definitely the ageless Steve Parker – with multiple Holcombe attacks dying at the hands of his long barrier. James Abrahams pushed him close, playing with aplomb in all positions across the back line as well as in central midfield. Harrison almost got the vote too, because he’s just so damn nice to people who write match reports.

After starting the season with 7 defeats in their first 8 games, and some reasonably heavy defeats in there too, the 2nds have performed solidly ever since. Only really being outplayed by the top 2 teams, every other game has been very even. If we’d started the season in November, we’d be comfortably midtable, and pushing for 4th/5th – a pretty decent season in the end. We have two more games to go, and while not mathematically safe just yet, there would have to be an unusual combination of results for us to drop into the bottom 2, so fingers crossed!

Team:
Ross Mackay
Steve Parker
Zak Blanchard
James Abrahams
James Willmott
Nick Hall
Lewis Mitchell
Ben Tragett
Harrison Sharpe
Alex Hodges
Alistair Robinson
Tom Willson
Chris Sheldon
Chris Stile
Duncan Wills

Goals: Tom Willson, Lewis Mitchell

Next Match: K Sport 2 (H) 9:45 29/03/2025