Sutton Valence 2s arrived at Thomas Aveling school on an overcast but surprisingly mild morning with a strong line up, all filled with genuine optimism having kickstarted their season the previous week with a convincing victory over high-flying Maidstone 3s.

Unfortunately for the soon-to-be-proven over-confident Valence team, the day’s opposition, K-Sports 2s appeared to be disappointingly unaffected by the tales of mighty Valence’s previous heroism that had no doubt been the talk of the South East Men’s Division 5 Invicta, and they began the match with remarkably few signs of awe and reverence.

The exchanges in the opening 10 minutes or so were reasonably even, with Valence arguably looking slightly the more threatening of the sides following some probing movements down both left and right flanks. K-Sports meanwhile tended to do their best work through the middle of the pitch. A momentary lapse in concentration on the 12th minute saw Sutton Valence’s defence carved open far too easily – 1-0 K-Sports.

Commendably, Sutton Valence’s heads stayed up, and shortly afterwards some fine work down the right flank from Chris Stille saw two defenders left trailing in his wake before he flashed a splendid pass across the face of goal towards Alastair Robinson lurking at the far post. Unfortunately Robinson’s boundless ambition and enthusiasm weren’t quite matched by talent and his off-balance shot was comfortably saved by the keeper.

With Valence threatening to play themselves into the game at this stage, the scene was set for a change of gear. Which duly arrived. Regrettably however, the shift was akin to slamming the lever directly from 4th to reverse, the team’s gearbox was immediately shredded and the pieces left scattered all over the metaphorical road. For a good twenty minutes or so the hapless Valence team contrived to play some very pedestrian hockey, with misplaced passes a plenty, some ill-advised attempts to beat the third man, plentiful wayward shooting, and some very iffy defending. Two soft goals quickly followed for K-Sports who seemed more surprised than ungrateful at being repeatedly allowed a clear sight of the Valence goal. In some respects Valence could consider themselves somewhat fortunate to arrive at half-time only 3-0 down. It was widely agreed at half time that we were all, more or less to a man, terrible.

Having given themselves this harsh-but-fair appraisal during the break, frustration levels were understandably creeping up throughout the team. This bubbled over shortly after the restart, as Bear’s typical deft touch briefly deserted him and we witnessed a rather more agricultural style of play coming to the fore. Briefly, because, despite his imaginative efforts to avoid the umpire’s attention by hiding behind a facemask, Bear was politely, and somewhat inevitably, invited to consider his behaviour from the sidelines for two minutes.

Following on from this setback however, Valence did manage to steady the ship somewhat, looking rather more like their usual selves and for much of the second half the comeback seemed like a possibility. With around ten minutes of the second half played, Chris Stille drifted into the D from the left and flashed a fine shot back across the face of the goal past the helpless K-Sports keeper. 3-1, and the fight back was on.

Valence continued to probe the K-Sports back line, with Hodges, Wilson and Angel all finding themselves in promising positions at times but alas unable to provide the finishing touch. Valence also had a number of opportunities during a run of short corners but were still unable to find their shooting boots. Despite the stirring fightback the contest was effectively settled around 10 minutes from time when a rapid break down the left saw the K-Sports striker breeze past two defenders and around Dave the Save before finishing from an acute angle.

1-1 for the second half then, but a deserved 4-1 match win for K-Sports overall. By way of consolation, Sutton Valence will find it hard not to improve on this performance for the return fixture at the fortress.

Team:
David Turner
Charlie Tucker
James Willmott
Alex Hodges
Brett Angel
Andy Barr
Alistair Robinson
Chris Sheldon
Adrian Gander
Ben Tragett
Duncan Wills
Chris Stile
James Abrahams
Tom Wilson

Report By: Alistair Robinson

Next Match: Deal (H) 09:45