Tactical Masterclass

Valence felt that they had something to prove against New Becs. The early season encounter at the HSBC ground had not gone to plan. A hard fought 1-1 battle. Fast forward to the first weekend in February. The great and the good of the club were finding their way to various ski resorts. Those that were left had another battle on.

Sutton Valence’s 2nd best eleven hockey players generally like to make life hard for themselves. Last season, their speciality was to let the opposition get a healthy lead, shout at each other (a lot) and then actually start playing, for a nail biting, yet ultimately satisfactory conclusion.

The first half of this season didn’t quite go according to plan. I am not saying our fortunes are tracking that of the Leicester City football team, but there are definite similarities. Winning was a habit last season, this season, life has been more chaotic! However, consecutive hard fought victories in fluctuating matches against Deal and Burnt Ash made SV believe that there could be a more consistent second half of the season.

New Becs arrived at the Prep School pitch to find the gate locked, similar to the SV defence. In fact for the first 25 minutes SV actually looked pretty good. The ball was being passed, from red to red, back to a red and decent progress ensued.

At the away match it is fair to say that the SV team and the New Becs umpire had a misalignment of views. It seemed that it was New Becs’ turn this week. Multiple short corners were awarded against them. Early season form returned to the SV strike force. The SV defence watched from the halfway line as several mediocre ‘routines’ avoided the goal. The BB official kept his side of the bargain and kept awarding the penalty corners but SV kept missing.

Eventually the dead lock was broken. James Pascoe finally flicking a short corner past the keeper. One nil quickly became two nil as the evergreen Willson stepped up and added a second. Never liking life on the pitch too easy, Valence decided that they best give Captain Fantastic an encore of his half time speech from last week, thus conceding a goal before half time. 2-1 at the break.

The aforementioned speech out the way, the second half started. NB obviously had a resolution to play with a greater tempo and really brought the game to SV. The main event had started. The pressure began to build and Valence’s defence now had to deal with the short corner trigger happy umpire. Generally the defence coped well, but New Becs had some willing runners up front that pressured the SV defence. Young set pulses racing when he looked certain to save, opening his legs at the last minute to allow the ball through. Luckily Parker was on the line to keep the home team in the lead.

Defending short corners. Four defenders and a keeper versus the full attacking threat of the opposition. That is until one of the defenders runs out before the play is started by the attacking team. Last week Willson let every ounce of his feelings known when one of the younger SV defenders jumped the gun and was directed by the Umpire to the half way line. ‘You clearly are not intelligent enough to work out when to run’ was the not particularly encouraging or supportive comment. So it was quite amusing for Willson to be banished to the half way line during a defensive short corner… He clearly does not have the intelligence… (Or maybe he just made a mistake in the heat of battle…) Something to think about Tommy.

Never the less New Becs were playing well and Sutton Valence weren’t. Lose tackles and a couple of trips to the sin bin for Valence players did not help SV’s rhythm. NB pressed and Valence conceded, 2-2.

It is fair to say that the opposition had a few players that must have been on holiday during the early season encounter. Some were full of running, some were skilful and others had both attributes. No.7 was clearly a good quality player. ‘Pass the ball to me’ he demanded on several occasions. In all fairness he was pretty handy, generally SV kept him at bay. That was until he made it 2-3. However, when his stick got locked with the SV No. 18’s he did however lose the tug of war… Unlucky soldier.

So, 65 minutes gone, 2-3 down, Valence had got the strops and moans out of their collective system. The team remembered how to pass the ball again, something that had pretty much eluded the home team for the first 30 minutes in the second half. Pressure began to mount on NB’s defence again.

Into the final minute, SV force a short corner, and then another. The final whistle goes. Another short corner. A strike on goal, heading for the bottom right… It hits the defender’s foot. The umpire signals another short corner… The other umpire overrules. A penalty stroke…. Arise Jimmy ‘The Kid’ Pascoe, (he’s the new Steve Parker you know). With the casual approach of Andrea Pirlo dinking the ball past Joe Hart in 2012, Jimmy rolls the ball against the backboard with the last touch of the game. 3-3.

Training in cancelled on Tuesday night, instead we will be clearing the toys and dummies left behind by New Becs.