Arriving at a fairly empty Holcombe Hockey Club, was unbeknown to them, the Band of Brothers or better known, Sutton Valence 2s on a dreary and wet Saturday morning. It was the fixture against Holcombe Harriers, returning from a close draw previously at home, so it was looking to be a good battle.
As usual, there was "some" warming up, but in true SV fashion it seems that the team may have been more focused on socialising and catching up with each other before the game, rather than fully warming up and preparing themselves for the physical demands of the match
This may have been their downfall as even though SV started first out the blocks with a short corner leading to a “shot from the top” by Duncan Wills, sniped into the bottom left corner, this allowed a 1-0 start and closed the first half in good spirits, even though we had a walking wounded pushed up front, as Alistair Robinson had pulled his hamstring in the first 10 minutes and proceeded to hobble around the D trying to reach long passes dragging his leg like he was auditioning for a role in The Last of Us, but we were playing like we had done for the previous games, pressing from the back with Dan Brooks, Charlie Tucker and James Abrahams holding a great defensive line, and Ross Mackay keeping the goal free of any hurling grenades.
The half time talk was positive, however it was obviously the opportunity to voice all the current ailments that everyone was suffering, including another hamstring issue and our goal scorer was suffering a migraine and unable to see anything in his peripheral vision, so all passes need to be to his feet or he couldn’t see them. Like a Band of Brothers, they took up their positions on the field for second half of the battle, held fast for a while and battled hard, but then lost their only remaining mobile forward Duncan Field who went over in the D and damaged his thumb, so as he calmly wandered off to get a bag of peas. SV had dropped from 11 to 7 players in the second half, unperturbed, the band of brothers pulled together and despite losing players due to injuries, minimised the damage done by the opposing team.
It is a testament to the spirit and resilience of the Sutton Valence 2s team that they were able to keep up their fighting spirit and not give up, even when faced with adversity. Overall, it was a challenging game for the team, but they showed great determination and teamwork to only lose 1-4.

Goal: Duncan Wills

Team: Ross Mackay; Alex Hodges; Duncan Field; Chris Sheldon; Ben Tragett; Andy Barr; Charlie Tucker; Alastair Robinson; Duncan Wills; James Abrahams; Dan Brooks.
Umpires: Provided by Holcombe.

Match report by Chris Sheldon.

Next week the 2nd Xl are at home at 09:45 against Gravesham & Wellcome Unicorns.