The El JohnDeero Derby

Unlike one of the home umpires, Sutton Valence 2’s arrived in unusually good time on a warm winter’s morning, eagerly awaiting pushback against the local village rivals in the A229 derby. The Valence 2’s made use of the time wisely, turning the wheels on our ‘once a season’ warm up to impressively fire one ball at the small part of the goalkeeper’s unpadded arm and the rest of the 229 balls at various parts of the fence behind the goal. With hindsight, they really should have practiced a short corner or ten… more on that to follow!
Marden, allegedly the Saudi funded state route into Kent village hockey, spent the first ten minutes of the game acclimatising to some more traditional and less luxurious village pitch conditions at the Prep School, but no sooner than they had established that turning on a sixpence was not going to be possible in the morning Valence dew, Marden had slotted a short corner firmly into the bottom corner backboard to take the lead. Clinical.
Cue the traditional Sutton Valence 2’s rally. Holding a tight line at the back, moving the ball around nicely in midfield and making some good runs up top, they came back into the game strongly and although ‘dominated’ might be too strong a word, they certainly looked the most likely to score over the rest of the first half and had plenty of chances to do so. Eventually, after around half hour, Sutton Valence converted one of their numerous short corners, with Chris Sheldon nicely finishing a shot from the top of the D to bottom right corner of the goal. Parity had been restored and Sutton Valence’s goalkeeper then kindly gave his attackers an extra five minutes to think about how they were going to take the lead.
A Marden player had broken away through the middle and with a couple of defenders in hot pursuit, with a tangled web of limbs rapidly approaching him the Valence goalkeeper slid out and literally laid his body on the line in the El JohnDeero Derby. The almost inevitable knee to the goalkeeper’s head resulted in the helmet flying off the pitch and the goalkeeper going down like sack of Kent village spuds to give the rest of his team some time to contemplate what had been a pretty good half. Two successive short corners were then defended over the final minute and the whistle blew time on an encouraging and equally scored first half.
The second half was a more even affair in terms of pressure, starting well for Marden who had numbers at the back post and were able to pick their spot with a cross goal finish to take the lead. Sutton Valence maintained the intensity of a local Derby well though, coming close to converting further short corner routines on numerous occasions. It was Marden however that extended their lead, with another breakaway as the mildly concussed goalkeeper slid to block an attack and the forward then managing to shovel in the rebound under some healthy defensive pressure. Marden now had a 3-1 advantage and missed a couple of chances to extend that lead with a slide and stick clearance from the Valence keeper followed up by a dive across the width of the goal to prevent a Marden attacker from walking onto an easy tap in.
Time was already starting to run out when Sutton Valence managed to convert an attacking opportunity, with Chris Sheldon bagging a nice brace as he deflected goalwards a Lewis Mitchell missile that had been launched across the D. How much Sheldon knew about the deflection was a topic of debate after the match in the Queen’s Head over the best sausage, chips and beans in Kent, Saudi state funded or otherwise.
Back to the match though and despite some healthy pressure over the last five minutes, Sutton Valence couldn’t quite find an equaliser to snatch a deserved point at the death and it was Marden that headed back to their allegedly Emirates sponsored training complex to celebrate a 3-2 away win by rolling out their new tractors and doing donuts in their 1,921 spaced car park. As always though, the real match was won in the Queen's Head and their sausage, chips and beans remains undefeated this season.

Goals: Chris Sheldon (2)

Team: Ross Mackay; Steve Parker; Adrian Gander; Charlie Tucker; Ben Tragett; Tom Willson; Alastair Robinson; Andy Barr; Alex Hodges; Chris Sheldon; Chris Stille; Lewis Mitchell.

Match report by Ross Mackay.

Next game for the 2nd Xl is away against Old Williamsonian 5th Xl.