Sutton Valence played their first home game of the season at the prep school, where a light drizzling of rain before the game would make for an interesting surface, especially when traction isn’t always guaranteed in the dry!

SV started the game in a positive manner, taking much of the early possession and probing the Herne Bay defence in the first 15 minutes, but were unable to convert 3-4 chances in front of goal. Despite the early possession SV conceded a goal against the run of play, but felt they could easily get back into the fixture. As the half progressed Herne Bay grew in confidence and scored a second from a short corner. The half finished with SV down by two goals, but with the mindset this could be turned around in the next 35 minutes.

The start of the second half wasn’t ideal for SV, as a number of errors saw them consistently turning the ball over to the opposition. This continued throughout the half making it difficult to spend much time in Herne Bay’s D and as such not many chances were created in the early part of the half. As the half progressed the rusty stick skills improved (slightly), and Tom Willson, in his words “Put a sublime ball through to Kevin Kirkham” who converted to bring the score back to 2-1. As legs tired on both sides the game opened up more, and holes starting to regularly appear across the pitch. With just 5 minutes left in the game Tom Willson broke into the Herne Bay D and had a couple of shots saved by the keeper, with the final shot going up in the air, dropping conveniently to Mark Whitmill, who’s put the ball between the keeper’s legs to bring everything all square at 2-2. The final few minutes passed with no real danger to either team, but a draw at the end of the game was a fair result.

MoM: Tom Willson
Scorers: Kevin Kirkham; Mark Whitmill
Team: Louis Robinson, Russell Blanchard, Mark Whitmill (C), Rob Bray, Chris Sheldon, Chris Stille, Kevin Kirkham, Tom Willson, Brett Angel, Chris Johnson, Tom Bartlett, Richard Turnill, Stuart Edmed & Scott Montgomery.
Umpires: Iain Simmons & Bob Bartlett

Next week Sutton Valence 2nd XI are at Sevenoaks to play their 6th XI in an afternoon fixture.

Match report by Mark Whitmill.