Valence 3rd Xl arrived to an early morning pushback at Maidstone looking to continue their winning start to 2020. Valence started the game well, putting together some good attacking moves but failing to find the finishing touch. Maidstone looked dangerous on the counter, with long balls out of their defence looking to pick out their forwards, but these were mostly well dealt with by the Valence defence and keeper.
Eventually Valence opened the scoring with the attackers linking up well and Rob Cockayne applying the finish. Valence continued to show moments of good play but started to become more fractured as they looked to play the difficult passes rather than keeping it simple as has worked for the rest of the season. However, Valence managed to add a second before half time through a Duncan Wills strike from a short corner.
Maidstone persevered and managed to pull one goal back through a well worked short corner of their own. Through the remainder of the second half, Valence were unlucky not to add to their tally, but also had to weather a number of Maidstone attacks, including a string of back to back shorts. As Valence reset between shorts, the final whistle went causing a swarm of Maidstone players to come forward in a last-ditch attempt to level the match. The ball was injected to the top of the dee but the strike was charged down by James Abrahams with the deflection eventually finding a Maidstone foot and ensuring Valence clung on to the victory.
Valence thought that the win would only put them top of their League until rivals Old Bordenians played later in the day, but as the results came in news reached them of a second Old Bordenians loss of the year meaning that Valence remain top on goal difference. A position they aim to keep.

MOM: James Abrahams - for charging down the last short corner in the last seconds of the game.

Team: Scott Clifton, Nick Hall, Rob Harrison, Phil Morris, James Abrahams, Duncan Field, Richard Turnill, Darren Thompson, Andrew Wishart, Duncan Willis, Rob Cockayne
Plus Crowd support from Adrian Gander and his dog.
Umpire: Rupert Humphrey
Next week the 3rd Xl play away against Sevenoaks 8th Xl, currently lying 5th.

Match Report by Andrew Wishart.