Valence travelled to Sunny Gillingham this week, interesting as the birthplace of the Elizabethan seafarer, William Adams who founded the 1st Japanese navy and made famous in James Clavell’s novel “Shogun”.
After an interesting journey after taking the scenic route to the pitch, the two Edmed brothers and Darren “Dazzler” Thompson just about made it on time. They were greeted by a lack of toilet paper but also a fine body of men ready for the task ahead.
Andrew Wishart was wearing his “Kaboom” socks so was meaning business as he did his Kate Bush-esque warmup routine. However they were missing the evergreen veteran goal machine Rob Cockayne who was unavailable due a mild case of earache which he got from his other half and Duncan Wills was also unavailable due to the time clashing with his weekly hot stone massage and pedicure session.
The opposition were doing some impressive warmups themselves with some well-practiced defensive clearances off the back of the pitch, their imposing veteran centre forward, aka the one armed bandit, was supervising to ensure his energy was saved for the main event.
The game started brightly with Valence controlling the ball down the right flank via Duncan Field and with the energetic Jack Sheldon in midfield Anchorians didn’t see very much of the ball. After spending the morning mowing his helipad Alistair Robinson looked full of hope and energy and was rewarded when he latched onto a loose ball at the far post and reverse flicked it through the keeper’s legs to put Valence ahead after 10 minutes.
Valence then got caught on the break but the resulting shot went well wide. This brought Wishart’s socks into action, giving him the power to hit the long hard ball which found Tom “Barracuda” Bartlett who slotted it to the handsome Thomas Morgan allowing him to turn and hit a rasping shot past the keeper into the bottom corner.
The introduction of Stuart Edmed and Darren Thompson 20 minutes into the half caused excitement in the partisan crowd and allowed Robinson and Wishart to recharge their batteries and further discuss Helipads and Kate Bush.
The change worked well when Thompson slipped the ball to Edmed and the resulting shot was deflected home by Tom Bartlett making the score 3-0 at half time.
After a rousing half time talk Anchorians came out fighting in the 2nd half and managed to win a succession of short corners. The first forced a solid save from Whitmill and the other 2 were dealt with by the defence. From the resulting 16 Adrian Gander, who was dribbling like an able-bodied man, burst out of defence passed the ball to the taller and better looking John Edmed who coolly linked with Sheldon in midfield and found his Dad on top of the D. after some tippy tapping Sheldon senior had a shot but unfortunately it was from his days of being a goalie kit test engineer and after blasting it against the keeper’s legs from close range the legs pads were deemed to be of high quality. Minutes later he repeated the test on the keeper’s other leg just to make sure.
After a few minutes of defending against the youthful Anch’s midfield, Edmed passed the ball to Thompson from a long corner which he then slotted through a crowd of players to find Sheldon Senior unmarked on the P-spot. Unbelievably he found a chink in the keeper’s armour and pushed the ball around the keeper’s pads and into the bottom right corner to put Valence 4-0 up and looking good.
With some of the Valence players looking tired and thirsty Morgan decided to up his intensity levels and was finding a lot of space inside the opposition’s half as their heads went down. After a deft flick, only likened to Brain Harvey’s parking skills, trickled wide, a pass from John Edmed put him one on one with the keeper and this time he made no mistake and slammed it inside the stretched out goalkeeper to make it 5-0. Pretty much immediately Valence won a short corner and after fluffing the stop Thompson dragged the ball hard low and left only to be denied by the defender who saved it on the line.
Morgan completed the job and his 1st Hat-trick for 25 years 5 minutes from the end with a well finished goal after latching on the tireless and well-groomed Duncan Field’s cross from the right flank making the final score 6-0 in a good game of hockey.
Credit must go to the opposition who played and tried until the final whistle despite knowing they were looking at relegation. Also a big shout out to the Anchorians’ crowd, players and umpires for making the match a pleasure to play and also to Mrs Cockayne for giving us the chance to play without that ball-hogging loudmouth excuse of a man Rob xx.

Goals: Alistair Robinson; Tom Bartlett; Chris Sheldon; Tom Morgan (3)

MoM: Tom Morgan

Team: Mark Whitmill; Adrian Gander; Nick Hall; Darren Thompson; Andrew Wishart; Duncan Field; John Edmed; Stuart Edmed; Jack Sheldon; Chris Sheldon; Alistair Robinson; Tom Morgan; Tom Bartlett.
Umpires: Provided by Anchorians.

Match report by Darren Thompson.

Next week the 3rd Xl are at home at 09.45 against Sevenoaks 8th Xl.