Spring is here, Ski season is passing but with a warm sun and cool northernly wind , SVHC 3s have all arrived by 5 mins prior to 9:45 PB . Valence welcomed back Keeper Stewart Young from an extended break due to the dreaded Covid. Having been out so long he’s forgotten which kit goes where, and was still enrobing when a back-true-to-form Andrew Wishart arrived just before push pack (now on 4 weeks of arriving early), but still with enough time to have his standard toilet break and get his socks on. As the author notes this is Wishart’s penultimate game for the club after 12 years of service to Mens’ 3’s (4s) Vets and several seasons as an umpire and Club Captain , he will be moving to new pastures in June.

All that said , the team looked spritely against Sevenoaks, who were still suffering from car lag ( noting early start, potentially due to beers consumed in the new liberal social conditions allowed by HMGovt and their missuses on a Friday night) and being thrown completely off course by a lack of hooks to hang their bags from!

The warm up consisted of a few token jogs to the other side of the pitch, and some intense passing. Conscious not to wear ourselves out or damage something (we wish our chairman well in his next hamstring recovery period (8 months lost to left hammie, now done the right, silly boy), we quickly meandered around the D, whilst Morgan and Sheldon gave the oppo some insight into their dead ball skills.

Captain Hall won the toss and chose to take push back, which was considered the single most important reason for the victory! Sevenoaks, concerned about the sun chose to swap ends. Valence started well with some quick accurate passing allowing them to press high and quickly managed to get a short corner. Morgan injects, Sheldon stops , pushes the ball forward looks like he might trip but strikes the ball towards the bottom right - 2 inches inside the post .. 1 Up to SVHC.

This stung Sevenoaks, who now started rolling tackles, putting their passing game into overdrive and rotating their players to drive hard towards SVHC and with several saves from Stewart, some great kick-aways, SVHC were under pressure for several minutes.

New Club Umpire (Andy Bye) was taking no chat back and to add pressure to SVHC advised Stewart to moderate his chat-back or hearing aide to avoid a green card. Now fully defensive, with several more short corners, Sevenoaks got a goal back … Half Time 1-1 , honours even but Valence felt their game was below par …

Half time resembled the end of a marathon with all players taking on lots of water (heat exhaustion was a potential issue for some), discussions about tactics resulted in “General” Morgan asking them just to pass the ball to stick and not Sevenoaks. Familiar request at each game this season!!!

Second Half - Rob Harrison now umpiring, Bye moved from umpire to right back, Gander to centre back, all others hoping to remember what position they are playing, with the objective to press high and move the ball in the wider channels..

Let battle commence.. and so it did, more end to end stuff and SVHC now very thankful for Chris Sheldon/Tom Bartlett (Jnrs ) and Duncan Field/Alastair Robinson (over 40s) showing off their running skills in midfield with Charlie Tucker sprinting hard too while Tom Morgan/Chris Sheldon/Darren Thompson increasingly upfront demonstrating more than their usual bag of stick skills. High pressure brought high intensity, and some heated discussions within a team striving for perfection, with Nick Hall and Darren Thompson discussing who was closer to a miss directed pass (Thompson!), culminating in Hall succinctly suggesting where Thompson should go to.

And so the miracle came, Thompson at the top of the D gets a bouncing ball return of a Chris Sheldon short corner strike off the keeper, coming back to his reverse stick, he looks up at the keeper seeing the keeper is on the right of the goal and slots a perfect reverse stick ‘cover drive’ into the bottom left corner. SVHC 2-1.

Now Valence are a family-orientated “laissez faire” club and so while battling high in the Sevenoaks 23, Team Morgan arrived to support their player - “General” Morgan - playing Centre Forward… and lots of encouragement he received too … so much so we heard after several fluffed attempts the immortal words “come on Daddy you can score”. Not to be outdone - SVHC broke from a quicker than average 16 take, ball to young Sheldon who skins his oppo with a darting run around the player, pushes ball to the General , who coming from the left steps into the D and rivets the ball, low right past the keeper with so much power that he ended up crumpled on the floor, to the total glee from Team Morgan cheer-leaders… and by now his flagging 3s team members.

Game now at 2 mins, Sevenoaks are back looking for a goal, Thompson’s body checks-out and he retires to the bench, more shorts and a final short at game end, where Valence cleared the ball away … whistle blows … 3-1 to SVHC.

Worth noting, the cheerleaders were so enthralled by daddy’s contribution, that the youngest two signed themselves up for the ‘Battle of Cranbrook’ next Saturday.

As at home matches, back to Queens Head for excellent Sausage/Beans/Chips and a few pints of Goachers!! Not only did we win the match, we went on to excel ourselves and win teas too.

Whats not to enjoy a spring Sat Morning with mates and a game of hockey to boot!!

Special thanks to Andy Bye and Rob Harrison for umpiring a half each and Iain for umpiring as usual.

Goals: Tom Morgan, Darren Thompson, Chris Sheldon.

MOTM: Jack Sheldon for his tireless running

Team : Stewart Young, Nick Hall (c), Rob Harrison, Adrian Gander, Andrew Wishart, Duncan Field, Alastair Robinson, Tom Bartlett, Darren Thompson, Tom Morgan, Chris Sheldon, Jack Sheldon, Charlie Tucker, Andy Bye.
Umpires: Iain Simmons; Andy Bye; Rob Harrison.

Match report by Andrew Wishart.

Next week, in their final game of the season, the 3rds are away against Newenden