Sparticans in Strong Away Win
By James Warren
Sparticans 4 – 1 Addiscombe M3s
Spartican of the Day – Jordan M (Part of our youth development policy)
It was the match nobody wanted to miss. 4 o’clock. Away. Croydon. Addiscombe were our hosts. The pitch was conducive to our slick passing game. Our side was packed with youth (Ben W, Jamie T, Jordan M, Austin V) as well as the returning prodigal ‘son’, Myles T.
We started the game strongly marshaled in midfield by Annabel and Myles. With pace out wide and the guile of Kev, we created many a chance. Not for the first time, we struggled to convert those chances, although both Kev and Lewis did hit the post. We did eventually go 1 to the good, when Jordan showed Captain Chaos (Curtis) how to apply the finishing touch to a great strike from Kev. Unfortunately, soon after Chaos tried to recreate the first goal but his size 15s got in the way. That was pretty much the last we saw of our Captain.
The second half started in much the same manner. Chances being created by some excellent trickery from Jordan and Austin as well as some rapier like slaps to the far post from Lewis. None were converted. It was at this point our trusted centre back pairing of Matt and Jimmer forgot how to play hockey. Errant passing invited pressure which was not learnt from and after five minutes of poor hockey we conceded a sloppy equaliser.
The pressure kept coming with Lee making a couple of excellent saves from a string of short corners. It looked like it was going to be a frustrating afternoon in Croydon but with ten minutes to go we came roaring back. Three quick goals sealed the win. A great strike from a short corner from Kev, ably assisted by a ‘cunning’ disguised push into the D from Annabel, was followed by a sweeping move which saw Kev set up Lewis for a very neatly finished reverse stick goal. Jordan put the icing on the cake by once again showing a true poacher’s instinct to nick a second.
It wasn’t a bad afternoon for the travelling team after all, culminating in the latest installment in our creative interpretation of our @HockeyTeas odyssey.