Men's 1s vs Crowborough M1

It was an eventful day in Sham starting with a slight wardrobe hiccup. Note to self, ensure you check your hockey top before you put it on, it might be your sister’s shirt.

Fortunately, everyone was back in their usual kit before the match started. Crowborough started well, pressing the Hailsham back line and making it challenging to play out from defence. Not sure how Crowborough’s first goal went in really, or any of them for that matter. I just remember it bobbling over the line after after Hailsham were dispossessed at the back. Shout out to Ryan and the defence for keeping it to just the one goal conceded in the first half. He got peppered in goal and made some brilliant saves.

Hailsham improved considerably towards the end of the first half, after some good play down the left hand side, Tris won a short corner, with the crowborough players protesting the decision for a while. What followed was a joy to watch. Josh SJ scored a lovely drag flick, but the real entertainment was a meltdown from one crowborough player in particular. The words cannot be repeated unfortunately.

The gusty conditions continued in the second half, with Hailsham converting a lot of promising attacks into short corners. There was some great hockey down the wings from Dave and Connor, supported by good forward play from Josh (not Headey) and Jamie.

As stated previously, I can’t really remember the goals from Crowborough in the second half, and I don’t think we need to spend much time on them. One was an interesting reverse strike from close to the baseline, resulting in our leader, Josh, being injured. Funnily enough he was healed in time to lift his arm to consume beer later in the evening. Word coming out from the club is that he should be back in action soon after he’s attended his 17th wedding this year.

Not much else to say. Hailsham were far from their best and will hope to get back to winning ways next week.