GRAVESHAM BURY HEATH HOPES

BOEHC Highwayman 0 Gravesham & Wellcome Men’s 3s 3

This was a vastly different affair from the listless showing a week earlier against an excellent Gravesham team that thoroughly deserved to win, even if the victory margin itself was ultimately a little flattering. The guests have been one of the form teams of 2016 and the benefits of the merger with Wellcome are clearly showing rich dividends, with three or four quality additions to their squad, and talk of adding a fifth men’s team, when many Kent clubs are looking rather to cull existing ones.

The hosts were able to field – for once – a relatively unchanged team (rendering the customary pre-match introductions redundant), with Phil Kinch and man-of-the-match Steve Miller once again ensuring that the second-best defensive record in the league was still preserved after this defeat. Tom Conway was excellent between the posts too, and could do nothing about the three rather flaky efforts that beat him.

The Highwaymen’s rich booty of midfield talent was again on show, with the experienced trio of Richard Cleall, Mark Ainley and Ravi Wickramasuriya always at the heart of things, although the last of these was hampered by injury before taking on the “lone striker” mantle (or “cape”, perhaps?) in the second half. For once he did not have to suffer the same level of physical persecution akin to a Highwayman with a price on his head, but his presence was missed in the middle as the game stretched late on. In the wide berths and up front Greg Dowse, Steve Garth and Sammy Chana were once again prominent, whilst the returning Peter Robinson and Chris Bernard added to the available options, before the latter yielded to inevitable injury. The team’s talismanic youngster Josh Clark had his best game since the Maidstone fixture in October and will doubtless be hoping to build on this in the last two fixtures prior to the Christmas break.

Captain Stephen Gilbert continued his return from injury with a couple of cameos, but the general lack of firepower and recognised strikers up front continues to plague the team’s prospects. Ironically enough, it was the hosts who nearly opened the scoring when some fine work down the right led to a shot cannoning off the left-hand post to safety, and in the second half any number of balls were fired into the visitors’ D from the same flank, but sadly to no avail. At times the team therefore looks about as likely to score as Freddie Mercury in a convent, and it is now nearly two-and-a-half hours since the men from BOEHC heard the thump of the backboard in the visitors’ net.

The home team’s brave second-half efforts were not helped by a number of umpiring decisions going against them, albeit amidst much head-scratching and confusion, nor by the temporary departures of Mssrs. Robinson and Chana to green and yellow cards respectively, in a game that was otherwise played in an exceptionally good spirit by both camps, with honesty and humour much in evidence, despite the highly competitive nature of the game.

On a positive note, the Highwaymen have just negotiated a tricky trio of fixtures and do not have to face the “coastal curse” again this side of Christmas, as any matches against teams from the Medway, Swale, Thames Estuary or English Channel have proved particularly problematic during 2016. Mercifully both Sevenoaks and Bromley & Beckenham – the next two opponents on the fixture list before the mid-season break – appear to both be “landlocked”. Even better is the fact that the week-end’s results involving the other top teams in Division 3 mean that the Highwaymen have retained their second-place spot in the table, and that it is now within their own power to hold on to this position till January.

Generally the Highwayman’s promotion hopes end up at the gallows at Tyburn at roughly the same time as the Christmas decorations come down early in the New Year. It would be a shame if the process started with the leaves falling off the trees in the late autumn instead … or indeed at all in 2017. And in the same week where England soccer captain Wayne Rooney was caught on camera revelling after midnight before an important match, it is interesting too to see what the Highwaymen’s resident photographer witnessed in a West Wickham pub a mere hours before Saturday’s fixture! But back to business … having suffered the graveyard shift against Gravesham, the Highwaymen have to hit the road early for a dawn dust-up away, followed by a breakfast battle at home to round off the year.

It is still all to pay for.

Team:
Tom Conway (GK), Tim Walters, Phil Kinch, Steve Miller, Ravi Wickramasuriya, Peter Robinson, Chris Bernard, Richard Cleall, Mark Ainley, Sammy Chana, Greg Dowse, Steve Garth, Josh Clark and Stephen Gilbert (C).

Man-of-the-match:
Steve Miller – a rock at the back upon which many a Gravesham foray foundered … full of class, humour and leadership, and certainly did not deserve to lose.

Umpires:
Chris Fowler was the BOEHC official on whistle duty and did an absolutely marvellous job in a fast-moving game, and in very cold conditions after he had just played for the Men’s 2s – well done. He found it even easier once he was given a whistle that was actually audible to humans rather than the occasional roving stray dog at College Meadow! The visiting umpire was an extremely nice gentlemen who unfortunately started producing cards a bit too early (and rather selectively) for Christmas, and probably thought his team were all umpires as Gravesham & Wellcome play in black shirts anyway.