ASHES TO ASHES

Burnt Ash Men’s 6s 2 BOEHC Vets 5

”Ashes to ashes,
Kinch to Sandy,
We know Cornick’s
Really handy …”

… which is what David Bowie might have written had he seen this match prior to penning his 1980 hit song. This was an excellent team victory wrought from initially unpromising circumstances, with all thirteen squad members making significant contributions to a fantastic derby win, none more so than Richard Cornick and Lee Sandy, who both gave master-class performances for the full 70 minutes of a highly entertaining encounter.

Burnt Ash looked a well-balanced and highly competent team with a good balance of talented youngsters and (only slightly) older players who had put 8 goals past Maidstone on their own patch a week earlier, but while the score-line may have seemed a bit harsh on the hosts, the fact remains that the Club could have hit double figures based on the number of near misses in the second half. The BOEHC defence did well with lots of “ugly” work to keep the home forwards at bay, with both of the goals conceded coming from two of the four penalty corners awarded to the hosts, although the first required an assist from the home umpire’s boot keeping the ball inside the line just as it was heading out of play. He could perhaps be pardoned in part for his confusion as the Astroturf had enough pitch markings and colours on it to resemble a poorly-drawn London tube map. Added to this it was so wide that the right wing appeared to be in Bexley and the left in Erith. Nonetheless, the central pairing of Phil Kinch and David Maltman was a steadying influence throughout, with the latter clearly delighted that his trusty stick had made a Lazarus-like resurrection from its crippled state of two weeks earlier. He now sports the only “composite” stick in the league which is 10% wood and 90% car body filler. The team also welcomed back long-time absentee Chris Bernard into an unfamiliar right-back berth where he performed admirably whilst proving that form is temporary, class is permanent and age has no bearing on either.

Despite falling behind early on the game was effectively turned on its head in a ten-minute first half spell where the visitors grabbed a two-goal lead that they would never relinquish. First off the superb Lee Sandy fired in the equaliser from the right of the D before man-of-the-match Richard Cornick put the away team in front from another smart finish. His contribution to the third, however, might help it qualify as one of the goals of the season, as his lung-busting diagonal run from right wing to left gave the enterprising Zac Gauge a great option in the D after the ball had been worked down the left from the visitors’ own half. Stephen Gilbert’s subsequent slick assist still left Peter Dowse with plenty to do, but his finish was spectacular, spanking the ball high into the net to give the keeper no chance.

The Club had the luxury of sending on two super-subs from the bench in Mark Ainley and Andy Cooke, the latter meaning that the team was clearly pushing its slaphead-quotient to the limit, as there were now four follicly-challenged fighters on the pitch at the same time. When a team is posing a threat virtually every time it attacks, however, the pressure will ultimately tell, and it was no real surprise when a penalty flick was eventually awarded after a series of melees in the home D. The pity is only that no cameras were present to witness a textbook flick by the tremendous Paul Whitney who nearly took the roof out of top left-hand corner of the net to cap a hard working display.

There was still time for the valiant hosts to pull back a goal 15 minutes from time from a smart short-corner routine – much to the chagrin of the ever-dependable Tom Conway between the sticks - but they did not make their cause any easier by having three of their players sent to the naughty chair at various times in the game via a combination of green and yellow cards, all acquired through unnecessary backchat in a well-umpired encounter with absolutely no underlying nastiness. It was left ultimately to Zac Gauge to issue the final rites with a great shot rifled into the left corner, as if it were a 9mm gauge bullet … terrific stuff.

All of which makes some very positive statistical reading: at the halfway point of the 2015-2016 season the Vets have already matched the number of league victories achieved last year, whilst the points tally is now only two fewer than the total in 2014-2015, when there were actually two more fixtures. The team stands second in the table, just two points behind leaders Folkestone, with a sizeable gap of seven points separating them from the rest of the league. In a ten-team division, however, only the champions will be promoted, so there is still much to do if that goal is to be achieved. In the meantime, however, the Vets’ team can be highly satisfied with the progress made this year to reach the mid-season break in its highest ever position. One of the team's core members was recently asked why the players do not pay their full season’s match subs for the whole year in advance and he quipped “Because they don’t know if they’ll survive that long …” In this case it is to be hoped they do. Well done to Mssrs. Gilbert and Whitney for keeping the faith and getting the team this far.

Merry Christmas!

Team:
Tom Conway (GK), Phil Kinch, David Maltman, Chris Bernard, Tim Walters, Lee Sandy, Peter Dowse, Mark Ainley, Zac Gauge, Andy Cooke, Paul Whitney, Richard Cornick, Stephen Gilbert (C).

Man-of-the-match:
Richard Cornick.

Umpires:
Richard Cleall plus a home umpire, both of whom had very good matches whilst getting occasional ear-ache in a game which was played in an excellent but highly competitive spirit.