LITTLE HOME COMFORT FOR HIGHWAYMEN

BEHC Highwaymen 0 Old Beccehamians Men's 2s 4

The patched-up Highwaymen signed off their last home fixture of 2019 with a sound and deserved defeat at the hands of local rivals, Old Beccehamians, who eventually pulled away with three second goals, whilst the home side barely registered an effort on target all game.  Sooner or later the side's inability to field its strongest 11 was going to cost them dear, and so it proved against the only team to beat table-toppers BBHC (rather worryingly the Highwaymen's next opponents) this season.  The home side must have driven over a whole litter of black cats en route to the match, as bad luck bedevilled them all the way, with the ball somehow hitting numerous random body parts almost at will.  But if the Highwaymen were not exactly getting the rub of the green, then the visitors in the green shirts were able to really rub salt in the wounds as a result.  It was easy to see how Old Beccehamians had negotiated the whole of last season undefeated, but far more difficult to see how they had managed to lose twice this season - they look a very accomplished team indeed.

Even in defeat there is always the odd positive to grasp, principally the great Club spirit which saw various players come to the team's aid: Sam Hannon in goal, Jade Bloomfield up front, and Seb Cox in midfield, who got a mouthful of stick in the second half for his trouble.  Likewise Matt Robinson up front, who went on to play another full game for the Dynamos later in the afternoon.  To its credit, the team hung on at 0-1 down for a full half-hour after conceding an early penalty flick, and stayed in the game as long as they could.  Resistance was only broken following a series of short corner awards, many of which would not have survived a bit of VAR intervention, but there can never be any complaints in a game where you do not score yourselves.

With two away games to go before the Christmas break the team can reflect on a fixture list where the easier and harder games come in blocks, and where the Highwaymen are not necessarily one of the top two or three teams in the division any more.  Nevertheless, they have played some very good hockey during the first half of the 2019-2020 season, and will doubtless be both proud and worthy away at BBHC next Saturday, regardless of the outcome.

Team:
Sam Hannon (GK), Tim Walters, Richard Cleall, Steve Miller, Seb Cox, Phil Kinch, Ed Smyth, Ravi Wickramasuriya, Stephen Gilbert, Jade Bloomfield, Pat Gainey, Matt Robinson and Tony D'Cruz.

Man-of-the-match:
Ed Smyth - kept going for the full 70 minutes up and down the right flank, and never gave up, despite almost incessant pressure from the visitors.

Umpires:
Dan Bayliss and the OldBex umpire both absolved their duties well, although it would be fair to say that neither were exactly over-generous towards the home team, quite the contrary, in fact.  It would be even fairer to state, however, that this had no bearing whatsoever on the final outcome of the match.