Lost 1-2
Scorers: Tom Parkin
MoM: Cllr Alex Ricketts
With thanks to team sponsor MFri
It was pride of place on AW1 for the Friars, facing off against Sevenoaks 8s in the low sitting autumn sunshine, with both teams lining up for a minute’s silence to pay their respects for all those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.
Not too sure about his teammates, but Mike Barton was certainly prepared for these conditions. A veteran of southern hemisphere hockey his soft brimmed and ‘perfectly legal umpire’ cap is never far from his side. So while there was the usual gentle ribbing it was Barton who had the last laugh over his squinting half blinded teammates.
The Friars scored first, with Tom Parkin engineering a goal at the far post, his face erupting with the sheer joy of it! The opposing goalkeeper’s face exhibited his own eruption – that of astonishment and dismay as, Tom, truth be told mishit the ball totally fooling and wrong footing the keeper – result!
The game was very competitively fought and Friars went into the half-time break 1-0 up.
After the usual words and opinion which nobody really seems to take any notice of it was into the second half and soon after the resumption Sevenoaks equalised. The second half was a hard fought battle with plenty of colliding big units at both ends of the pitch especially the Friars end with Trigger, Alex, Mike, Jamie and Biggles pulling out all the stops but it seemed only a mater of time before Sevenoaks would score to claim the lead. Ewan Hutchinson stepped up at centre half and worked his socks off. One of the Friars heavy units (Alex R) came off with a damaged gearbox apparently and sadly Sevenoaks scored a second rather scrappy goal ten minutes from time.
There was a late chance to equalise with Tom Parkin (that man again) running at pace onto a fine through ball that dissected the Sevenoaks defence, but it was not to be. The Friars had battled to the end but the final score was a 2-1 loss.
(After the first class spin above, if truth be told, Sevenoaks were a first class opposition and the better team won)
Thanks very much to Les Guru and Max for umpiring though it was a close run thing for Max who text through to say he might be late as his garage door had fallen off. A novel but truthful excuse which he will only be able to use once in his burgeoning umpiring career.