Drew 1-1
Scorers: Bert Andrews
MoM: Bert Andrews
DoD: Geordie Hayward – for missing this deadline
With thanks to team sponsor MFri
Continuing The Friars tradition of being a hockey sanatorium Barry Thomas returned after a 3 month lay-off as we headed off to Herne Bay.
After Barry had put on what looked like a prosthetic knee and dropped his eyes in, Jonesy had popped his medication, and Jolyon announced he was still not fit enough though he played, off we went against a somewhat younger team.
The game soon settled into an end to end game which continued throughout which is not usually what the Friars are happy to play, or even capable of so doing. However it is what it is and fitness was thus going to be key with just the one sub as young Will Pattinson was out with a foot injury. Trigger as ever was getting great value for his match fee with save after save coming in. At the other end a useful HB keeper was also well involved and Barry T was re-setting his rusty radar and causing problems. However it was Bert Andrews who almost out of nowhere, well zipping down the left wing, hit a hard shot into the backboard and until 20 minutes to the end of the match the Friars somehow kept the lead.
A half-time peroration from 2 of our 3 internationals (Trigger and Jolyon) encouraged us to dig deep especially with our fitness.
For a while it did look that the Friars would hold out but an unfortunate deflection from Phil Dowling’s brother Guy gave Herne Bay the equaliser. If it had been at the other end it would have been a quite brilliant goal which Phil would have reminded us about!
So all to play for in the last 20 minutes. The Friars dug in and with John Aikin playing at centre back owing to the surfeit of forwards had a great game. James Blackburn taking over vocal duties from Cllr Alex, along with Jamie Harris and Greg Lound also had good shifts.
There were chances in the last 5 minutes for both teams but the honours remained even.
Thanks to Spratty and a young HB umpire on his first outing for their excellent officiating. Only downside was the cold shower on offer though we were warmed up
Squad: John Aikin, Bert Andrews, James Blackburn, Guy Dowling, Jamie Harris, Geordie Hayward, Brian Hurlow, Tony Jones (C), Greg Lound, Dr Jolyon Miles, Barry Thomas, Simon Triggs (GK)
