Won 1-0
Scorers: Alex Ricketts
MoM: Simon Triggs
DoD: John Aikin
With thanks to team sponsor MFri
A large squad of 15 Friars went to Gillingham to meet 15 Anchorians so it was roll-on roll-off hockey from both teams and open hockey in the first 20 minutes. Despite not having our iconic manager (it was after all Valentine’s Day so he does have his priorities we suppose) his presence was still felt – we were all conscious of the need to “upgrade” once in the D. This was followed to the letter with the Scribbler managing to hit a foot. This gave Cllr Alex the opportunity to hobble up to The D and hit a rocket into the backboard and this after just 8 minutes! He subsequently retired injured for the rest of the game with knee issues. However after that the shape (of the Friars that is!) never good at the best of times became very poor and they were lucky not to concede however Trigger kept out a rocket shot and the defence of Jamie, Brian and Sir Geoff were stalwart. The Friars managed to hang on not helped by John Boy Aikin owning up to intentionally passing the ball to the umpire. He immediately awarded himself Dick of The Day for that! We added a visit to Spec Savers might be useful too!
After the usual invigorating half-time “chat” from Trigger into the the second half and the short corners for Anchs mounted up. Their goalie hardly touched the ball in the second half. In fact no short corners for us but there must’ve been 20+ in the whole game for them which our defence valiantly kept out.. They took their goalie off five minutes before time to try and force the draw but to no avail and the Friars defence were awesome. The Christ Church lads of Jamie, Harry and Lucas all put in big shifts.
A match played in excellent spirits and big thanks & a shout out to our opposition Gillingham Anchorians 4s who very generously donated £60 to the Charity Day. They also had kindly agreed to play this fixture a week early so that we could attend The Club Charity Day.
And this is our new away strip supplied by Y1 & numbered by JustSo. (see pic by Charlie Lewis).
Squad: John Aikin, Bert Andrews, Lucas Coda-East, Guy Dowling, Jamie Harris, Geordie Hayward, Chris Hendy, Brian Hurlow, Tim Lewis, Harry Lomas, Sir Geoff Philpott, Cllr Alex Ricketts, Nick Tan, Simon Triggs (GK), AND back up crew of: Phil Dowling (Virtual Manager), Tony Jones (non playing skipper and actual manager), Merv Lewis (Asst Manager), Charlotte Lewis (PR & Photographer)
