Saturday 13th October, the sun was shining and Staines were coming to Short Lane for our 3rd league game of the year. With key personnel back in the team following last week’s tight loss to newly promoted Winchester, we went into the warm up full of confidence and vigour. All except Charlie Cottrell of course who was suffering with a cronic case of ‘gut rot’ after eating too many chips the night before. Still, Ashford started brightly attacking down the left through Mark Rake and Carl Meadows testing out the Staines defences.
A quick Staines counter-attack was well dealt with by ‘Digger’ Barnes and Dulux at the back, quickly feeding the ball into Meadows at left half. With the Staines defence backing off, Meadows continued the run, feeding captain ‘Washer’ in the ‘D’ to cooly slot the ball through the keepers legs - what a start! 1-0 to Ashford! However, Staines rallied and Ashford began to fall back only inviting Staines further into our ‘D’.
A series of short corners and attacks were repelled well by Dan in goal but it was no surprise that Staines levelled following a break down via Digger’s foot - and things were only worsened a few minutes later when Staines took the lead with a free flowing move straight through our midfield. We were rightly punished for not tracking back hard enough. Still, Ashford can rally as well as Staines and the free flowing game continued. We started to win back territory with some fantastic work up front by Joe Lewis (can anyone stop him?), Matt Emmerton and Ed Green and although slightly controversial, Ashford scored the equaliser 10 minutes before half time through Man-of-the-match Washer. Another chance went begging for Washer as he skied his short corner effort but still, half time came, two all - a fair reflection of a very good half.
The 2nd half of course, continued in very much the same way with both teams looking to attack down the flanks. Ashford started aggressively and following a slick move down the Staines right, Washer won a penalty strock off the defence for deliberate back stick. ‘Digger’ Barnes cooly slotted it away. 3-2 to Ashford and still plenty of time in the game. Time, which Staines used very well to stretch the game down the Ashford flanks to look for short corners - their strength - which we’d done well to repell so well to this point. Staines won some legitiamate ones and more than a fair share of ‘dubious’ corners but still, you have to take your chances - and they did - TWICE!
And that unfortunately is how the game finished - Neither team deserved to lose, neither to win - a draw was a fair reflection that both teams played some fantastic hockey and the competive edge was reflected by only 1 green card to Staines. Still, another performance to be proud of for Ashford 2s who are starting to make some real steps in their play and starting to show their true potential as a team. we travel to Brighton this week for yet another tough test.
Man of the match:
Ben Washer
Goalscorers:
Ben Washer (2)
Andrew Barnes (1S)
