Marlow vs AHC Toes

Match Report written by guest writer - Ian 'Macca' McAllan

After a couple of close games with Marlow last season it seemed like we were going to be in for another tight game. Marlow had played 2 lost 2 and up until Saturday we had a win and a loss. The pre-match saw the usual pass around of the sub-rotations, which the boys are starting to like and some words of encouragement including ‘We’re a 2nd XI and they’re not.’ Good observation from our oldest, elder statesman Shar...

The game started 10 mins late, with a delay caused by the umpire. That wasn’t the last umpire induced delay of the day... The umpires set the tone before pushback as we looked to start the game by delaying the start until the Marlow forward was at least 4.5m away. We started quite well but on a tricky water base began to struggle in possession. Marlow began to gain more possession and early on threw aerials into our back line. One of which wasn’t blown for us with the attacker on Steve’s shoulder, I switched off and waited for the whistle and the forward nipped the ball onto my foot just outside the D (for a short corner). Pick the umpiring errors out of that one!

A spell of pressure and short corners from Marlow produced a number of last ditch tackles from myself, Shar and Parker, plus a really good goal line save from a short corner from Croxon. Jack made a number of good saves during this period and looked every bit of a 2s goalkeeper again.

As the half wore on the game started to even out. We had flurries into their D with the Taylor brothers getting involved. We missed a couple of good chances through Chris T who did the hard work then missed the target and then we were unlucky from a short corner that hit the inside of the post... Late on in the half Steve T showed he had lost his goal scoring magic after a back post miss during a short Corner. With minutes of the first half remaining and having regained a foothold Croxon received the ball in the D and shifted his body in front of the defender...

Croxon picked himself up and slotted the penalty stroke away to put us 1-0 up at half-time.

The second half was an end to end affair with Joe setting his mark on the game and Marlow working hard to double and triple team him on every possible occasion. Callum began to use his pace down the right and the father-son combination produced some good attacks down the right with Callum making their captain look very average on a number of occasions.

Second half pressure eventually told after a string of interesting calls, which led to a raft of short corners for Marlow. The Marlow short corner routines weren’t very slick and on another day they might have won comfortably, with that said they did convert a scrappy equaliser with about 10 minutes to go from one of their many short corners.

As the game came towards its conclusion Marlow pressed for a winner and we caught them on the counter attack. Once again the Croxon/Tom Daley/Premier League footballer made the most of an opportunity by hitting the deck for a second penalty stroke of the game.

Ryan pulled himself up out of the water (base) and put the ball in the ‘keepers top right corner. The Marlow centre back then got himself yellow carded for the last few minutes and Marlow played the last 2 with 10 men and no goalkeeper. We saw the game out to end a scrappy game as winners!!

There were flashes of good hockey on a tough surface with rules in play that nobody really understood. We kept our heads better than Marlow and converted a much higher percentage of the chances we had. A draw may have been a fair reflection of the game but how often do you come out on the wrong end of these types of game? Saturday was our turn to be on the right end of the result!

MoM - Joe - Great work rate and drove the midfield. Occupied multiple opposition players.
DOD - Croxon - Diving/Amateur dramatics