Sidmouth & Ottery Hockey Club (SOHC) men’s fourth XI played their final match before the Christmas break and they suffered a frustrating 4-2 defeat at the hands of visiting Chard B.
With 13 players available to him, captain Dan Weedon worked out a rotation plan for the forwards and midfielders, but a seventh minute injury to Steve Ellison, meant the pre-match plan for the front line was abandoned.
Despite the change in personnel, the side quickly settled into some good passing play and applied pressure on the Chard defence.
It was not long before Richard Lucas picked up a ball on the left of the area and even though he was going wider, he beat the keeper with a reverse stick shot to give SOHC the lead. The advantage was held through to the interval despite SOHC being rediced to 10 men after the match official asked Euan Webber to take two-minute break for a stick tackle.
During the break captain Dan gave some encouraging words, but he did caution his team to the fact that he was sure Chard would come back strongly.
The captain's thoughts were accurate and Chard were straight onto the front foot from the restart and equalised early on.
Despite the setback, SOHC kept pressing and Andrew Coley seized on a mistake in the visiting defence before stepping forward and striking the ball from the edge of the area to fire the home side back into the lead.
The execution of the goal was one to savour for, by his own admission, Coley rarely nets from such distance!
Chard were soon back pressing and parity was restored before they added two late goals to seal a 4-2 victory.
It was certainly a game of rare events for, in addition to the Coley strike from distance, the 4th XI, who rarely pick up cards, also had Richard Lucas being invited to take a breather by the umpire and so, twice in the game, SOHC played for a period a man light!
Post match, 4th XI captain Dan Weedon spoke of how noticeable the improvement has been in the team since the start of the season and he looks forward to some positive results in the new year.
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