Match Reports
15/03/08
Staines 3-2 Men's 1st XI
If Sky Sports covered South Premier Division One hockey then Andy Gray and Richard Keys would be salivating at the prospect of the final day of matches in the league. Easter Sunday may be "Grand Slam Sunday" in terms of the Premiership title race, but the following week it is certainly "Squeaky Bum Saturday" as five teams go into the last game of the season bidding to avoid relegation into the depths of South Premier Division Two. Brighton and Hove are one of those teams after a careless display at home against Staines saw them lose 3-2. Although they remain in 6th place, the following four teams are all just one point behind so Brighton know everything is still to play for.
Brighton went into the Staines match on a good run of form and looking for revenge after suffering an embarrassing 9-0 defeat at Staines before Christmas. However, before the game Brighton had decided that this time they would mark, they would pass 16's in all directions and not just forward to the opposition, they would keep some men in their own half and not try and play centre back Richard Baker as centre forward. Things were looking up and the mood in the camp was good despite the recall of Hugh Salter.
Salter missed last week due to attending his 100-year old Aunt's wedding and most thought he would be eager to impress on his return but he decided to turn up late, a bad example to set to the younger members of the team. His excuse was that the bus driver had problems accepting his new bus pass.
Matt McNeill could not turn up at all so Robbie "Turbo" Guthrie was called up from the 2's. McNeill sent the team a pre-match text to wish good luck and impart some final advice. Turbo read this to the team in the changing room and it was the first time that Neil Burlinson and Russell Perkins had heard this. If understandable that keeper Burlinson did not get the text, Perkins was upset at missing out and wondered what he had done wrong. This was not a problem for him by the end of the game.
In a first for the season, Sam Forster and Tom Langston both turned up sober and Forster's new policy of not drinking the night before the game had worked. His new method of having 8 pints before 6pm and then having a relaxing evening could be adopted by clubs across the country. Forster was right to turn up sober as Staines are the biggest team in the league, combining the height of Ben Butlin but rather than looking like a gust of wind may blow them away, they have the bulk of Gareth Lendrum. If Forster would have been seeing double, then he would have thought he was in the land of the giants.
Salter was reinstated to his sweeper role and Lendrum, despite enjoying being the "big lad at the back", was moved back to left midfield. This meant that Butlin was moved back up-front to resume his Peter Crouch role i.e. not scoring at the moment. Salter started the game by controlling a ball onto his foot in the D and if Lendrum had any resentment towards Salter taking his role, he did not show it as at the short corner he made a fabulous clearance off the line. Staines threatened from short corners and Burlinson had to be alert to make some key saves. Brighton had a fair amount of possession but rarely threatened until a free-hit was won in the bottom left corner and a hard-hit cross found Andy Acott at the far post who lifted the ball over the sprawling dive of the keeper to give Brighton a lead that they would hold to half-time.
Bram van Asselt led the team talk and he was disappointed by the first half display as he knew Brighton could, and perhaps should, have been playing better. However, Brighton are traditionally strong in the second half and it was hoped that this would be the case again this week. This was not be to the case though and Staines put Brighton under some early pressure. From one of these attacks, Zimbabwean Kevin Browne made a tackle that his fellow Irishmen could have done with at Twickenham but no short corner was given.
Staines were very vocal towards the young umpire in their disappointment and unsurprisingly, the next time the ball came into the D a short corner was awarded despite the absence of any foul. Staines' forward helpfully suggested it made up for the one a minute ago, but two wrongs do not make a right and Salter wanted to express his disapproval. The umpire had a good game but Salter wanted to chat about this key decision, although it must have been hard for him to communicate with someone young enough to be his grandson. A Werthers Original placated Salter but at the short corner, Baker forgot what he was doing and the ball was switched back to the injector to deflect the ball high into the net.
Things went from bad to worse as Lendrum decided to audition for the role of a Brighton Tour Guide for the summer months as he guided Staines' dangerous right-midfielder 60 yards across the pitch towards the top of the D.
Lendrum was hoping that one of the Brighton defenders would step forward and make a tackle but they made an impressive retreat not seen since Dunkirk and decided to let the attacker into the top of the D. Burlinson struggles to see at the best of times but by now he had half of Brighton standing in front of him and he did not see until late the reverse stick shot that found its way into the bottom corner. Two goals given away and worse was to come when at a free-hit Brighton reacted slowly, with some players not even looking, and the ball was deflected in to make it 3-1. All the goals were preventable but now Brighton faced a mountain to climb, especially as their forwards could not stop the ball, or in Bram's words, "do the basics".
Brighton had possession in the final third but too often dead ends were run down, simple passes were not made or balls were just not stopped. In the final 20 seconds Turbo followed up a Lendrum short corner strike to score from close range but it was too little, too late and Brighton had suffered their first defeat in four games.
Predictably Ashford and Purley both won to mean that although Brighton have
26 points, the next four teams are grouped together on 25 points and could overtake them on the final weekend. Richmond and Lewes are already relegated, Richmond since Christmas having fallen faster than Bear Stearns’
share price, but the general opinion is that three sides will go down. With Ashford and Maidstone facing Lewes and Richmond respectively, you expect them to get three points whilst Purley Walcountians face a Spencer side who have nothing to play for. Brighton face Oxford Hawks who currently sit in that danger 10th spot and both teams know that a win will keep them up. A couple of Brighton players had a Laissez-faire attitude to the Staines game in the mistaken belief they were safe. Now they know they have to perform.
Brighton hope that Salter will have recovered from another half-marathon run that he undertook on Sunday and it was good to see him take the Staines game easy to make sure he was in peak physical condition for that race. Since Haile Gebrselassie pulled out of the Olympic Marathon, Salter has become convinced he can get a medal in Beijing. For advice on the Far East, he phoned the Spiritual Leader of Tibet. Not for the first time, the next morning he woke up in bed with a large goat with a long neck. Turned out he had phoned Dial-A-Llama.
With just one game to go, plenty of questions need to be answered before the end of the season. Do Brighton do better in the second half when Bram's kids are at the team talk? Can Turbo go a whole game without falling over?
Can Forster and Langston turn up sober twice in one season? Will Lendrum tell any more forwards "If you do that again, I will knock you out"? Will it be Burlinson's last league match for Brighton? Will it be Lendrum's last league match for Brighton? Will it be Browne's last league match for Brighton? Will Simon Turner discover a razor? How many more jokes can the team make about Salter? How many more ginger jokes can the team come up with? Who wants to go to a Celine Dion gig? Can Burlinson find some knitwear to do the occasion justice? Will someone please send Perkins a text before the game? Will Butlin do the robot if he scores? Could you get more excitement at the end of the season? But most importantly, will Brighton stay up?
As Elvis Presley would say, it's now or never. Brighton have one game left and it's time to deliver.