Men's 1st XI Vs Newark 1

Stuart Mills reports

South Nottingham 1’s 3 v Newark 1’s 4

With Storm Dennis causing chaos across Nottinghamshire this weekend, South Notts hoped they could cause their own chaos against promotion bound Newark at Bingham.

After a convincing 4-0 defeat away from home earlier in the season, South knew they were in for a huge challenge and dealing with treacherous weather conditions at the same time.

Newark started brightly showing why they are tipped for promotion with a strong spine. But with a front line of Tom Crossland and Gaz Bland South remained a constant threat in their link up play on the break. But south were thankful for the work of Tommy Hall to keep the score at 0-0 but he we helpless to stop South going 1-0 down.

South responded though and great running from Ben Ryder in midfield saw them win a short corner. As south set themselves up for the short corner, an event occurred which id never seen before on a hockey field. The Newark keeper stood at the top of the Dee and blew Ben Ryder a kiss in an effort to psych him out. His efforts paid dividends and he completely psyched Ben out as his flick was aimed straight at his feet but the keeper obviously was still looking at Ben (who would blame him) and not the ball and let the ball under him to bring South back into the game.

What followed was a real tough, hard fought game of hockey. Souths back line of Tommy Pistolis, the constantly improving Harry Lane and Jim Ward, plus the interchanging of Batty and Jon Lane held firm and met fire with fire. But they couldn’t hold out until half time and South found themselves 2-1 down as a ferocious shot found its way into goal off the unfortunate Tommy P, who turned in his performance of the season in my opinion.

South responded and as mentioned earlier their constant pace on the break saw Crossland find Skipper Gaz Bland to make it 2-2 at the break.

In difficult conditions, south resorted back to bad habits early in the second half smashing the ball long rather than trusting the processes that they will need to follow to be in the same position as Newark in following seasons. The Newark control finally told as they made it 3-2 then followed it up with a superb flick to make it 4-2.

But this south side has a lot more character and fight than previous seasons. They’ve shown on a number of occasions they have a lot more resilient and won’t roll over. They may need to reign their language and arguing in on occasions but this is a group of players who will battle all day for the shirt and for each other. This was shown in the third goal. Stu Mils shrugging off the challenges (literally) of three Newark players to find Gaz Bland who found Tom Fletcher at the back post to make it 4-3.

A special shout out to Tommy Fletcher, who played out of position on the left wing, but was selfless and tireless in his running for the team. Also, Harry Lane with two do or die challenges at the end of the game.

South battled and battled and nothing said this more than Matty Robinson- Robbo in midfield. Robbo has worked incredibly hard to get himself a lot fitter this season and he is turning in top performances every week.

Unfortunately, South will be disappointed in the final minutes they couldn’t create one last opportunity to equalise. They had bloodied the nose of Newark but couldn’t find that knockout blow.

With still a month to go, South must continue working on improving and getting better in hope they can be in Newark’s position next year.

All in all, a fantastic hard fought game of hockey and credit to Newark on the win in awful conditions. Also a huge thank you to the umpires and spectators for giving up their time in such awful conditions.

Onwards and upwards