A last-gasp goal denied Long Sutton a deserved draw on Saturday as hosts Upminster snatched a 3-2 win in East Men’s Hockey League Division One.
The game started slowly, but Sutton began to apply pressure on the home team by camping in their half and winning a succession of short corners – one of which was converted by a drag flick blast from Josh Fyson.
Upminster soon equalised and, with Harry Synnott, Gary Hales, Will Cook, Stefan Fox and Dan Batten all receiving green cards at various points in the match, Sutton’s task began to get harder.
The game became very unstructured after the break and Upminster soon went 2-1 ahead.
However, good defensive work from man-of-the-match Tom Baguley, saw Sutton defend their lines and good energy from Ross Gavaghan and Batten allowed the ball to make its way to Ben Shore, who fired a canon into the back of the Upminster goal to make it 2-2.
With time running out, both team were looking to end the battle with a killer blow, but it was Upminster who took their chance with a dubious amount of time remaining.
Meanwhile, Long Sutton 2nd went down 3-2 against St Neots 1st in Division 3NW and remain in the bottom two.
Down in Division 6NW(N), both Sutton sides were beaten to complete a tough weekend for the men’s teams.
Long Sutton 3rd suffered a 3-0 beating at Bourne Deeping 5th and remain in mid-table.
The scoreline was worse for the youthful Long Sutton 4th side, who were soundly beaten 5-0 by a strong Leadenham 2nd outfit.
The highlight of that clash was the performance of Alvin Kan, who played his best game so far for the club – which included making a fantastic goal line clearance and being named man of the match.
- Long Sutton’s newly-formed “Back to Hockey Ladies” team made the short trip to Wisbech for their first game together.
Despite losing the game narrowly 1-0, the play was fantastic and – despite this being their first game – you could see that every single player involved found their competitive side.
