Main Menu

Town settle for sharing the spoils

Coalville Town 2nd XI  1 Players 2nd XI  1

BodyKraft 2nd XI East Midlands Premier Division

In their first home game after the Christmas break, Town took on a Players team who were lying just one point adrift of them and fought out a share of the spoils in a thrilling and hard fought game which epitomised hockey at it’s best.

  Making an enforced change in goal where Adam Johnson replaced car crash victim Joel Barker, it was Town who held the upper hand in the early stages. Playing attacking hockey from the start, they tore into the visitors pushing them back into their own half and onto the defensive foot, with Stuart Jobburn controlling the middle of the park.

 Town swept the ball around with sweet precision but could not quite find the goal touch as the early chances came to nothing. However with just 10 minutes gone, a ball through the middle from Jobburn found Niki Arnold on the 25 metre line with his back to goal, and with a twist, skipped past the opposing defender, he slipped the ball wide to Scott Meadows who took the ball into the dee and held off a defender as he smashed the ball home under the advancing keeper’s body.  

Encouraged by their unexpected early domination, Town poured forward looking for a second but mistakes in the dee by Arnold and Brent Clamp allowed the visitors to escape. But Players are not a team to just lie down and back they came with their own simple passing movements and tested Johnson with a couple of efforts but the keeper looked to be in fine form.  

The game began to pick up pace at this point as both teams played end to end hockey at breakneck speed, and Arnold again came close but lost the ball in a tangle of feet. Jobburn was really in control of most Town's best work and with Mark Webster and Clamp prompting the runs, both Meadows and Aiden Spilsbury began to cause the visitors defence problems. But their backline held out as they began to get to grips with Town’s attack.

The visitors nearly got an equaliser on 25 minutes when they got the ball in the net after a scramble in the dee however the goal was ruled out due to the last strike being above shoulder height and shortly after that Johnson made a sharp save when he pushed over a lightning strike from just inside the dee and then Players saw a rasping shot hit the crossbar and bounce to safety. 

Apart from these isolated raids Players were held at bay by a strong back line with Ian Wright and Carl Marshall in control down the middle and Glen Marston and Steve Partner clearing up on the flanks. Not to be outdone Town nearly fired a second on halftime as Arnold flashed through the middle but the whistle went just as he was about to shoot home, and although they turned around one up, they could consider themselves unlucky not to be further ahead.

The second half started in similar fashion to the first but it was Players in the ascendancy and not the home side.  Pushing the ball around the park and out to the flanks, it was Town’s turn to defend  as their defence was stretched to the limit.

 Seizing on the idea of crowding the middle, the visitors found a way to stifle the Town midfield and keep Jobburn away from the ball, and it was no surprise that they equalised after 44 minutes when they scrambled the ball home through a crowded defence.  Play now became very open as both teams sprayed the ball around and Town should have gone in front when following a neat move through Webster, Jobburn and Arnold into the dee, Clamp seized onto the ball in front of goal but just couldn’t turn quickly enough to elude the keeper.  

Both defences were now under siege as play went end to end as they fought to keep out the darting runs and advances by both sets of attacks and some fairly desperate measures were called on by both sides in order to keep the score down.  Town were causing the visitors problems as they moved the ball around and Marston made some sparkling runs from the back as he and Meadows cut through the defence but try as they might, the Players crowded defence held strong. 

With time running out, Players were awarded a last minute penalty corner and from the ensuing desperate scramble in front of goal, committed an offence which brought the game to a halt, however despite a share of the points Town can consider themselves desperately unlucky not to have come away with their first double of the season.