Brentwood V 3 - 3 Hertford VI

Our first ever trip to Brentwood, and the first time we have avoided defeat in our opening game - in fact only the second time we have managed a draw in an external friendly!

We welcomed back Peter Trendler on his return from Uni, and also Nick Izzard making a rare outfield appearance before he returns to Nottingham. However, it was the last outing for 6th team stalwart Chris Dean, who moves on to his stusies at Lincoln.

As Brentwood only has a bare 11 Clive Izzard offered to swap sides. Both sides were short of fitness and the game was played at a gentle pace, allowing us all a bit of time and space to think about what we wrere doing, and for most of the first half we all played impressively well, keeping the ball, passing quickly and moving well off the ball. Brentwood had a distinct advantage in pace against our veteran back line, and certainly created far more sustained pressure than we did, but we defended deep and usually had the numbers to cover for each other. Andy Smith, in impressive form for the start of the season, commanded his D well and saved whatever came on target.

On the attack, long balls worked well for us, and Chris Dean took his chance to chase one down to the byeline, pull it back, run round two defenders and cream it into the corner for a 1 - 0 lead. Play became more fragmented as fatigue took its toll, and frustratingly, a couple of defensive slips before half time marred a good alround effort at the back and we turned round one down.

We survived an early scare after the break but then hit back with a pearl of a goal. Dave had space for a run from deep midfield, the defence backed of as Adam and Tom ran wide off the ball, opening a huge gap for Dave to feed a simple ball Ian as he sliced inside and beat the keeper.

Brentwood edged ahead from a short corner, but Tom pulled us level again with a good strike from the top of the D as Brentwood failed to clear from a goalmouth scramble. Play remained lively, if no longer of the same quality, both sides having chances in the last quarter but no further goals.

A great advert for friendly hockey, played in good spirit, very well umpired, plenty of action all across the pitch, and plent of goals shared evenly. I hope we have many more like that.

Good luck to Chris as he begins his studies, hope we'll see you sometime before Christmas.