South Herts 1st XI v Chess Valley 1st XI

08 March 2008

South Herts 4 – 4 Chess Valley

A good game for a neutral spectator but not one of Herts' better demonstrations of how to retain a lead.

Herts took an early lead when Caroline Stanners was fed the ball at a penalty corner and slotted her shot through the wall Chess Valley had built on their goal line. Herts looked fairly composed with Anna Walker and Sue Richardson busy in midfield but with ten minutes of the half left Chess Valley took a long corner which made it all the way through to the Chess Valley centre forward who nipped in to slot the ball past Mo Gough.

Undaunted, Herts attacked immediately and regained the lead after barely a minute when Sue Richardson hit yet another accurate free hit into the area which Sarah Jowett diverted into the goal.

The second half started promisingly for Herts as Vanessa Porter found herself with only the keeper to beat and having seen her first shot saved she calmly beat the keeper with the rebound. At this stage, Herts should have been home and dry but sadly a comfortable win wasn’t to be. Perhaps put off by the unusually large amount of support, Herts contrived to allow Chess Valley back into the game. Chess scored two goals in quick succession, both the result of breakaways when Herts were on the attack and despite the best efforts of Ruth Spencer with what can only be described as a tackle with her backside, Herts found themselves at three all.

The Herts players were beginning to look at little shell shocked and not long after, they went behind when again the Chess player managed to nip between the Herts defence to score. With much angry throwing of sticks from the Herts team it was time to refocus and push for an equaliser.

The breakthrough came with six minutes left when a chopping tackle by the Chess defender gave Herts a penalty corner. Jowett past the ball to Lucy Edwards who showed great composure to calmly lift the ball over the keeper and save South Herts blushes.

Goal scorers : Caroline Stanners, Sarah Jowett, Vanessa Porter and Lucy Edwards.