Match Report – Hawkhurst Utd II (League)

East Sussex Football League
Division 3

Hawkhurst Utd II 3-3 South Coast Athletico

Saturday 20th October 2018
The Moor

Chopbacks comeback to draw

This weekend the Chopbacks traveled to Hawkhurst 2nds with a couple of key players unavailable.

It was perfect weather for football and the squad were looking to get back to winning ways in the league.

Hawkhurst had other ideas however fielding a first team striker and midfielder to temporarily boost their teams capability.

The hosts requested the match was not filmed as they fielded 2 under 18s which was respected by South Coasts management team.

The match started positively for Coast having the bulk of possession in midfield and a few chances, it was an overall a stalemate until Hawkhurst made a change and added an attacking threat.

The young Chopbacks dealt with the threat at first then seemed to lose their focus as one or two players began to loose concentration on the match.

Hawkhurst took full advantage and scored a well worked goal to end the first half on top.

Second half the Chopbacks knuckled down and Connor Easton reacted quickest to Ryan Wright’s parried shot to slot home putting both teams level.

Hawkhurst were not influenced by this and played through the the Chopbacks midfield and defence too easily to score a minute later to take the lead once more.

Coast persevered with a dogged determination but, Hawkhurst doubled their lead bringing the score to 3-1 as the Chopbacks defence were unable to respond to the attack.

South Coast showed great character by not letting their heads drop and refused to lay down and with the game just past the midway point in the second half, Callum Homewood pressed forward as Coast pressured the hosts, he picked team mate Connor Smith’s pocket taking the ball and scoring a thundering shot from just outside the Hawkhurst box.

Now the young warriors of South Coast Athletico began to believe.

As we were unable to film the game opportunity knocked for Tony Cook to make a rare appearance on the pitch.

Within minutes he had his first sighting of goal but the chance was lost.

5 minutes later however, in a well worked move forward, the ball was passed to Luke Darvill who spotted Tony was breaking at pace from his marker along the line, he passed at the perfect moment with exactly the right weight of ball enabling Tony Cook to volley over the head of the keeper to bring the game to 3-3 with 10 minutes to go.

Both teams then threw caution to the wind, like a couple of boxers throwing heat in a red mist and the game played out end to end action with both keepers called into action crucially keeping the score level for their respective teams.