Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Boyne embarrassed by defeat
Canterbury’s encouraging run in men’s Division 1 South came to a disappointing end on Saturday when they were beaten by bottom club Fareham.
Lewis Fossey’s 67th minute penalty corner strike looked to have earned the visitors a point, only for their hosts to stun them with the clock running down.
The defeat brought an end to Canterbury’s four-game winning sequence and afterwards player-coach Craig Boyne admitted losing to a side which had previously won just once was hard to take.
Boyne, whose hamstring injury meant he was one of seven players ruled out for the match, explained: “No one wants to travel that far to watch that sort of performance. “Regardless of missing seven players we should still have been better than them but our boys underperformed and it hurts
“Nobody wants to lose to the worst team in the comp.
“We weren’t great, we were mediocre at best. We had six or seven good goalscoring opportunities which we messed up, it was embarrassing.” Ahead of the contest Boyne had challenged his players to go the rest of the season unbeaten, but the game was goalless until just before the hour-mark when Fareham’s George Davey struck from open play.
The same player then claimed a dramatic victory for the basement team when he pounced again, after Fossey’s leveller.
The result leaves Canterbury in sixth ahead of their home game with thirdplaced Southgate on Saturday.
That match at Polo Farm starts at 6pm and Canterbury will hoping to erase the memory of the 8-1 defeat they suffered against the same opponents on the season’s opening day. Boyne said: “It’s going to be tough because Southgate need the points but it would be nice to correct what happened before and be able to say we’ve beaten the top three.”
■ Leaders Pilgrims were good value for their 3-1 win away to Holcombe 3rds in Kent/sussex Regional 2.
Jake Smith opened the scoring from a well executed short corner but not long after Holcs equalised in similar fashion. Zak Williams’ unstoppable flick restored the lead before half-time and, as Pilgrims dominated the second 35 minutes, Dave Shelley wrapped up the points. Alex Laslett was man-ofthe-match.
■ Matt Lea led the way with four goals as Kent Area Division 1 leaders Canterbury 3rds took another step towards the title with a 7-2 win away to nearest rivals Sevenoaks 3rds. Lea helped himself to a first-half hattrick, scoring two penalty corner efforts either side of a penalty flick. A defensive error gifted Oaks a reply early in the second half, but Canterbury responded soon after courtesy of Chris Podd’s diving deflection. Another mistake led to a second goal for Oaks before Lea and Podd each struck again to complete the scoring. ■ Simon Hurlow’s early goal proved a false dawn as the Millers were beaten 7-1 away to New Beccehamians 1sts. The home side then took full advantage of their ex-brombecks first team player who regularly threw threequarter length pitch aerials and had a pretty useful drag-flick too. By half-time Beccs led 5-1 and although a better second half ensued, Millers were unable to beat the home keeper and conceded two further goals both from corners.
■ Friars were far from disgraced against league leaders Sutton Valence 3rds who struck twice late on to complete a 5-2 victory at Polo Farm.
Friars had beaten Valence before Christmas but they trailed 2-0 at halftime in the return despite the usual heroics in goal by Paul Donovan. Valence made it 3-0 early in the second half before youngster Riley Holness, having another good game, took the ball into the D before setting up Geordie Hayward for a tap-in. This was closely followed by John Aikin driving into the D and skilfully beating the keeper, but hopes of a point were dashed when the visitors scored twice in the final 15 minutes to illustrate why they are top.
■ Griffins bounced back from a disappointing defeat the week before to beat bottom club Burnt Ash 5ths 3-0. Several chances had already gone begging before Guy Dowling gave Griffins a half-time lead when he fired in from a melee in the D.
More urgency and pace to the play led to an excellent second goal with Andy Ericsson in place to finish off after great interplay down the right.
The final goal came from a short corner, Ashley Hooker firing in from the second attempt. Griffins’ man-of-the-match was Jonathan Adams, who regularly had the beating of his marker on the right wing.
■ All the goals came in the second half as Squires came from behind to beat Folkestone 6ths 2-1.
A cracking short corner strike gave Folkestone the lead but that seemed to wake up the Squires with Olly Curtiss and Robin Cox starting to create opportunities.
It wasn’t long before an attack into the D pushed the ball towards waiting skipper Adam Watkins who on the reverse stick swept it past the advancing keeper.
Watkins then had a hand in the winner picking out Curtiss who was able to pass the ball over the line.