Horley 1 Addiscombe 3

Addiscombe reached the Christmas break on top of Surrey Division Two with 11 wins in a row and eight points clear of second placed HAC.

The final victory of the year was achieved over a much-improved Horley side who made the Croydon team work hard for the points.

Addiscombe started brightly with Martin Stevens and Scott Antony causing the Horley defence problems early on.

Stevens' persistence forced a bad tackle out of a Horly defender and the resulting short corner was thumped home by Van Der Willnard.

However, this seemed to wake Horley up and they began to take the game to Addiscombe. Within 10 minutes they had equalised with the Addiscombe defence conceding a scrappy goal.

Manager David Thomas instantly changed the front line by putting on Chris Reid, who was making his comeback from injury.

This had the desired effect as Reid played a neat one-two passing move with Lyle D'Costa before flicking the ball high into the Horley net.

Shortly after, Martin Stevens scored Addiscombe's third when he drove into the Horley D and sent a fierce shot through the surprised Horley keeper's pads.

After the interval the game developed into a tight midfield battle with neither side making many clear cut chances, although Simon Reay-Jones came close on a couple of occassions for Addiscombe and was unlucky not to cap a fine performance with a goal.

However, it was a fairly poor second half performance by the Croydon side and they were glad to hear the final whistle with the scoreline as it was at half-time.

Addiscombe can now enjoy the four-week break from league hockey before returning to action and looking to secure promotion over the remainder of the season.

Addiscombe's third XI shared the points with GB Eagles in a 1-1 draw.

December 12, 2001 13:30