Chichester III 1, Alton 2

ALTON bounced back after a disappointing defeat last week with a brilliant performance in a hard fought 2-1 victory over Chichester in Hampshire 2 of the men’s South Hockey League.

After losing 5-1 at home last week, Alton were keen to make amends on the road but knew that Chichester were going to be a tough side to beat.

But Alton took the home side by surprise right from the off with a positive start, immediately giving Chichester reasons for concern. Several attacks down the right wing created several chances, with Tom Pate and Sam Juncker looking particularly dangerous.

Chichester’s defence had to be on their toes as Alton continued to keep the pressure on, and the home side only manged to occasionally break out of their own half. And just before the 15-minute mark Alton’s hard work and persistence paid off, with good work from Nigel Downing and Pate down the right resulted in the ball being played across the circle which Juncker was able to latch onto and put the ball under the Chichester goalkeeper to give the visitors the lead.

Gutsy Alton continued to apply pressure to a clearly shaken Chichester, but the Sussex side were far from beaten and began to create more chances of their own but couldn’t seem to find a way through the Alton defence and the half-time whistle left Alton ahead by the odd goal.

Alton knew that there was a lot of hockey left to play as the second half began, but still the boys in gold looked confident moving the ball around. Chichester themselves woke up more after the break and started to have much more time on the ball, but again the Alton defence kept them at bay with Andy Cooper and Dan Trim leading from the back.

And after some calm defending Alton doubled their lead with a great breakaway attack, James Wilson bringing the ball up the field and setting Juncker free in the circle where he managed to find Liam Cave who scored Alton’s second.

Now came the real challenge, Chichester were determined to get back into the game and started to build steady pressure that saw Alton retreat into their own half and defend with all they had. A string of penalty corners for the home side were successfully defended by the Alton defence, and yet still the attacks kept coming.

Chichester halved the deficit when a shot on goal was stopped by the body of Alton’s Pete Harvey and the resulting penalty flick sent Alton goalkeeper Lawrence Jones the wrong way, setting up a tense finish with fewer than 10 minutes left to play.

This galvanised the home side who well and truly threw everything they had at Alton for the remaining minutes, but they failed to breach the solid line of yellow shirts and Alton celebrated the hard-earned three points at the final whistle.

On Saturday, Alton are at home to Hamble - the first team to play on the new artificial pitch at Eggar’s School (push back 1pm).