National Conference East

Canterbury 4

Oxted 2

AN unselfish moment of fair play could have cost Oxted the game as Justin King ignored the umpire's call to play on for fear of injuring the opposition.

With minutes left to play Oxted, who were two goals down at the time, were awarded a penalty corner.

With the ball at his stick, King unselfish refused to take the shot that could have started the Surrey side's comeback, because of Canterbury players in an unsafe position.

Oxted player-coach Ken Forbes admits he has mixed emotions about the gesture.

"Justin King should be commended for fair play," he said.

"But at the time I was going mad. I thought he should have walked the ball into the net at least.

"He felt we had unfairly gain an advantage and that if he had taken the shot, somebody might have ended up in hospital. So I guess in hindsight he did the right thing.

"Looking at how many players we had out I suppose people were expecting us to lose by a lot more.

"We went in at half-time fairly even and I think the team we had out there played well, on the day we were just beaten by a better side."

It was an unfortunate start for Oxted, after they lost the ball in midfield and with people out of position Canterbury executed a counter attacking move. Ben Shorten in goal made a good initial save but could not stop the follow up from Mickel Pierre on just three minutes.

Half an hour later, Neil Turk delivered just what was needed from an Oxted point of view just before the half-time whistle.

After contesting most of the first half very well and earning a number of penalty corners where the absence of Andrew Baggs was felt, Oxted managed to convert a penalty corner.

King dragged the ball in and dummied the flick before slinging the ball round his body and leaving it for Turk to drag goalwards from 12 yards.

Some strong performances in the first half from Lee Macilwraith and Nick Sisson, both of who came into the team from the seconds and injury, respectively, but Turk was immense in both attack and defence.

Canterbury dealt Oxted another blow on 44 minutes when Pierre popped up to score his second.

Oxted conceded a disappointing third goal when, while pressing for an equalising goal, King took a quick free hit and eliminated the Canterbury player within five yards of him before scanning for a pass up field.

The Canterbury player managed to back tackle successfully and create a three on one against for Forbes at top D. The ball was eventually rolled into the net by Thomas Richford.

Oxted replied instantly through on-form Ian Anderson. The goal-scoring star finished well from Amin's slapped cross on from high up the right.

Canterbury were lucky to escape with one yellow card, as green cards flew left, right and centre as the battle heated up.

The next goal was the nail in Oxted's coffin. Pushing up the field for the equalising goal, a turnover on the left meant Oxted were overrun and Richford put the ball past Shorten in goal on 66 minutes..

There was last minute drama as Oxted were awarded a penalty corner.

When the first shot was saved and the corner re-awarded Oxted pulled it out before Canterbury were expecting. The umpire said play on, but King, with the ball on his stick and no Canterbury player within 15 yards, told the umpire to blow his whistle. Oxted did not score from the retaken corner.