Petersfield Veterans 6 Chichester Veterans 4: PETERSFIELD completed a flawless league season with a fine victory over 2015 winners, Chichester, in the title decider.

Petersfield showed their attacking intentions from the start, with the midfield quartet of Hulme, Liddle, White and Cleife dominant and Cleife’s trickery utterly unplayable. The Chichester defence did well to keep Petersfield at bay until the tenth minute, when Pruden’s dive converted the rebound from Thompson’s well struck penalty corner. This was swiftly followed by a second goal, a precisely executed training ground penalty corner routine involving five passes and swept in by Hulme from the left. Pruden took the score to 3-0, again through a full-length dive, converting a pass from White after another penetrative run from Cleife.

Chichester saw more possession as the half went on, but the four man defence of Budden, Thompson, Cornelius and Williams appeared to be in control; although they gave away a handful of penalty corners, Thompson’s aggressive running and a routine save from Broadmeadow countered Chichester’s attacking flair. However, midway through the half the home side let their guard drop and the Chichester centre forward was allowed the space to fire a reverse stick shot from the left, which evaded the poorly positioned Petersfield keeper and found the bottom right hand corner of the goal. Petersfield took their lead back to three goals when Parker finished off at the far post after Hulme had rounded the keeper. The scoring was not complete in the first half, with Chichester scooping the ball over the Petersfield keeper just before the whistle went for half time.

Possession was fairly even at the start of the second half, but Hulme, Cleife and Parker’s incisive play was always a threat. It took some time for Petersfield to score again, but they did so through Pruden’s conversion of another Thompson penalty strike. Petersfield then lost their dominance, with Pruden ‘blood-binned’ and Hulme’s ceaseless running taking its toll when he went off with cramp. Although Broadmeadow made a fine save from a penalty corner, the Petersfield keeper could do nothing when the Chichester centre-forward got ahead of Williams, deflecting the ball into the roof of the net.

The end-to-end nature of the game continued when Budden, the Petersfield sweeper, found himself deep in the Chichester D, finishing expertly from Cleife’s precise pass. Petersfield played out the last five minutes nervously, after giving away another soft goal and were relieved, along with the sizeable and vocal home crowd, when the final whistle blew. Petersfield were well worth this win which handed them the league title and a flawless record of 14 straight wins.