Ladies 1s
Facts of the day:
1. We won 3-1!
2. Faith, Philippa Leguen De Lacroix and Lucy Butcher scored
3. MoM Katrina Hurrell PoP Laura
4. The party bus is amazing
5. I’m really pleased we’re playing again tomorrow
Men’s 1s
No match report as yet…
Ladies 2s
Oppo cancelled – Rearranged 12/12/15
Men’s 2s
Men’s 2s game cancelled due to double pitch booking. POP Ed Bear Stubbing! – Rearranged 12/12/15
Ladies 3s
Yeeeeeeeees! How happy am I to report a well deserved 4-1 win for the ladies 3’s against Basildon.
We came out a bit sluggish and they looked like they might kick our a**** but after a penalty flick put us one nil down we came back fighting. We fought hard for the ball, created some great movement through midfield and a cross from Emma Samson put away by Kareen drew us even. The second half saw us dominate the play. Solid defence kept their attempts on goal just that and superb passing and positioning in our front line created 3 great goals by Jane Blackborow, Kim Marla Johnson and Elaine. Bob will be proud we put training into action.
MOM to Sinead Lynch. No POP cos we were awesome!
Men’s 3s
As I sit here watching the rugby world cup with all those players taking hard hits then getting up without moaning, listening and accepting the umpires decisions without arguing. I only wish that half our hockey team had that same discipline.
Unfortunately today, they didn’t!
A bit of a squeaky bum start with a couple of one on ones against the keeper which were calmly handled by myself.
A fast paced first half ended 0-0 with Forest on the receiving end of some agricultural tackling.
Half time team talk consisted of telling players to keep their mouths shut, stop appealing and arguing with the umpires decisions.
Shortly into the second half, Phoenix threw a long aerial into our ‘D’ which resulted in a head height volley straight into the back of our net.
Shortly after Nate scored the equaliser from a ball which he flicked into the air, juggled with it a couple of times and volleyed it into the back of the net, celebrating another aeroplane flyby.
This is when it all fell apart. Ozzies mirror tackling training went out the window, the midfield and forwards tackling was disgraceful, verbal discipline was shocking!
The chairman got warned, Nate got green carded, the captain got green carded shortly followed by a yellow card on his return to the pitch, from a dodgy tackle that Tim should of been sent off for. And even the substitutes and spectator got warned for verbal.
Nate took a nasty ball to the knee whilst closing down a clearance. This time we made sure he left the pitch albeit carried off sitting on a chair.
This gave the midfield and forwards time to put their handbags away, pick up their dummies and pull their socks up.
Immediately on the restart, an intercepted free hit gave us a quick counter attack and easy one two goal from Tim.
With the game coming to an end Tim sealed the game off with our third goal and our first win of the season.
On to our next game with jawbreaking ball gags and muzzles.
Scorers: Nate (1), Tim S (2)
POP: Paul (Green card, yellow card and shut up)
MOM: Vingay (Solid defending as were all the defence)
Ladies 4s
Game conceded by the opposition – 5-0 win!!
Men’s 4s
Saturday we welcomed perennial rivals, Wapping to The Academy, for what is always a hard fought game, sometimes overly so.
We had a bare 11 with Kam and Oliver stepping up from the 3s.
In a very very tight 1st half, again our hockey was superb, it was slick, fluid, pleasing on the eye, up until the final 3rd, where our decision making, and failure to be clinical, cost us just before HT, again Wapping were blessed with lots of pace and caught us with a quick counter attack, although their goal scorer didn’t know a great deal about the touch he got on the ball to score 1-0 down again, after dealing comfortably with Wapping’s attack, up until the final moments of the half.
1-0 down, at HT, against the run of play and undeservedly so.
I thought we’d been playing well all season without getting the results our play deserved.
2nd half Saturday, the 4s reached a level that I thought we couldn’t reach. Our hockey was brilliant, the pace we moved the ball at, our passing and movement, was something to behold, best of all our decision making was awesome and we were more clinical in the opposition D.
From a simple strike from a short corner, we were level 1-1, we dominated the next 15 minutes of the game, and got our just desert’s, with a fabulous team goal, some great interplay, between our midfielders, and some great running from Alex G, saw him one on one with the keeper, the keeper made a save, but Martin was on hand to give us a 2-1 lead.
Wapping upped their game, and it was end to end, we got a little tired towards the end and with unfortunate bounce of the ball, Wapping got their equaliser, 2-2. We had chances to win the game after the equaliser, but couldn’t capitalise. So proud of the way the 4s are playing hockey at the moment, its just great to be a part of a great team.
Will need to keep that level this weekend, as we face joint League Leaders Clacton.
Goal Scorers: Frank Dijkstra, Martin Hands-Clarke
MOTM: Joint between Oliver, for his flair, and pressure relieving aerials and Alex Gynn For his non stop running in the middle of the park, and fantastic ball distribution.
Ladies 5s
L5 lost 15-0 to a very strong Wapping 7s. From the start the team worked hard, did everything that was asked of them, and managed a few good attacking breaks too – despite the scoreline the girls fought and kept looking to push forward when they could. The team suffered a couple of injuries but nothing too serious (even though we had to wheel someone off on the equipment trolley!). Wapping were gracious in victory and complimented the girls on their never say die attitude.
Any team can be in good spirits after a win, for a team to be so after a big loss says a lot about them. Major improvement already from L5, from just two weeks ago when I watched their first match – looking forward to seeing the team’s progress over the season. Thank you to Ray Russo and Suzy Lovell for umpiring
Men’s 5s
The 5’s travelled to Southend for a 16:30 pushback with Old Southendian 6’s for a early evening game under the flood lights.
The team started well and began playing some fluid hockey and dominating the opening exchanges, defending from front to back. The 5’s took the lead through Hassim, who just stepped up to senior hockey this season.
The lead was doubled through Zain, who even after falling managed to deflect a hit into the D into the goal making it 2-0. We continued looking for a 3rd and dominated the game, but in the last 5 minutes of the first half gave away 2 sloppy goals allowing Old Southedian back into the game. Meaning the first half finished 2-2.
The second half got underway and the 5’s continued to dominate and got their reward when Zain got his second of the game. We continued to create chances and Zain soon completed his hat-trick after a great run from Josh. The scoring was completed when Hassim scored his second goal of the game, giving the 5’s a 5-2 win.
Mom: Zain Rashid
Otters
A particularly inexperienced Otters side took on an unsurprisingly strong Wapping 10th team.
While we were never totally outplayed as Biel and the other youngsters battled hard and won more than their share of 50-50 challenges, we were unable to make much of an impression offensively.
Wapping were somewhat flattered by a 3-0 half-time lead with two of the goals being rather fortuitous, but were wasteful in the second half as we chased a consolation goal, so a 6-0 final scoreline was a reasonable reflection.
Our next 3 matches are against teams from our end of the table, so better things are expected.
Investec Women’s Trophy- First Round
No party bus for the L1s today for our cup match at Stevenage, instead some of us got treated to the not so smooth driving of Lucy Butcher.
Stevenage are in the league above us and it was a tough battle. We dug in and there were loads of short corners but neither team could score. 0-0 at full time. Flicks! Mog made some cracking saves, Lucy and Katherine Abbie scored giving us the win!
MoM Mog, DoD for Philippa Leguen De Lacroix. I suggest you practice your flicks!
Also mentions for plane spotter Ronnie Mcquilkin and Maddy for cycling home!
