Ladies 1s

Yeah L1s won 3-1! Super goals from Lucy Butcher and 2 for Philippa Leguen De Lacroix. Hooray hooray, off out for team social tonight!
Also if anyone has heard of Charlie Big Potato please let us know as only Katherine Abbie seems to think that’s a thing!

Men’s 1s

Report to follow

Ladies 2s

Report to follow

Men’s 2s

Back to winning ways!

Could’ve been a better performance, but we played well at times and bagged ourselves three tasty points.

The man with two surnames and a PhD bagged himself one off a short. Well done Davis. Kristis Bubnelis made his way back from carry on camping to score a brace. New boy Michael aka ‘chap’ nearly managed a debut pop after not turning up to his opening fines committee. However Matt O’Hara claimed that accolade after downing 20 pints in a brothel, meaning he couldn’t control the ball today and thus ruining Chris Tanswell’s day. Ed Bear Stubbing deserves a special mention for passing the ball to their centre forward after 5 minutes for him to score, then followed it up by feigning injury and spending the remaining 65 minutes on the side lines.

Well done to MOM Nati Kerrigan who is probably the best tackler in the team and despite his lack of years, rightly gave Matt a talking to about his morally reprehensible behaviour.

3-2 victory over Witham.

Ladies 3s

Report to follow

Men’s 3s

Like Slim Shady, I am back, and fortunately I am the bearer of good news! The 3’s travelled over the mountains and sailed the seven seas, and somehow ended up in Witham. A very strong Waltham Forest squad exited their moving, metal transport machines commonly referred to as “Cars” to utter bemusement. Why were we an hour early? We don’t know. But the hardest thing to fathom, despite the plethora of controversy around it, was Tim’s phenomenal warm-up, which probably won us the game.

The first half was somewhat 50/50, which is ironic considering there are 11 players on each team, but alas, despite the obvious abuse of ratios, it began with Forest dominating possession, a lot of attacking on the D didn’t result in any goals. Like the winds, the possession swayed the other way. After a shaky 20 minutes from the resonant gusts of Storm Gertrude, a bit of swift play from Forest led to a rather sumptuous goal from that man Tim “Slack Attack” Slack.

It stayed like this until Half-Time, where briefings and chinwags marched us out to try and retain the lead. That didn’t happen. Even during a very professional spell of play, Witham managed to nick a goal out of somewhere, despite the unfathomable heroics that Steve whipped out of his sleeves! Like Paul’s time-management, we didn’t know what to think. A little of dribbling on the wing, with a pinch of pressure and a dash of tikka-takka resulted in a goal. A reverse stick smack that Ashley Jackson would be proud of went straight through the keeper. What noble Knight sacrificed his life in the face of such a risky shot? It was Slack Attack once again!!

Final whistle blown.
Victorious cheers chanted.
We won 2-1… Yes Paul… 2-1, NOT 1-1!!

Goals; Tim X 2
MOM- Tim (deduce why for yourself)
POP- Paul. Can’t tell the time… Can’t tell the score. In other words, he failed GCSE mathematics.

Ladies 4s

Well, the important thing is that everyone had a lovely time… Sadly, the final score of 12-0 to East London probably did reflect the game but that is a testament to the opposition’s skill and fitness. Nothing could have stopped some of East London’s shots from the top of the D straight over Rosemarie into the goal. We still had some moments of great hockey, especially in the second half, and fought right until the end.

Rosemarie saved a lot of goals and I’m quite sure the score would have been twice as high if she hadn’t been on such good form.

Heidrun was solid, dependable and hardworking as ever in the back.

Sarah (again, kindly playing up from the 5s) was strong and cleared a couple from the goal line.

Alex stopped a lot of balls outside of the D and made some brilliant clearances.

Fiona had some fantastic runs right up to the front and was rightfully runner-up for MOM.

Mel was up and down the pitch wherever she was needed.

Sharnie definitely had the best chance of scoring a goal.

Goodness also made some fab runs and was always in the right place.

Kwai made some great interceptions and passes.

Minty fought for every single ball and deserved her MOM win

And apparently I distracted the opposition with a stylish worm (and got myself a lovely graze on the chin as part of the bargain)

Men’s 4s

After a fantastic performance last weekend, we were looking to build on it, as we hosted Maldon 2s, @ Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, on the Stadium pitch. This was our 3rd home appearance, at this venue, having won on the previous two occasions, we were feeling confident, but taking nothing for granted. The afternoon didn’t start too brightly as our GK was stuck in traffic and going to be late. So we started with Ben Summers doing a sterling job at kicking back, with my instructions being look after the ball until the keeper arrived.
Although we didn’t start particularly well, we did as required, kept the scores level, until GK arrived. So after about 10 minutes we were as we needed to be.
What followed was absolutely immaculate, obviously inspired by our surroundings, of The Olympic Legacy. Our Hockey was breath-taking, our ball speed, our ball retention, our passing accuracy our movement, our tackling, our positioning our commitment were 1st class and that’s understating it in my opinion.

Apart from one poor piece of play, where we failed to close down the oppo’s main threat of smashing it into our D, looking for a deflection, which worked once, and was addressed at HT in no uncertain terms, even though we were 3-1 up.
And in all honesty that’s all they had, they could play around us, as our work rate was immense.
It’s a slightly different style of report this week as it would take me an absolute age to describe our goals, as each and every one of them were all as pretty as a picture in the way we built up from back to middle to front.
We won 6-1 and that was flattering to the oppo.

As I said all 6 goals were top draw, but our 5th goal, although the finish was a little scrappy, the build -up play before hand was magnificent.
We must have kept possession for at least a couple of minutes, playing it around the back from left to right, being patient, great build up through midfield, and then picking the right passes forward, before the ball was bundled over the line, all 10 outfield players had, had a hand in the build-up.

So next week we are back at Lee Valley to do battle with perennial foes Wapping HC.
Hoping we are on the stadium pitch next week, for 2 reasons, we have a good record on that pitch seems to bring the best out of us, and we are having a wives and girlfriends day, so they are able to get refreshments as they may get rather cold with a 5pm push back.

Well played yesterday guys, the MOTM vote was very close, with me getting a couple of votes, for starting 2 moves from deep that both led to goals.
Also mentions for Ben Rai Green, who was solid at right back, and provided great support going forward.
Oliver Loessl who was immense in the number 10 role, linking the midfield with the front line.
Also chipped in with a couple of goals.

But MOTM went to Martin Hands-Clarke for exceptional work rate with and without the ball, not to mention his 2 goals, the 2nd of which, was a glorious flick over the keeper, from at least 8 yards out, the furthest he’s ever scored from.
Normally all his goals are within a couple of inches.

Goal scorers

Martin (2)

Nadeem

Oliver (2)

Sami

Obviously POP went to Martin O’ Donnell our keeper, a) for being late, b) for using the A12 on a Saturday to get to Lee Valley.

Ladies 5s

23-0…don’t ask..

Men’s 5s

The 5’s welcomed Southend 4’s to the academy. After a slow start in the last game against Phoenix, Ben lead the players in a pre-game warm up, which paid off as the 5s took an early lead, after a sweeping move start at the back by Owen Doody passing to Aamir who fed the ball out to Josh Rennie-Smith who beat 2 players before slipping the ball to Zain Rashid who smashed the ball home from edge of the D.
The rest of the match was very even and it wasn’t until late on in the second half, when Josh Field score from close range to make the final result 2-0 to the 5’s
Goalscorers: Zain Rashid and Josh Field
‪#‎sixcupfinalsleft‬
‪#‎cleansheetisagoalfordefenders

Otters

Chelmsford 6, now second in the table, were a far stronger team than the version we faced at the start of the season, and we suffered our heaviest defeat, 7-0, on the sand pitch at Chelmer Park.

Shaun made some brave saves to keep the score down, Luke and Adam battled through injuries, Haider and Mick helped to maintain some flow to our game through the middle, and Jordan provided another promising performance wide on the right, as we had plenty of possession in the attacking half, without creating much real threat.

Man of the match though was Emran for an energetic performance in midfield.