Ladies 1s
Team effort on the match report:
L1s had another home game against Havering who were one place above us in the league (Philippa Leguen De Lacroix gave an excellent explanation of the six pointer that even Shrimpie understood) Every single player worked especially hard and dug deep. 75% of the play in their half, we were all over them (despite being 1-0 down at half time!) After a rousing team talk, and too many oranges from Claire Shrimpie Boyling, we went out with a determination to score goals.
It took a while.
Lucy Butcher scored from a PC. We then went on to completely dominate the pitch and the hard work payed off with a smashing ball from Fish to be touched lightly by Izzy then a great sweep by Lucie. We all jumped and screamed and had a skip 🙂
Fish won Man of the Match for an epic performance and Lucy Butcher got DoD for tears on the half-way line after giving them a short in the dying seconds of the game! (they didn’t score – we didn’t lose – man up!)
Also: Izzy received the Jack Petchey Award before the game. Such an achievement. We are all so proud.
Well done L1s!
Ladies 2s
Match report – L2s v Upminster 3s (written by Kareen, posted by me!)
Well after last week’s disappointment, we had already decided that we were winning this match so really, playing was just a mere formality. A delayed match meant more time for warm up and serious team tactics. Fi started her Olympic warm up by fanning her banana bread fresh from the oven. Kirsten started hers by getting up about an hour before push back (3.30pm!!) and being the best stereotype of a Scot in turning up after a heavy night, claiming she had no money and scrounging money off people to feed her fizzy drink addiction.
Into the game… We played well from offset. Heads high, communication good and the chances came – and went… The crosses came but a few awkward bounces and just not getting on the end of balls saw us waste a few chances. However, we didn’t give up and the same work rate saw us continuing short sharp passing which gave us a great use of space down the right and Emily smashed home a well-deserved opener. If I’m honest I’ve no memory of when and in what order the following goals came but in that time our ‘at least 1 each game’ goal scoring machine that is our captain fired in a rebound at a short corner and another in open play. Kareen provided another 2 goals courtesy of her speciality sweeps and squealed loud enough to make Anne forget that she had practically rendered her right leg numb with deep freeze following injury last week because pain was not getting in her way today!!
All in all – we were good. 5-0 and happy. Collected, calm, communicative and not grumpy! Chukka had told us to deflect, expect the rebounds and make our passes accurate – we did it. Sarah told us to just win the game – we did it.
14 players could have taken MOM but it went to a 3 way tie – Sarah, Kareen & Nicky HH
DOD went to the dirty stop out Kirsten without voting required. Quality all round. We look forward to Cake baked by DOD!
Kareen x
Ladies 3s
Ladies 3s played away today against Havering 3s. We started strong dominating most of the first half with some good goal chances from play. Towards the end of the first half we were 1-0 down. Our goal score in the second half came from Katie Illman. The final score was 3-1 to Havering. The score did not reflect the play, brilliant game girls!
Ladies 4s
Ladies 4s played Redbridge and Ilford at home this very chilly november morning. Everyone played fantastically and our 4-0 win shows that. Well done ladies!
Men’s 1s
D1-1
Men’s 2s
Men’s 2s played West Herts today at the academy. We needed a good start in order to get a grip on the game. Unfortunately we struggled to get going and shipped a quick 3 goals. Once we started playing there was moments of hockey, but we couldn’t get back into the game. A last minute goal from Matt Tanswell made it 3-1, but a poor start cost us.
Mom: Yogi Patel when he isn’t hungover he still has reflexes!
More importantly we discovered that Rob Martin cares more about scampi than his team. Ben Norton has a girlfriend who is going to choose Ipswich over him. Jonathan Jones has way too much time to sew. But most importantly it is never a good thing to have a surname of O’Hara, which is one of many reasons Matt O’Hara was POP (most of the of the others wouldn’t pass safeguarding standards)
Men’s 3s
The men’s 3s played away to Romford. The game featured a few returns, Kieran playing against his former team and Vinay from being on tour for a month.
We couldn’t have started better in the first 10 minutes we played fantastic scoring 2 goals in a minute. The first a short corner found its way to Rob who scored his first goal for the 3s. The second was a great individual goal from Alex beating a couple of players and finishing in the bottom corner.
Then yours truly found his way to the p spot to swipe in a third.
We knew that Romford would respond in the second half, Steve and the defence were keeping them at bay. That didn’t last long though as they grabbed two goals.
Going into the last 10 minutes we had a incident where one of the Romford players took out Alex, it was a nasty challenge. We’re hoping that it’s nothing too serious.
Despite this we defended brilliantly, Steve pulling off some great saves near the end ensuring that we deservingly got the win!
MOM – Vinay for an impressive game at left back
POP – Steve for arrogance in thinking he deserved mom
Men’s 4s
W7-4
Men’s 5s
Men’s 5’s
Not a good day for the 5’s, with a fall squad there headed to Southend for an early pushback against Old Southendian.
The first half was very even, but Old Southendian took a 1-0 lead into the break.
The second half was again very even but Old Southendian took their chances where the 5’s failed and the game finished 4-0 to Old Southendian.
MOM: Nick Algeo
Pop: Zain Rashid
Otters
The Otters put in a much-improved performance at Rochford, taking an early lead through a first goal in adult hockey for young Haider, with a neat finish after Man of the Match Alastair ran half the length of the pitch in a breakaway. Rochford levelled before half-time with an individual effort out of the blue, and the game remained in the balance till two avoidable Rochford strikes, and our failure to turn pressure into clear opportunities led to a final score of 3-1. With Alastair’s energetic runs all over the pitch, Euan competitive as ever in midfield and Haider lively up front throughout it was a performance which suggested more wins are just around the corner.
Scorer: Haider Raja
