An interesting flock of results at the weekend…

This week’s Golden Eagles (proud and soaring)… L1s, M4s
This week’s Common Seagull (nothing pretty but effective enough)… M2s
Leaving this week’s Pigeons (rats with wings)… M1s, L2s, L4s, L5s, M5s

That’s quite a lot of pigeons so lets have a focused week at training and get chasing the clean sweep next weekend.

Ladies 1s

Waltham Forest ladies 1s secured their seventh win of the league with a hard fought 3-0 win against Thurrock. The first half was played in very wet conditions and Forest took a little while to settle into the game but made the crucial breakthrough with a flawless penalty corner routine. Lucy Butcher’s short corner strike flew past the goalkeeper and into the corner of the goal. Forest made it 2 shortly afterwards from another penalty corner, this time Jenny Field scoring a fantastic deflection from the right. The home team were given a warning when Thurrock broke away and had the ball in the goal but it was ruled out and the home side remained 2-0 up at half time.

Waltham Forest dominated the second half and Clare Boyling ‘Shrimpie’s man of the match performance in midfield was integral to some of the brilliant play that took place. Thurrock rarely tested the Forest goalkeeper Mog Campbell and the home team wrapped up all 3 points with a third goal from Jenny Field. Next week Forest face one of their toughest matches as they take on Holcombe, currently second.

Ladies 2s

Tough match against top of the league Southend and Benfleet today for the Ladies 2. End result was 3-0 but I think we all came off the pitch knowing we’d given it our all. No horrific injuries, but poor Laura Murray did take a stick to head. Good effort from everyone but well done to MOM – El and at least Rachel McKimmon and I now know how to wear a mask!

Ladies 4s

Ladies 4’s, lost 4-3, on a very flooded pitch, we salied to win but sank…Good hard fought game by everyone, Katie got player of the match with many great runs…Go Katie !!! Havering did not provide “teas” as we told them we did not want them !!! Who told them ?? Well done to all, go home and have a nice warm bath..

Ladies 5s

A tough match for the Ladies 5s today but we fought against Loughts and scored a goal. I won’t say how many they scored. We knew they’d have their talented youth out and they didn’t prove us wrong. Lots to work on going forward but a moment of reflection after the match made us realise how far we’ve come in a short space of time – 4 weeks ago we would’ve been blown out of the water. Well done ladies, onwards and upwards! Many thanks to Ray Russo and Suzy Martin for umpiring for us, you missed the flapjacks (and your £10!) so to follow on Tuesday… Thanks Lucy Butcher for coming to coach and the Ladies 1s for supporting on the sideline! Ladies 5s will be coming to watch and learn from higher teams soon!

Mens 1s

This week the men’s 1st welcomed Cambridge City, who were sitting unbeaten at the top of the league, to the Academy.

It was always going to be a tough match and Forest needed to produce a much better performance than their last outing against Bishops Stortford. From the off City pressed high and passed the ball around well and Forest found it hard to get any foothold in the match as wave after wave of red shirts attacked the home teams goal. The new look central defensive partnership of Chris Brown and Shuhel Malique repelled everything and provided a calm assurance at the back and with the hard working Phil Peacock in central midfield Forest looked to have weather the early storm and even started to create some chances of their own, Liam Radley missing the best of these when one on one with the keeper. The visitors then began to up their tempo and re-exert some pressure and it soon paid off and then the flood gates started to open and Forest heads began to drop. 4-0 down at halftime and some harsh words were spoken by coach and captain as the performance was not up to the standard expected.

The second half was a more even affair with Forest missing a host of chances to get back into the match. City, however, did add to their tally as he home team were caught on the break twice to give a resounding 6-0 scoreline.

Forest will have to reevaluate their seasons aims after this defeat and after back to back poor performances will need to knuckle down in training to get back to winning ways.

Mens 2s

As if losing Captain Fantastic Boxall as one of 11 absentees wasn’t bad enough, a wet and windy 4pm pushback against 4th placed Mile End would have been enough to put most groups of young men off. Not the Men’s 2s.

A quick start and they took the lead through Marcus after a classic rapid attack. It was pointed out after the game that Mile End may not even have touched the ball before their keeper was spooning it out of the net, Ledley King eat your heart out. Sadly it didn’t last long, and Mile End grabbed an equaliser mid-way through the first half.

The response was fantastic, two further goals before half time from Jon “Where’s my fix?” Jones and Marcus “Sick Ink” Webb meant that Forest went into half time 3-1 up. A rousing team talk from stand-in Vice Captains Webb and Mills unfortunately couldn’t prepare them for the whirlwind 5 minutes after half time when an inability to get the ball out from the back saw Forest go 4-3 down through three quick, and incredibly sloppy, goals.

Again the response was good and Was pounced as only he can do to draw things level at 4-4. The last twenty minutes saw chances for both sides as Mile End ramped up the heat, Forest perhaps lucky to see a Mile End short corner converted but then disallowed by the umpire, then unlucky as a trademark Immy reverse stick scoop sailed tantalisingly over. However the storm was weathered, though Was encountered Hurricane Zetter with minutes to go, and the game ended 4-4.

The scoreline was probably fair, and everybody involved remarked on how well contested a game it had been. A stirling display from the members of the third team who put in an exceptional shift in a difficult game, so many thanks to all of them.

Eyes now turn towards next week’s showdown as 3rd placed Forest “welcome” [har har] table-toppers Brentwood to Fortress Academy, with their minds set on waking up on Sunday hungover, but top of the league.

Mens 4s

M4 has become to mean ‘match at 4pm’. It took us some time tiger going again this weekend with the additional complication if a floodlight failure, but sticking with our 3-2-3-2 formation we settled down thereafter and started banging them in.

3-0 at half time and turning the gas up in the second half we played with confidence and determination to make a contribution to improve our goal difference. Saffron Walden 7s are a young side. They played well and kept their collective end up through most of the game which earned them great respect.

An M4 performance to be proud of with notable contributions from Jon Sidwell, Fabio Primavera and Gary Joy as solid as ever at the centre of defence Aamir Sultan also has his best all round game for the squad. Thanks to Abby for playing; coming back from a break and having a run out.

Well done all. A game played with great spirit and one that felt like things are gelling nicely for the M4 squad this season.

Thanks to Ray S and Mick who sacrificed a game with us for the second time to enable the club to turn out two umpires for the coffee and petit four of the WFHC Saturday menu.

Mens 5s

With only 3 adult outfield players against a strong and experienced top-of-the-table East London 6 side this was always going to be difficult for the M5s, and when we were caught cold to fall behind early on, East London expected a rout. But we battled extremely well, and through periods of the first half played the better hockey, with Rhys on debut leading counter-attacks from midfield. Approaching half-time Nate came close to equalising, but that was as close as we got, conceding a second just before the break, and East London used the advantage of having substitutes to take hold of the game in the second half as it finished 5-0, some great saves from Shaun keeping the score somewhat respectable.

If we can repeat this performance, against one of the 2 clear best teams in the Division, we will be consistently winning games soon (although our next match is away at the other of those 2 teams.) Man of the match votes were spread around which was reflective of a good team effort, though I must admit someone’s choice of Eebbaa was interesting, given that he didn’t play.