THIS WEEK, Saturday  11^TH NOVEMBER

FORTHCOMING MATCHES, SATURDAY 18^th NOVEMBER

CLUB HOUSE DUTY = THE 4^TH XI

DATES FOR THE DIARY
Saturday 11^th November – Quiz Night
Club Dinner Dance – 31^st March 2001

Match Reports

Ladies vs. Ashford, lost 2-0

How come every time it’s my turn to do the match report I have to report on how un-friendly the match was?  Is it me? (yes…ed.)

Saturday was a glorious day for hockey – cool, bright and clear with little breeze.  We arrived at Ashford for a 10:30 start, raring to go.  We had beaten Ashford both times last season, but the team that rolled out for them on Saturday was full of unfamiliar faces.

The first 10 minutes we dominated play.   Attack, attack, attack.  Then there was a little incident between Sarah and their no.14.  Not very nice, play carried on, but it set the tone for the whole match.  10 minutes later there is another incident involving their no.14 and me.  She had a nice little touch of using her stick at waist height to remove you from being next to her.  Umpire calls us over and tells us to “cool it”.  No.14 continuous in an un-sporting manner to be rude, physical with her stick and comments “that’s what you get if you mess with me”

Ashford score before half time and we are a bit disheartened, as we really didn’t deserved to be 1-0 down, but some of us were definitely suffering from “No. 14 syndrome”Second half saw one of our excellent new young ladies, Catherine, viciously taken out by the Ashford keeper, off the ball.  Catherine struggled to get over this.  It affected her game.  The umpire “didn’t see it”.

Julie Cobb played a blinder as did the defence under considerable pressure in the second half.

Ashford scored again, with a very good goal, 10 mins from full time, and there was no way we were going to get back in the game.  Our energy and enthusiasm had gone.

After the game Sarah, Catherine and me compared bruises we got from the “encounters” with their No.14.  But Catherine won the bruise competition hands down with the awful bruise and swelling she had received from their goalie.

If that’s what it takes these days to win a hockey match, then I’d rather loose every week.  There really is no need for physical abuse and intimidation.  But we’ll be ready for them on the return match after Christmas.

A bruised Miss P (who is still leading the competition for marriage by 1 goal

1^st XI vs. Maidstone, lost 5-4

Floppy Jaffa

3^rd XI vs. Canterbury, lost 9-1

At least I hope it will be an education for our (mainly) young team.  I hope that we will learn something about the way we play and NOT get too disheartened or look for excuses.  Enough hoping…

We arrived for our 5pm start on the new water-based astro at the Polo Farm (– a pitch which does not compete with that at St Lawrence frankly) – to find that we were not playing against one of Canterbury’s many development squads, but were in fact playing a very experienced Veterans team.

We did not start well, giving the ball to our opponents far too often.  They punished us, taking the lead after just under 5 minutes and doubling their score on 10 minutes.  Their third came just two minutes later as our umpire Bob gave them a penalty flick for deliberate feet in our D. 3-0 down and ED CHATER in goal was having a good game!

Still ill, DAVE MORGAN a la Alex Ferguson (except with wine gums instead of chewing gum) made three changes – ADAM STRICKETT moved to centre forward and JULES (guest) ROBINSON up to centre-half alongside JEZ (second guest) PARKIN at left-half. This paid dividends almost immediately as ADAM was fouled in the D and their umpire awarded a penalty, which JULES converted (…)

We started to move the ball around sensibly and carefully and for 10 minutes or so the game was more balanced. Unfortunately we let it slip on the brink of half time and Canterbury caught us pushing up looking for a second goal and broke to make it 4-1 at half time.

PORNO did his team talk assisted by JEZ and DAVE M and for the first 5 minutes we continued to play well. However, a freaky mis-hit looped over ED in goal and we were further behind. We started to lose our shape and resorted to long balls a la Wimbledon and mazy runs which went absolutely nowhere. In short, we lost our heads and did everything that Porno had asked us NOT to do.

Canterbury realized that they had us in trouble and I was a little disappointed (though not surprised) at some of the unpleasant, mocking comments a few of them began to make. Canterbury scored their 6^th goal with just under 10 minutes to go and then proceeded to rip us apart in the final 5 minutes, scoring another 3.

Afterwards a number of players looked for excuses. Yes, the umpiring was indifferent. Yes, we had a 2 perfectly good goals disallowed either side of half time. Yes, Canterbury’s last goal should have been disallowed as the ball had clearly gone out of play… (YELLOW card to DAVE CAIN who told their umpire what he thought of that.) However, when you play against an opposition featuring ROLY BROOKEMAN (100+ caps for Britain), GRAHAM BROWN (top scorer at Canterbury for 11 seasons out of the last 25 years) etc you have to THINK (at least!). We were out-THOUGHT as well as out-FOUGHT.

Still, we’re still 4^th in the league, 7 points behind Canterbury with a game in hand. Let’s remain positive!

Man of the match Rob Macer.

Spanky

5^th XI vs. Gore Court, won 3-0

Another day another dollar, not only a win but also one with some style.

Man of the match Andy Kingston, even if he couldn’t work out the skipper’s clues at short corners. As they say in our modern offices it was a team performance all pulling together for the good of the cause, a team of team players with the ability to think for themselves. Does anybody believe this crap! A mention in dispatches for Daniel Sterling (in his first match), James Manning and Karl Sandy.

Rob Kirby moving up to striker scored the first goal and James Manning the third, now folks here comes the bad news R. Ash esq. scored from a short corner. The even worse news, it was a well-taken goal! The ray of sunshine in all this gloom, an inch perfect pass from Mr. Setterfield to set up the scoring opportunity.

We have to mention (in order to stop a mutiny) that this was a second clean sheet for James Handley between the posts, he is looking very solid (no insult intended). He was called on to make only two saves, but this he did with ease, in a game we dominated without perhaps putting the prune in the cage as often as we should, this was an important factor.

Thanks to Nick Alder for umpiring, you didn’t even know he was there.

Team: James Handley, Richard Ash, Daniel Sterling, David Williamson, Karl Sandy, Andy Kingston, John Carr, Jimmy Robinson, David Lawrie, James Manning, Rob Kirby, Ray Setterfield.

John Carr

Court and Social

Have…the fourth XI and Senators ceased to exist? You would think so from the amount of MATCH REPORTS I have received from them.

Club Subscriptions…Are now overdue! Please help out the club treasurer and team captains by paying them ASAP. Otherwise we shall send the boys round!