Ashford (Middlesex) Hockey Club

Ladies League Hockey 25^th October 2008
Middlesex Premier

Ashford 1^st XI 2 v Hampstead & Westminster 2^nd XI 7

Ashford had a tough match at home on Saturday when they entertained the new Premier League leaders Hampstead and Westminster Ladies 2^nd XI. Due to it being the start of the half term school holiday, availability for all four Ashford Ladies sides was poor. Three of the 1^st XI squad’s younger players ANNA PROTHEROE, ELINE SIBIA and LIV YOUNG were all unavailable, whilst defender KIM FRY was still suffering with illness, so the squad was reduced to twelve players; with midfield dynamo JACQUI BASHFORD playing despite still having an injured right thigh. The Red & Blacks started the game well though, with coach MANDY WAIN being very pleased with the way they attacked purposely from the start, playing some creative team hockey, which was a big improvement on last week’s performance. A short corner soon resulted from the early Ashford pressure and JACKIE PARSONS stepped home to fire in a screamer of a shot which unfortunately skimmed the near upright and went wide. The visitors retaliated and after ten minutes of play opened the scoring somewhat against the run of play, when one of their forwards glanced the ball home from a colleagues fine strike from the edge of the circle. Ashford driven on well by amongst others, alert midfielder ANNIE NEYTON continued to play well and went close to securing an equaliser seven minutes later following a melee in the visitor’s goal mouth. However, as previously the visitor’s counter attacked and got a second goal following a move on the left of the circle being hit home from close in. They followed it up with another attack, and despite a very good save by the agile Ashford goalkeeper SAM GRANT, they hit the rebound home past the stranded keeper to go three goals to nil up. The Red & Blacks tried to respond, but were unable to secure an equaliser before half time.

The second half saw the visitors starting to dominate the play and Ashford’s team work breaking down. In addition, despite it not being a very physical or dirty game at all, both umpires had issued green cards to players from both sides and following a stick tackle, one of the Ashford forwards was sent off for ten minutes. The visitors had by this stage taken advantage of the extra player and scored two more good goals to take an unassailable five nil lead. Ashford had by now moved sweeper JACKIE PARSONS further up the field in an effort to get on the score sheet and midway through the second half she swept into the visitors goalmouth and despite missing her first strike of the ball, she hit it cleanly second time round from the edge of the circle to open the scoring for the Red & Blacks and make the score 5 -1. Once again the visitors caught the Ashford defence stretched as they swept up the pitch to score their sixth goal and followed it up five minutes later with their seventh of the match from close in. The Red & Blacks got a consolation second goal shortly before the end of the game when the injured JACQUI BASHFORD slotted the ball home from close in following good work by MARIA CAVILLA. The defeat sees the Red & Blacks move down to fourth position in the league. There are no Middlesex League games next week and no friendly game has been arranged for the 1^st XI in order to give the squad a rest and for many a chance to recover from niggling injuries. The weekend after however, Ashford are at home in the League on Saturday 8^th November to PHC Chiswick, who are one place above them in the table, with the same number of points, but a better goal difference than the Red & Blacks. On the Sunday 9^th November, the Ladies 1^st XI have to make a long trip down to Dorset to play Weymouth Ladies 1^st XI in the second round of the England Hockey Vase competition.

Team; S. Grant (GK), E. Hynes, J Parsons, A. Neyton, H. Eames, M. Cavilla, L. Quinn (Skipper), P. Worsfold, J. Bashford, S. Kenward, S. Smart, N. Benedict