Ashford (Middlesex) Hockey Club

The astro draw winners for November 2011 are:

£100 Steve (Klaus) Nunn

£50 Jane English

£50 Heatehr Grocott

Congratulations to all the winners and your cheques should be with you soon. It is only £12 per year for a ticket and a draw is made every month throughout the season, with the extra big money prizes being drawn at the AHC Annual Dinner in April. Application forms are available on the website (see link on side bar) and on the Club Notice Board. Help support the club and give yourself a chance of winning some money at the same time.

The Men’s 1st team play Bexleyheath & Belvedere 1st XI in the 3rd round of the England Hockey Board Trophy at Short Lane on Sunday 20th November. Push back is at 1 pm and spectators are very welcome and support from AHC members is requested. Come on U Red & Blacks.

Ashford Ladies 3s – Home to PHC Chiswick, WON 3-0 (Chloe Russell, Nicki Davis, Nikki Croxon)

So the Ladies 3’s were at home against Chiswick and we were ready for a good game! We started off strong, attacking down the right side hard with Chloe Russell working extra hard to get the ball down the line to Megan Hurley. Not long into the game this worked and the ball got back to Chloe in the D and she took a shot at the goal from an angle that didn’t seem possible to score from but she did and we were winning 1-0. This was just what we needed . In the second half we continued to all work hard and the attack came from the right and left side with Jenny Tippell in the middle fighting strong to get the ball up the pitch. Ellie Watson displayed some beautiful skills alongside Jenny as she went round their players without any trouble. Then Abi Frith got a break on the left and after going round a few people, got the ball to Nicky Davis who hit it at the goal for their goalkeeper to try and keep it away but Nicky was too quick and there was our second goal!

Our defence remained strong throughout the game with Charlie Poulter in goal making some saves but we didn’t have much to worry about with our defence working hard to clear the ball. We had a few chances to score, one of which was Chloe Russell showing true commitment when she dived for the ball but unfortunately missed and hurt her elbow. We also lost our left back, Irene Okello to injury for 10 mins but she came back on fighting and got the ball down the wing which then went into the D for Nikki Croxon to score her first goal of the season making it 3-0! Brilliant result for Ashford 3’s ! The start of many wins to come!

The astro draw winners for October 2011 are:

£100 Anna Protheroe

£50 Ray Edwards

£50 Ian Jenkins (kindly donated back to AHC)

Congratulations to all the winners and your cheques should be with you soon. It is only £12 per year for a ticket and a draw is made every month throughout the season, with the extra big money prizes being drawn at the AHC Annual Dinner in April. Application forms are available on the website (see link on side bar) and on the Club Notice Board. Help support and give yourself a chance of winning some money at the same time.

Apologies to everyone…whilst coming and going on my holidays, I got the dates mixed up for Place your Bets…its actually on SATURDAY 22nd OCTOBER. Lucy, Hannah and the team are devising pesky challenges for us to anticipate or bet who will win…are there any sneaky cracker eaters to take the eating tasks by storm (ie me…think it might be the only time I beat Digger in an eating competition!)…who do you think could spin the most times and still score a goal…these may be the challenges, but then again, they might not!

Come down on Saturday 22nd October for another fun filled night! look out for emails from ahcsocial@hotmail.co.uk

Middlesex Hockey Umpires Association have planned to hold two Level I umpires courses shortly. The first is at West Hampstead HC on Tuesday 1st November (coaching session start 7.30pm – finish 10pm) and Wednesday 9th November (written test start 8pm – finish 9.15pm). The venue is the Cumberland Clubhouse in Alvanley Gardens, NW6 1JD, upstairs room over the squash courts, parking is in the road outside. This venue is not where the hockey players usually go to in Lymington Road but further up the hill.

The second Level 1 umpires course is being held at Teddington HC, Broom Road, on Tuesdays 8th & 15th November 2011 with the same start and finishing times. It is essential that all candidates are there for each start time and not be late please.

Maximum number of places available on each course is 30.
Four have already booked in for the West Hampstead course and one for Teddington.

Places are ONLY secured on our receipt of the course fee.

For those intending to attend, it is recommended that payment be made as soon as possible to be sure of a place.
Course fee is £40 and entry for the courses closes latest 3 days before the start date or earlier if all 30 places have been taken up..
Payments may be made either by -
- posting a cheque payable to MHUA to me at the address below
- or paid, quoting candidates name, directly into our account at Lloyds Bank sort code 30-98-79 account MHUA 01993753, with an email advice to me please.
Of the £40,

£25 is used to pay for the resources pack we obtain from England Hockey

£5 to cover our travel costs to the course and the subsequent practical assessment

£10 deposit which will be refunded on successful completion of the course OR may be used towards purchasing a set of 3 coloured umpire’s shirts which would then reduce the net cost to £15 for the entire set.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to email or give me a call and I will provide further details.

Luvvy/Tracey Holland c/o president@ashfordhockeyclub.co.uk

AHC is hoping to register itself in the England Hockey initiative shown above, by inviting any Ladies who used to play and are interested in returning to hockey, to come along to the first hour (7.30-8.30 pm) of Ladies winter Wednesday training sessions during September (7th, 14th, 21st, 28th) and 5th & 12th October. If you know anyone who maybe interested please bring them along or let Emma Hynes or myself know and we will contact them. They just need to turn up in sports kit and trainers, we can supply a stick.

The AHC pre-season Newsletter has been e-mailed/posted out to all paid up members today. Or view it on line here. Pre-season Newsletter;
Hard copies are also available at the Clubhouse. Men’s, Ladies and Colts midweek winter training dates are contained in the latest, 6 page edition of ‘Read & Black’, details of the forthcoming Club Day on 3/9/11, along with all the other latest and other Club information. Please contact your team captain, the Men’s and Ladies Club Captain or pressofficer@ashfordhockeyclub.co.uk for further details.

‘Ashford will be kicking off the 2011-2012 season with our club day tournament on Saturday 3rd September. Meeting at 1pm for registration, we’ll be holding a mixed team, mixed ability tournament! Exact team size dependent upon numbers, but usually around 6-7 aside playing on half a pitch…a more gentle reintroduction into the game . Games should start at 1.30pm. Alongside the tournament, we’ll also be hoping for sunshine as we get out the BBQ and to have some social beers. If you are definitely able to make it or are hoping to, please let us know to aid catering. Should you know someone interested in playing hockey for Ashford, this is a great chance to come and meet us…so bring them along! Hope to see you there, Hynes, Lucy, Wendy & Cole’.

Men’s weekly fitness training for the 2011/12 season will start on Tuesday 28th June, on the grass at Short Lane at 7.30 pm.

All existing and new members welcome.

Ashford have two teams (A & B!) playing in their own Ladies summer league being run at Short Lane on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings until July. Four other Clubs are involved and there are two divisions, with the winners and runners up of each division playing off in a final with a trophy for the A Division winnersa nd awards for the Division 2 winners. Matches start at 7.15 pm prompt, are 30 mins each way only and players of all abilities are welcome, please contact Lynne on president@ashfordhockeyclub.co.uk for further information. Come on U Red & Blacks.

Sunday 17th April saw the Tony Smith Tournament being played at Surbiton and the end of this season for the colts. We put out a full U13 Girls team ; Rasna Sandhu(C), Hannah Merchant(GK), Beth Jefferies, Bella Bogan, Chantelle Murphy, Molly Davis, Jagdeep Bal, Harriett Prothero and Caitlin Davis. The sun shone and so did our girls!
The first match was against Epsom with a 0-0 score, the girls were still asleep. The second match against Surbiton 5 ended 4-0 with 2 goals each from both Beth and Bella. The third match was against Worthing with 2 goals scored by the Bella/Rasna duo and one by Beth. Bella scored the winning goal during the last minute in the 4th match against Cheam. With a total of 10 points the team progressed to the semi finals. Playing against Woking and winning 1-0 with the winning goal again scored by Bella. Now they were through to the final where they were to play Epsom again (who had just beaten Teddington!)
Victory was ours with a 2-0 score, goals being gained by Rasna and Chantelle. Hannah had a clean sheet throughout the whole tournament – letting no goals in!! The vase was presented by the widow of Tony Smith and will be proudly displayed at AHC.
The whole team played fantastically and coaches Caroline Jefferies and Adrian ‘Bubbles’ Hewes were extremely proud of all of the girls.

It is time to start collecting Tesco and Sainsbury Vouchers again please. Last year we collected enough to get soem hockey balls and goal nets which was great. To avoid confusion we are having joint collecting boxes with the Cricket Club and splitting the proceeds 50-50. Both Clubs collected similar amounts last year so this year we have opted to use the same pair of boxes which are located in the Members bar on the tables under the flat screen TV. All contributions will be greatly received and you cna also pass them onot myself or your Team captains. Thanks Lynne

The hardy Boys u10′s jetted off to the exotic climes of Wimbledon for an early start – though hardy boys were thin on the ground and 4 of our girls (Jess Jacob, Steph Botwell, Amber O as goalie and Emily Bashford) and their parents were good enough to help us out and ensure all had a good if bracing day’s hockey. We had 3 games and lost the first to Wimbledon 1-0 as we got the journey out of our legs, Nathan Bridger played particularly well. The second game against the home side we were much better and dominated the game – a lovely move involving Nathan, Reece (who had a very strong game in midfield) and a James Bashford cross/shot set up Nathan for the winner. We then played Trinity who were a good team and big with it though their best player was a young girl and they were a bit too strong for us and we lost 2-0. All in all a good effort by a young team, all bar one can play next season..