Ashford (Middlesex) Hockey Club

Disappointing week generally although one standout result for the 2’s. The 1’s resumed their league campaign against fellow strugglers, Ashford (Kent) and went one-up from a short corner conversion by Phil the Lip – unfortunately the visitors came back strongly and were 3-1 up at half time with the final score 5-1 as we chased the game. The enforced break probably didn’t help us here.

The 2’s had a fantastic result against Eastcote 3’s who are in the top 4 – we didn’t concede early and confidence increased when their defence could not cope with the blistering pace of Podge – his shot was parried and Shaggy did his batty-boy hit to put us 1-up. Although they equalised just before the half time whistle, our boys kept their shape and good form and were rewarded late on when Fry finished from close range. A superb result, which moves us up into mid-table – well done, lads!

The 3’s were a bit disappointing …Eastcote were nippy and inventive and played the ball round us for much of the game, they dominated the first half and we were 4 down and couldn’t complain. The second half we got into the game and played some decent stuff and we drew the half 2 apiece, Rishi finished off a very nice team move and Gordo scored from a short corner rebound. The 3’s and the 4’s who lost 6-0 probably do need a break now and make sure they are refreshed and ready for 8 Jan resumption.

The 5’s did great too beating GX 3’s 5-3, more than doubling their goal tally!!! Weapon Alpha got one, don’t know about the others

Just the 3 games this week. The 1’s paid for early goals conceding 3 from short corners, they did hang on in there and got a goal back when Jas threaded the ball through to Rhino and he expertly rounded the keeper and belted the ball home. The second half saw the game even up as Ashford grew in confidence – they had a golden chance from a shortie to make it 3-2 but it didn’t go in and 2 minutes later it was 4-1 and game over. Oxford Hawks are top and with Ashford playing 6^th-placed Richmond Saturday, they will have the bottom half of the table to play in the run-in.

OMG the 3’s have an unbeaten run (I have taken to considering one game as an unbeaten run but we have got to two!!)!!! Playing Leighton Buzzard 1’s, for the 4^th game of the 6 we’ve played, we were battered in the first half (in fact for portions we were bread crumbed) but we hung on in there, just, for 1-0 at half time. We had noticeably improved in the last 10 minutes (and were very unlucky not to have equalised) but we continued our play into the 2^nd. When we get it right, we really make our pace count and although LB always looked more dangerous, we had them on the hop numerous times as the game opened up. A long ball set Steve T on goal and although he and the ball were kicked up in the air, the ball was retained and Adam passed to Rishi G who displayed unbelievable tekkers (mun) to make space and crack home the equaliser.  Game on and great fun it was too, the whole team worked very very hard. Last 10 minutes, we tired and it was backs to the wall but we held on for a great win I mean draw.

The 4’s continue to have a far from dull season and were having a good game against West Hampstead and 1-0 down when ….can’t be named for legal reasons….and draconian umpiring spoilt the game – final score 5-0.

Many congratulations to Dasmesh (Dash) Sandhu, who had a very enjoyable time at the Under 16 England Hockey Futures Cup last weekend. Dash’s team the Saxon Tigers (basically the former south team) convincingly beat the other regional teams, Wessex Leopards 5-0, Mercia Lynx 4-1 and Pennine Pumas 6-0, over the three days and won the tournament.

Dash, who has worked his way through the AHC Colts and Senior teams from the Under 9’s to the Men’s 1st team, playing in all seven junior age groups and all five men’s teams, deserves great credit for his efforts. More importantly, he has worked very hard on the training ground and his coaches also therefore deserve a mention. The tournament was a display of great hockey apparently and Dash was proud to represent the Red & Blacks at it, and I am sure as he always is, he was an absolute credit to the Club.

Further details and some photographs can be found on the web link http://www.englandhockey.co.uk/news.asp?itemid=9227&itemTitle=Futures+Cup+Day+Four&section=22&sectionTitle=News

Luke Wheeler was also away over half term holiday with an Under 14 boys side drawn from the Home Counties to play at a tournament in Holland.

Well done all, especially Dash, good on ya!

Hold the Front Page – the Men bag 2 wins on same day! Unfortunately, not the 1’s who paid for a poor first half against Lewes losing 4-1, they drew the 2^nd half with BigEll scoring from a slipped shortie. The 2’s were masterful on Saturday totally dominating a Gerrards Cross 1’s but only had a Big Amit strike to separate them though a 2^nd goal was disallowed eventually once the umpires worked out the subtle difference between Fry’s stick and nose. The 3’s had a great game against GX 2’s, great obviously cos we won but also the 2 teams make-up were identical with a few ropey old boys and 8 or 9 sprogs so it was Game On. We started much the stronger and dominated the first 25 mins – eventually a great run by Doggers saw Robbie get a shot in and Ryan ‘Dan’ Dare nicked it off him! We then got a bit nervous (not used to being in front) and let GX press us back in the final 10 mins of the half and they deflected in a dubious short corner. Undaunted, we continued to dominate the game though GX were having their moments but lovely play involving Rishi G set up Ryan who clipped in a nice reverse-shot for his 2nd and then Rishi banged in his debut goal from a shortie. There was still time left for young Harry to tee up Ryan who batted in his 3^rd (well done, Ryan!!) and look forward to the jug from his Dad. GX got a consolation 2^nd from an excellent short corner deflection. The 4s are having fun and games in their league, Brunel jumped 3 leagues from last year but are still miles off their standard, the lads did very well to hold then to 6! 5’s continued their good season with a close game against Marlow 3a’s eventually losing 2-1, goal from jeez I forgot but not weapon X!

Well we are getting closer in the 1′s. Playing Barnes, we didn’t start well and shipped too many goals early to be trailing 4-1. Cue a superb second-half and I like to think we we run out of time, scoring 2 minutes from time to make it 5-4, Ben Washer got 2 with Jas and Ed Green getting the others. The 2′s struggled to a 5-o defeat, the most unnerving thing for the oppo to handle was undoubtedly Podge’s helmet hair which drew admiring glances and comments from all who were lucky enough to see it. The 3′s were all at sea 1st half against Marlow and were lucky to only be trailing by 2 at half time. We had a very young team with the 4-man midfield totalling 69 versus a very experienced and useful Marlow team who went top on this result. Fortunately their short corner routine was pants and they were a bit Arsenal-esque in over-complicating their play – having said that we played very well in the 2nd half, never let our heads go down and really gave them a game. We have now played top, 3rd and 4th in 3 games so would be nice to have an easier game!?! The 4′s put in a plucky performance against a strong Marlow’s 3′s  losing 6-1 while the 5′s had an enjoyable but losing game against the mini-men of Bracknell

Another difficult week for the Red-and-Blacks.

The 1′s continued their difficult start losing to Tulse Hill and never really got going. The 2′s at least won the second half  1-0 courtesy of a Darren Adams shortie but unfortunately (we’ve checked the rule books) the first half counts so we lost 4-1 to MK 2′s. The 3′s couldn’t build on their success of last week against probably the best 4th team in the world and  lost 7-2 to Phoenix & Ranelagh 1′s. 2-0 down at half time and far from their best, we rallied in the second hand and scored a superb breakaway goal from the oppo short corner no more than 10 seconds after they had taken it! We cleared it out to Adam who passed to Matt and his first time pass left Jonno running in on the goalie and he passed it into the corner! Unfortunately, an infringement was missed for their 3rd and although we were well in the game, Phoenix moved the ball quicker and better than we did and made it count as we tired. Matt S scored a nice reverse-whack goal but overall disappointing to ship that many goals. The 4′s lost 2-0 but finally had a fair game – and a good one against a development Eastcote 6′s – only one down until the last 2 minutes, they were always in the game but were unable to trouble their goalie unduly. It was the 5′s turn to wonder at the make-up of the oppo with Wycombe 7′s being far too strong, they drew the second half 1-1 with Rishi scoring but had shipped 5 in the first, still they played very well.

Quickie this week sorry busy busy and all that…the 1′s had a similar experience to the week before – competing first half before losing way 2nd – against better oppo and lost 7-1. The 2′s paid for a poor first half and were 2 or 3 goals down before losing 5-2.

The 3′s had a fantastic result against West Hampstead – who will be up the top of the table come the end of the season. Having been battered first half but only one-down, we dug deep and then deeper still to hold WH and then – crikey – Robbie, our Ace of Pace, finished off a superb team move from the back to equalise 10 mins into the half. From then on, the team played outstandingly to hold their own until the last 10 mins when we were very tired but we held on. Felt like a win to be honest.

The 4′s have not had an easy time of it with the ex-National player last week and this week, Teto (who would be in our 1′s) playing for BA 3′s!!! Add to that Bubs being caught by an oppo stick (the stick came off worst of course) and no surprise we were on the end of a 7-1 defeat. The 5′s went down by 5 to Staines 6′s.

Goals from…Ryan Holland, Alex Betts, WeaponX (2)…

And So It Begins…(from the opening credits of what show?)…well we are off and running, maybe a bit slower than hoped for…

My info on the 1′s was they had just as much of the first half as the oppo – Henley – but were made to pay for two lapses, got back into the game with a nice Rhino goal after good work by Sha…but then too many of the team hit a wall after 50 mins and faded from the game…final score 6-1. The 2′s had a really good opener against Henley losing 2-1, very open and even game with Sir Alex scoring a sweet reverse-stick whammy for our goal and having 2 shorties at the end for the equaliser.

Well the 3′s was an adventure with only 10 men 20 mins before the meet time away to MK! Step up, Hary Weigner for his first league game ever and I owe him a pint when he is allowed to drink it. We played against a very confident, newly-promoted MK team on a bouncy but nice pitch – no-one was missing the mulch from last time! Pleasure to have 2 good umpires provided by MK and our boys collectively played really well – Robbie aka the Flash was th 5th eldest at 18 and David Sutch was older by a year than his other 3 defenders! 1-0 down at half time was something to be proud of and we got tired in the second, conceding 3 more. The 4′s was over-shadowed by a horrible injury to GK debutante Andy Ritchie which meant an ambulance and an early end to the game with MK – with an ex-National League forward playing miles below his standard – 8 goals to the good. Hurrah for the 5′s who beat Eastcote 8′s 2-1 with 2 goals from Weapon X.

The annual start of the season Club Day will be held on Saturday 4th September at Short Lane, starting at midday and all current, past and would be players of all ages and abilities are welcome. Your Team Captains’ will be sending out further details soon, but please make a note in your diary.

In addition, if you fancy giving hockey a go and haven’t played before, please come on down..

Tickets are now available at £1 each or £5 per book for the Grand Draw to be held at our 90th Anniversary Ball on Saturday 24th April. The prizes are many and various:

Cinema in your living room – LCD TV, Blu Ray Player

Hockey Heaven? A selection of Ashford Hockey Club sporting goodies including personalised shirt by WeAdmire.net and hockey kit from TK

ZZZZ…..not now! £100 voucher from Zoppo Hockey

Turning pro? A hockey stick from The ProShop

Ladies Pamper Hamper! Mini spa day at Virgin Staines & other goodies

Picture perfect – A 20” by 30” canvas of your choice from canvasRus.co.uk

Thirst quenching – A selection of South African wines from Cape Wine and Food, Staines.

Restore and revive – a Kinesiology session with Devin Dyason

Time for tea with Teapigs.co.uk – teatime treatsDriving forward? A round of golf for 4 at Stockley Park

Smile  A digital photo frame

Howzat? A pair of tickets for Surrey county cricket at the BritOval

Bubblicious – A bottle of champagne

Bowled over? Glass bowl from Classic Miniatures

Plus others – Buy your tickets from Tracy/Lynne at Short Lane or Wendy/Hayley on ahcsocial@hotmail.co.uk, or buy on the night!

The Red-and-Blacks bid farewell officially to Premier 1 Hockey with a 6-3 defeat to Purley Walcountians. It was a fairly standard game for Ashford in that they played well and competed with their mid-table opponents for most of the game but shipped goals at inopportune times. It was a fast open and entertaining game and Ashford were able to make their pressure count 3 times through top scorer, coach Duncan Mahony, youngster Alex Betts and Jaz.

With most of the first team squad departing before the season started, it is a testament to coach Mahony and skipper Luke Cottrell, only 20 himself, that his young (and old) team have always competed and retained an excellent team spirit throughout a very difficult season. Thoughts will now turn to next season and one of the things the club will be doing is running at least one men’s summer league this season to bring funds into the club and attract new players.

As for the 2’s, well it’s nearly over boys! It would be nice if the 2’s were Bobby Ewing and we’ve just had a shower and it was just a bad dream and Sue-Ellen is alive and the 2’s are top of the table.

The 3’s Gordon Bennet! Bloomin’ GX won again and have gone above us so we are back bottom – South Bucks have lost 5 points somehow and we have to play them after Easter so we can still not finish bottom. Game was kinda similar to last weeks where we were a bit blah first half but Sonning are a good team and made us pay so were 3-down at half time and game gone however second half we played some very nice stuff and the game was pretty even, Shaggy scored a corker – nice team play from Gordo, DM, little Stef, a reverse-whojamaflip from Adam and Shaggy ran through from outside the 25 in his inimitable not-in-control fashion before finishing with a vicious reverse-tomahawk screamer!! (may have exaggerated the last bit a tad) – final score was 5-1 – big news was Ding Dong’s recipe for houmous – apparently secret ingredient is Lard

No game for the 4’s they finish after Easter as well but the 5’s completed a pretty decent season (but a little disappointingly) by losing to Staines 6’s 3-1 – think Orex and his team of helpers have done a grand job this season – despite all our problems, we have continued to put out 5 teams which is fantastic.

If someone in the hockey club can solve the technical issues and high incident of death associated with time travel, it would come in very handy as we could then go back and erase the first half of the 1’s and 3’s games and all of the 2’s and 4’s. Thanks God for the 5’s who lost a close and rather fun game 4-2 or 4-3 to Marlow…I am not sure of so many scorers I will run out of nom de plumes so will update at some point…The 1’s were 5 down at half time and then really turned their performance round and gave as good as they got in the second half only conceding one more to second-placed Spencer.

Moving swiftly past the 2’s whose 2 goals came from (any 2 of 12 but probably not the Croxster in goal who I think we can assume was very busy and had by far the best game for our lot). The 4’struggled against a very experienced Eastcote side but we did get a goal!

That leaves the 3’s who have now done the league double over Eastcote 4’s – ok they were both draws but, in the season we have had, they are the new ‘wins.’ 2-0 down and lucky to be that at half time, Gordo had come off because of a calf strain but with absolutely no sign of any sympathy or even the offer of a little massage from our team groupies, he decided to come back on. Anyway, off the back of  a pretty ordinary collective team talk, there was no right to expect our second half performance which was rather good!

Balls were stopped, passes were made, and quite often went to our own players, and we forced 16 after 16, almost National League standard! We still didn’t look like scoring though and it looked as if we would slide to another no-pointer when bang we scored 2 goals in 4 minutes…first one was quite fortunate as Gordo played a hopeful ball into the D and their poor centre-back receiving no call from the keeper, dived full-length and stopped the ball right into the onrushing Captain Shaggy who did his best to miss the chance but eventually poked it in!  Next a sweeping move from the back involving little Stef, Shaggy and Jonno down the left ended with the cross bouncing through to the top of the D where ‘Ding Dong’ Bell took one touch and batted it like a bullet past the statuesque ‘keeper…what a goal, well worth waiting the 7 seasons for (well feels that long)…we were delirious and good thing his missus wasn’t there as she would have been very jealous of all the sugar that came his way. So a fantastic point and we are off the bottom!!!!

…with AshFactor report…

Not the best result for the 1′s but very exciting to see the future of the club coming through in the game against 4th-placed Chichester- 2 of our 16-year-olds netted high-quality goals in the 7-3 defeat. We were on fire from the start and were 2-up with barely 5 mins gone!! First young Shane – a veteran at 19 – lifted the ball 40 yards to Rhino and he took it down expertly before rounding the keeper for 1-0 – 2 minutes later, Dunc robbed their midfielder, played a 1-2 with Rhino before slotting home…yes, the crowd were actually going wild. I think everyone was a bit shocked and the team didn’t know quite what to do with a start like this and maybe froze a bit and allowed Chichester to get back into the game and get one back fairly quickly. By half-time, it was 2-all and a brief 10-minute spell apart at the start of the second half, the visitors bossed the game. Alex Betts scored his first goal for the 1′s – well done Dame Bettsy! – after a fabulous run by Dunc no doubt relieved that he wasn’t required to sing later on at AshFactor!

The 2′s and 3′s were always going to struggle against top team Wycombe who have already won their leagues and are preternaturally good – if our games had been a horse race, we would have been pulled up at halftime – anyway aggregate loss of 16-0, I believe, the 2′s weren’t too sure of the score, we lost 7-0.

The 4′s lost 6-0 to MK 4′s which was an improvement on 11-0 while the 5′s were the stars on the playing pitch disposing of Aylesbury 4′s 4-1, Weapon Alpha getting his second hat-trick and Sandeep Ubi the other – well done, boys, the glory of mid-table obscurity beckons!!

Having got the unimportant hockey stuff out of the way, it was time to concentrate on the biggest night of the year (ok of this weekend) – where were the tv camera’s? Anyway, highlights/lowlights of the evening – and feel free to post your view of events by the way – we had the traditional wait for Deep to get it working (once he’d plugged it in and turned it on and off again, we were away). First up was Joe Siman new to the club and very brave doing Whitney – long song too as he found out – in fact changing his name to Joe Simian as he is one hairy mother. Gordo did the most energetic performance and the stage was coming apart, apparently disowned by Podge now. Emma got marked down for being too good and had the ropiest backing singers. Fred had had too many E”s during the day and was jitterbugging (whatever that is, it’s a good word). The young boys were getting very excited during Abba/Ladies 2′s while Hannah and her Egyptian serving girls were rather good and had been practicing – I would have preferred to see them do it in a milk bath – but I’m blaming the Broadside for that. Who have I missed? Ah yes the 4′s and Peggy Sue – Bubbles was very polished considering they pitched to the do with no act, very interesting to note the speed at which Guy Taylor volunteered to dash home and get his missus’ dress on and be Peggy Sue – not a bad pair of legs actually!!

Anyway, great night and well done to Hayley and Deep and everyone else who mucked in and helped a great night happen and show what a fantastic club we are part of!!!!

Ashford 1 Maidstone 4

Wokingham 1’s 6 Ashford 2’s 3

Ashford 4’s 0 Leighton Buzzard 2’s 7

Eastcote 8’s 1 Ashford 5’s 1

It was Groundhog Day again for the Red-and-Blacks as they played well and for much of the game out-played their mid-table opposition, Maidstone, but once again they were outdone by counter-attacking and better finishing. Maidstone have the leading goalscorer in Prem A this season in Chris Bassano-Harper and despite an even first half, were 2-up at the break. Coach Duncan Mahony scored a terrific goal early in the second half but as Ashford pressed for an equaliser were undone by a classic counter-attack. Young Shanie White hit the post from a drag-flick shortie and that might have set up a grandstand finish but an overtime-converted short corner by Bassano-Harper gave the final score a flattering look for the visitors. 2 notable things about this game were the 2 ‘debutantes’ for the home team, Joe Siman was playing at the bottom of the league rung against Ashford 5’s not long ago but rose up effectively 14 leagues (which coincides with the number of hairs on his head) to play a very impressive first-ever game at left back! The second debut was like something out of a Frankenstein movie – thunder and lightning flashed, the crowd started baying for no reason and where did they get those scythes and torches come from? With Spanky impersonating Igor, no make-up required, there was a crackling eldritch transformation in the home dug-out and out of the smoke and fog lurched – the horror! – the creaking 46-year-old Neil Smith, due to help out the 3’s, who came on when 14-year-old Phil Thelip was injured to give an effervescent display at right back and too many ‘Gretsky’s’ to count…he must be on commission…

The 2’s were nearly on fire shooting into a 3-2 lead with goals from Rosie and Ryan and had a Shaunie short corner disallowed for dipping above the backboard (before hitting it) which would have been 4-2 – they then ran out of steam and lost 6-3 to Wokingham 1’s.

The 4’s played Leighton Buzzard 2’s who were suspiciously good given they are 3^rd from bottom. The 4’s did ever so well to hold them to half-time but once they conceded an early goal in the second half, it all got a bit difficult for them.

The 5’s had a good game and result although will be disappointed to concede a late equaliser, young Luke scored for us.