Ashford (Middlesex) Hockey Club

Download the latest Red & Black Newsletter: December 2007

It has all the latest news and updates:

• Chairmans Chatter - with the latest on all the teams
• Social News
• Stork Club
• Entertainments - Pop Idol 3 update
• Astro Draw Fund Winners
• AA’s Chatter
• The Season So Far…
• Juniors
• Umpires

Have a good Christmas and New Year

Goalscorers:
Emmerton (2), Meadows (just - more of an own goal really)

Saturday 8th December and the 2nd XI travelled through torrential rain storms, heavy winds and freezing temperatures to the darkest depths of Kent…or Sevenoaks as it’s known on any decent road map. After last week’s dissapointment of throwing away 3 points and drawing with a mediocre Henley side, we went with 11 to a team 4th from top, a reputation for being fit, physical and pretty decent. That said, the weather was the leveller in this match. It was awful.

Just like the week before, we started brightly and had plenty of possession and soon found the Sevenoaks weak spot: The left side. So we attacked and pressed well through Dan Holland and Joe Lewis, fresh from his sejourne with the 1st XI. Typically though, buoyed by this confident start we switched off for a second and tackled weakly allowing Sevenoaks a venture into our ‘D’ and win a Short Corner. Now, fair enough, it was well pushed out, the strike was awful but my attempt at defending on Dan’s pads was truly something - First I strayed in front of his head and then I decided to attempt a lovely forward defensive on a peach of a delivery only to see it knick off my inside and into the goal. Fair play, I’ll take the DOD for that. Things though, were really confounded when we allowed Sevenoaks another free run at our defense which, coupled with poor marking saw them rack up another goal. Fair to say that Billy and Digger looked like having their work cut out.

Alarm bells were now ringing in my head, not again chaps…come on. Well, no not really, the 2s are now starting to find some belief in their abilities which has been severely lacking this season and it was a joy to see us attack and press as we could. A couple of lovely moves down our right through Holland, Lewis and the ever improving Dan Rose really racked up the pressure on a slow Sevenoaks defense. We even started to boss the centre of midfield through Washer and Ram man (you could say we looked the fitter out of the 4 centre halves on display…like I said….looked). So it was no surprise really when mini Sherps popped up in the D (literally) and executed a trademark reverse sweep across the keeper for his fifth of the season. It was a breathless first half (and a cold one too) but we went into the break feeling the stonger of the 2 sides….and we knew we could get a result out of this one. Something we hadn’t felt good enough to say for quite a while.

And we carried that into the 2nd half. Starting with the push back, we held onto the ball (I lost count of the number of passes) but we somehow ended up in the Sevenoaks ‘D’ after another pick and lead by Rosey skinned their left back, a peach of a ball across the ‘D’ fell to Carl Meadows who with a trademark Gretsky, via a defender, another defender and finally past the keeper ended up in the back of the goal (just). Can you count that as a goal for Carl? Well he seemed to think he could. Regardless, that folks was the best bit of hockey we have played all season and to get a goal 2 minutes into the half, without the oppo touching the ball has to go down well. 2 - 2 but still a long way to go.

Now though the game started to stretch, tackles became ‘less professional’ (Dan Holland somehow escaping a certain yellow whilst breaking up a 2 on 1 with Dan in goal), Rakey got the finger out in the umpires face…I ended up on my aris again. And although we were under the cosh for a long period we kept attacking down the left and eventually on one breakaway we scored again through mini Sherps with yet another trademark reverse sweep, this time over the keeper who clearly hadn’t learnt that Matt is completely clueless when it comes to this piece of skill. Still, we now had a lead and were determined to hold onto it.

And we did, right until 2 minutes from the end. We were under some real pressure for the last 2 minutes from 10 attackers and 1 umpire (I think that’s fair to say that - he wasn’t very good to be honest). We must have repelled a dozen short corners (yours truly attoning for his first half disaster by putting one wide and 2 over the bar to deep gully) - Dan even made another fantastic save using his head…just like last week…keeping us in the game. But then came the turning point. Joe tracked back the lumping Sevenoaks centre back and tackled him cleanly, from the wrong side. But still, he went down like a beached whale, Seveonaks appealed and had a free hit outside the ‘D’. The result? Well, poetic justice really to Sevenoaks, the ball came in, off Dan in goal, Digger stumbled, I fell over (again)…the world tilted on its axis, in fact we went through another ice age all before the Sevenoaks forward followed up the rebound and squirmed it past Dan. 3 - 3, one minute to play. Gutting.

Sevenoaks even had a chance to win it at the end with a short corner but we held out well, stepping up quickly and clearing to the sideline. A draw, again like last week was a fair reflection. Terrible conditions for a game of hockey, great game, great performance by our young, improving side, another point but more encouragingly, 2 decent performances back-to-back.

Report card for the first half of the season? Plenty of effort, good application at times but room for improvement next term. Well done lads.

Washer.

Goalscorers:
Adam Smith, Gordo, Amit, Bob Billins

Man of the Match:
Adam Smith

Wow under pressure from Ben’s 2nd team novella! A great result for the 4’s - yours truly a little surprised given we were 4 players light - but we deserved this win and it pushed us up the table to 4th from bottom - or as I like to call it - 9th from top.

It was not very nice at Imperial College and we weren’t allowed in the changing rooms either so we had to move to keep warm and started off pretty well keeping the ball and pushing the game into the Hayes half. We had a couple of half chances before Amit played in Bob whose first shot was blocked and he then belted the ball in from an acute angle inside their keeper - poor cross, nice goal!! 5 minutes later, we got a short and Adam smacked this in, the lad on the line got his stick to it but the pace took it over the line (in fact Adam really got his eye in as the game went on and drew compliments from a couple of the Hayes team which doesn’t happen very often!).

Second half they had a couple of half chances which we just about defended well enough and we then started to push them back again. 20 minutes in we got our 3rd when Amit matched Adam and whacked in a shortie and then the best goal of the game - according to Freddie - when the ball was cleared out to Amit on the halfway line and he smashed the ball 40 yards into the D where Gordo had run from left to right post to deflect in like a rocket from 2 yards. Get in! 4-1 and 3 points were coming to Short Lane!!

Amit still had time to see red when he was called a ’silly man’ - not the red card fortunately - but it was quite amusing after the fact. So another 3 points - leapfrogging Hayes - who will merge with BA at the end of this season and it can’t come soon enough for them I think - that’s 2 wins in the last 3 and we can see some light at the end of the tunnel. If we stay up, it will be a real achievement as the side is not as strong as last season but we still have the same spirit and determination and have given ourselves a more than decent chance.

….ooh and while I’m here, the under 18s had a marvellous result on Sunday beating Teddington under 18s (with 4 first eleven players) 3-2 in a Premier Legues game. I don’t think we’ve ever beaten them at under 16-up and we have a very small squad, the kids were fantastic - well done! 2 goals for Sharpy and 1 for Rosie…

If you ever needed a reason to wear a gumshield then here’s one… and Graham WAS wearing one.

Think of the damage if he hadn’t.

Hockeyheaven will be donating a box of gumshields to the club FOC so those that haven’t got them can protect your gnashers.

These will be £1 donation and the funds will go directly to the astro fund.

You will be able to get the gumshields from behind the bar.

Erm this was a really hard game for us - Sonning have obviously gained a ton of players and we were facing a team that would have dispatched the 3’s comfortably and given our 2’s a decent game.

Given that not a bad result, we restricted them to 3 short corners and a harsh penalty from the nervy and seemingly intimidated Neil Smith. One down at half time was a small miracle given the pressure we were under - the second half, when they scored 3 goals, we were actually a lot better putting some moves together and keeping the ball much better - most people played well and nobody had a bad game

Fingers crossed for this week against fellow strugglers Hayes!!

Ashford entertained Mill Hill 1st XI at Short Lane on Saturday and although skipper LAURA SAMOUEL was still injured, coach MANDY WAIN was able to field a squad of thirteen players. It was particularly good for Ashford to be able to welcome back former 1st XI regular PHIL WORSFOLD who had unfortunately been out for well over a year with a long term knee problem. The game started in a lively mode and the visitors obtained a short corner after only two minutes of play that Ashford easily coped with. Not long after Ashford got a short corner themselves but they also failed to convert it. The Red & Blacks then followed up with some more attacking moves and secured another short corner which unfortunately striker LIV YOUNG just failed to control well enough to get a good shot in. After fifteen minutes of play Ashford got a third short corner and this time striker SHARON McGLINCHEY struck for goal but it was cleared by the visitors. Further pressure from Ashford following some skilful runs from midfielder KATIE GREENE and the ever improving ANNA PROTHEROE resulted in the ball being struck across the front of the Mill Hill goal with three Red & Blacks players free in the goalmouth. Unfortunately none of them were able to convert the chance and the game remained goal less. Mill Hill then broke away at the other end and the Ashford keeper SAM GRANT came out well to smother the forward’s attack on goal. The Red & blacks retaliated with a shot from KATIE GREENE being well saved. Ashford were by now well in control of a rather low key game, but were getting frustrated with some of the decisions and their own lack of finishing power; which wasn’t helped at the very end of the half when a finely struck free hit by STACEY KENWARD from the right of the visitors goalmouth wasn’t converted. Thus at the end of a half which saw Ashford on top, the score remained goal less.

After the change round the visitors played more constructively from the off, and after only four minutes of play they capitalised on some poor defending by Ashford and scored the first goal of the game. The goal encouraged the visitors to continue with their good team work and they scored another after a further four minutes of open play. Ashford eventually started to wake up from their half time slumbers after coach MANDY WAIN moved veteran sweeper JACKIE PARSONS up from the back to add her skills, striking power and finesse to back up the forward line. The move worked and JACKIE created problems for the visitors. Her presence also enabled KATIE GREENE to be more creative and a good move from KATIE on the left saw her put striker SHARON McGLINCHEY through with only the goalkeeper to beat. SHARON duly slotted the ball home to put Ashford back in the game. The visitors weren’t thwarted though and continued to threaten the Red & Blacks defence, but keeper SAM GRANT kept them well at bay. Despite more forays and moving more players playing up front and JACKIE PARSONS brushing the left hand post from a fine strike from a short corner shortly before the end of the game, the score remained at a very disappointing 2-1 to the visitors at full time. The Middlesex league programme for the Premier League has now finished for the Xmas break and resumes again on 11/1/08 in what will be a tough second half of the season for the Ashford.

Team:
S. Grant (GK), S. Smart, K. Fry, P Worsfold, A. Protheroe, K. Greene, J. Parsons, S McGlinley, S. Kenward, O. Young, J Basford, A. Donelan, T. Holland

LEAGUE - HOME (Short-Lane)

LEAGUE - AWAY

LEAGUE - HOME (Short-Lane)

LEAGUE - AWAY

LEAGUE - HOME (Short-Lane)

FRIENDLY - HOME (Short-Lane)

LEAGUE - HOME (Feltham)