Match Reports – March 2

A weekend to remember as the 1st XI secured promotion to the National League and there were good results across almost all the club.

OD fires home the opening goal

Men’s 1st XI 5-0 Oxford University
Coming off the back of maybe one of the biggest games of the season last weekend, The men’s 1s were in touching distance of making history and securing promotion.

Oxford University made the trip down to Thames Ditton and as always brought a young, skilful team to the table. The OCs knew the importance of the game and the stage was set for what some people might call “the biggest game of the season….” for the 10th time of the season.

With a strong start from both teams Oxford were looking the stronger team. The fluid interplay through their midfield was appealing to the eye but not strong enough to penetrate OCs strong back defensive line. 15 minutes into the first half Giles Rozier manages to bag OCs first short corner of the game. A strong flick from Murphy was saved but defender Ollie Davies was there to pick up the pieces and put the loose ball in the back of the net. With a goal under the belt OCs started to take control of the game. It wasn’t long before James Lazlo found some form and breezed past two Oxford defenders before putting it on a defenders foot for OCs second short corner of the game. A spectacular save from the Oxford keeper left Matt Murphy with a sitter to finish in the back of the net. Oxford fought back well but just couldn’t seem to be clinical enough in the last 3rd. With only 10 minutes left in the half, Giles Rozier earned another short corner to give the OCs one last chance to extend their lead before the half time whistle. A strong flick from Matt Laidman secured a 3 goal lead for the home side before a well needed drinks break.

The game was far from over. Oxfords young team weren’t tiring anytime soon and it showed. Coming straight out the gates they were looking to close the three goal deficit with some strong passages of play. As the pressure built up, the home side started making silly mistakes. Giles Rozier missing an open goal with a lob wedge shot over the bar being the highlight/lowlight of these. It took a valiant effort from our superstar midfielder Charlie Lamb to break the Oxford defence, leaving Matt Murphy with a free ball from three yards out. Not one for being shy in front of goal, Matt Murphy powered home the fourth for the OCs. It was downhill from there for the Oxford side. The OC press that won them the game last week was once again too strong for the opposition, with the forward line putting in yet again another world class defensive performance. Like we have seen throughout this season there isn’t much stopping Matt Murphy from scoring goals, even his knee has tried and failed. With one last short corner before the end of the game, an injured Matt Murphy stepped up to put one straight down the middle (one Josh Doble knows all too well) to secure OCs fifth and his hat-trick.

The lads have done it!! Securing promotion with four games left and making history. An amazing achievement and well deserved. You’re probably picturing champagne showers on the pitch, beer in the showers and Josh Doble putting out ten social media posts…. oh how wrong you are. Head coach Pettitt isn’t here to finish in the top four, he’s here to finish at the top of the league. With nine points needed to secure this, the lads can’t be taking the foot off the pedal just yet.

Bring on the double header next week!!

Mom: Paddy H (didn’t touch the ball)
Dod: Giles R

Wimborne 5-0 Men’s 2nd XI
Match report very unlikely

Men’s 3rd XI 1-0 London Edwardians
Thirty-one years after the advent of The National League our 1s are now part of the big boys gang and will be playing National League hockey next season. What a credit to George, Nick and the club officials as a group, not to mentioned the players, some achievement. Meanwhile in South West Surrey “Come Dine With Me ” came to Shamley Green as different people produced their favourite dishes at Martin’s with Mel being declared the winner.

Clubs need big weekends and this was one of the biggest. The 1s, 3s and 4s started all being in a shout for promotion and 2 cup quarter finals. Sunday morning broke with the 1s promotion confirmed, now for the title, and the 3s and 4s still in with a big shout for the top 2 places in their leagues. We welcomed back West Sussex Eds, who was boosted by another large batch of outdated apple juice for Kiki who is fortunately not aware of the meaning of the “best before date” line on the label, Jody Smith and the elder Rippers. We were Don less although Diggers was seen in the car park pre game. Still no sighting of 3 or more Dons together so furthering the conspiracy theories. Others were missing so keeping their powder dry for today’s vets match v Brighton. Benjamin Jamieson made a very welcome rare appearance to great effect. Last week’s dick of the day was never confirmed mainly due to Max not being able to face wearing the WRU shirt in my boot thus showing his Achilles heel and lack of mental fortitude.

L. Eds had severely tested us first time round with us winning by the odd goal in 7 and hanging on for the last 15 minutes defending a number of shorts with Rosko dealing with all thrown at him. Today we won by the odd goal in 1, hanging on for the last 15 minutes defending a number of shorts with Rosko dealing with all thrown at him. Unlike the first game this was another post league break belter with a good standard of hockey. We had the first half and the oppo the second. Having scored our first short corner with goal fest Packers tucking home a loose ball we decided to retain our 100% record and not bother winning any more and without creating more than a handful of chances. Meanwhile Eds had 7 or 8 corners but they were not going to score not even when King Arthur played a Chinese cut to the one that snuck past Rosko diverting it safely past the post.

The 7 point gap between us and Eds means that it is now a three-horse race but with Barnes and OGs winning, the latter reducing the goal difference by which we are top from 4 to 3, still all to play for in the next 3 games. This is a proper hockey season and one that we have demanded for 5 years. For those not on our Whatsap group M o M is unusually awarded to one of the oppo who Martin heard say in response to my final whistle comment “Another young pretender is sent packing” the immediate riposte “when I am your age you will be dead”.

Another shuffle of the 3s pack next week with absences due to grandmothers having birthdays and a stag night taking precedence with a tricky trip to Battersea Under Lights starting at supper time in the offing.We say good bye to Hunts for the season who seems to be having a 3 week stag do even though the groom to be will be back at work on Monday 11th. Our rock in the middle will be missed.

Old Kingstonians 2-2 Men’s 4th XI
A mouth-watering top-of-the-table clash promised much between unbeaten Old Kingstonians 2XI and an OC 4XI side on a rich run of form pushing hard for a promotion spot.

OKs got off to a fast start and scored early but OCs rallied and began to dominate possession in midfield with Howie and Rippers snuffling out the OK playmakers and keeping them quiet for large parts of the game. Two excellent finishes from John Turner saw us take the lead, but in the second half OKs staged a spirited fight-back with OC’s defence holding firm against waves of attacks. Seb made some important saves and with 20 minutes to go, we had chances to put the game out of sight, but it remained 2-1. OKs looked dangerous from short corners with an eager drag-flicker looking to pick his spot, but he’d fluffed his lines thus far with Sam giving him no time at all to get his head up. The defining moment of the game came from an OK short corner. The receiver was tackled mid-shot and the ball spilled to a second OK player who fired it high above the backboard. The goal was given as a second strike. Cue much discussion from OCs. Was it, wasn’t it, but the umpires agreed and the goal stood.

Going into the game, we’d have taken a point from the league leaders any day of the week and yet…OKs were the team to be relieved with a draw. OCs deserved much more. We consolidate our third place in the league with Guildford in second, only three points ahead of us but with a game in hand. OCs have a superior goal difference, should we finish level. Guildford still have tough games against Addiscombe and Leatherhead to play, so if we keep winning, who knows…

Men’s 3A XI 2-1 Horley
Match report to follow

Men’s 4s XI 2-2 Old Kingstonians
A mouth-watering top-of-the-table clash promised much between unbeaten Old Kingstonians 2XI and an OC 4XI side on a rich run of form pushing hard for a promotion spot.

OKs got off to a fast start and scored early but OCs rallied and began to dominate possession in midfield with Howie and Rippers snuffling out the OK playmakers and keeping them quiet for large parts of the game. Two excellent finishes from John Turner saw us take the lead, but in the second half OKs staged a spirited fight-back with OC’s defence holding firm against waves of attacks. Seb made some important saves and with 20 minutes to go, we had chances to put the game out of sight, but it remained 2-1. OKs looked dangerous from short corners with an eager drag-flicker looking to pick his spot, but he’d fluffed his lines thus far with Sam giving him no time at all to get his head up. The defining moment of the game came from an OK short corner. The receiver was tackled mid-shot and the ball spilled to a second OK player who fired it high above the backboard. The goal was given as a second strike. Cue much discussion from OCs. Was it, wasn’t it, but the umpires agreed and the goal stood.

Going into the game, we’d have taken a point from the league leaders any day of the week and yet…OKs were the team to be relieved with a draw. OCs deserved much more.

We consolidate our third place in the league with Guildford in second, only three points ahead of us but with a game in hand. OCs have a superior goal difference, should we finish level. Guildford still have tough games against Addiscombe and Leatherhead to play, so if we keep winning, who knows…

Reading Redsox 5-2 Barnstormers XI
An away trip to top-of-the-table Reading unfortunately ended without points for the valiant Stomers on Saturday.

A sluggish start saw us give up possession too easily in the early exchanges and, as predicted, a talented Reading midfield was able to retain the ball for large swathes of the first half leaving us chasing shadows, although the defensive effort from Si, Darren, Stu and Toby was strong. Reading have always been strong penaly corner specialists and they converted a high proportion through the match which ultimately made the difference.

A 2-0 deficit at half-time was a fair reflection but we were in the game.

As the second half wore on our ball pace increased and the match was much more evenly balanced. Kirky had his best Stormers game to date holding the ball well and putting Gerry and Poen into the gaps. John Seears joined the fray only to tackle (heavily) Darren, leaving him in a heap on the pitch.

Finding more space in the latter stages, Gerry was beating defenders and getting round the back to create great chances. He bagged two and Stormers were back in the game. He also laid on good opportunities for others – with the skipper striking the best of these just wide. Again the defensive effort was good as we played higher and squeezed the midfield.

A competitive match all in but placing great emphasis on the remaining fixtures.

Surbiton 5th XI 0-3 Ladies 1st XI
A local derby with barely half a mile between the clubs. Sometimes these can be feisty, grudge matches but not so. Surbiton fielded a team of old heads and young hearts and our squad has remained consistent throughout this season.

From the first push back we attacked and made their keeper make 3 saves in the first 5 minutes, the first was a hard ball in from the right, Georgie S getting in front of her player to get a dink and the other 2 both cracking shots from the left, Alicia and Cookie. We made our intentions very clear from the go. We followed our esteemed coaches instructions with the 60% press and switched to full press after 20 mins. The first half remained fairly even with both sides conceding a couple of corners. Half time and no score.

The off ball running was immense but we recognised the ball needed moving on quicker and the forwards being tightly man marked needed to make in and out runs to allow Cookie, Richie and Alice more room when they had the opportunity, which then resulted in 3 goals in 5 mins, awesome display of training on the pitch. Cookie down the left, across to Richie, through Nikki in the middle, drew the keeper and early ball to far post for Migs to poke in. The second goal almost a repeat with Richie running down the right and again far post for Migs. The third was Alice running from the back getting the cross in early and Syms getting a rebound from the keeper. With Fletch and Alicia running their socks off up front and Sangster waving at passing planes, much to the annoyance of the umpire who obviously didn’t have any cards.

Totally a team performance with Jax, Heather, Theresa and Watto all tiding up I had a jolly easy time.

Hugh thank you to Hels for pitching up and running the bench, it so helps keep everyone on track and concentrating on the game.

Ladies 2nd XI 3-0 Tulse Hill
Having beaten them at their home pitch, earlier in the season, we were no way prepared to sit on our laurels and think was going to think it was anything but an easy match. From early doors inspiring team talk (T Spot, use baseline and the press) to our music driven (thanks Ellie) warm up, we were awake and ready to start. And we started really well! Our mids were strong and had a solid first quarter, mostly in their 25, sadly we were unable to convert our chances into goals.

Our press was structured (thanks to the calling from our defence)and we certainly put them under pressure by intercepting their hit outs. Nick arrived towards the end of the first half, which was nil nil, and encouraged our forwards to get high (woah dude), pull out their defence by being wide and remember to use T Spot and goals will come. He was right, within the first 10 mins of the second half, from a deflection by their defence, Kara hit the ball to left post and went through goalies feet (Bernie was there, just in case…). Then we got messy! We lost our structure, composure and seemed to be all over the place allowing TH&D to threaten us. They won short corners (no goals to our relief) and we lost Hels and Tash to green cards. We needed to re-compose and get back to our game! Kara scored her second from a corner strike and we seemed to calm down and play back to our standard of hockey. We finished the game on winning short corners and a finale goal from Ellen following ping pong in the D!

This was a game of two sides for us: one side playing the most amazing hockey, and the other side, really bad hockey! What we do, as a team, is we recognise when this happens and as a team, we fight back when we loose our heads.

3 – 0 victory and the last game for our dear Babs (who leaves the Club for new ventures)

POM: Olivia

EUHC Gamblers 2nd XI 3-0 Ladies Vamps XI
Vamps drew the short straw, 4.30 at Crystal Palace vs the league division leaders and currently unbeaten, oh well into the fray. Things didn’t start well with trying to manoeuvre our way around Crystal Palace, just finding the pitch was proving difficult. The hockey didn’t start well either with the defence hogging all the game, but managed to keep the oppo out of our goal for the majority of the first half. The more youthful team were quick on the ball and unfortunately two goals were eventually let in. Half time and we regrouped, stepped up our game and, with a cunning plan and tactical strategy, took control (well almost) of the second half with some of our chances just missing the target. A few short corners later and still no evidence of a goal. Some fabulous play from our colts, but another goal was let in. Final score 0-3 to EUHC Gamblers Ladies 2.