Match Reports For Week 11 Saturday 16th November Season 2002 - 2003

Mens 1st XI

This weekend the Staines 1st battalion travelled to Henley. Sid had made a remarkable recovery since breaking down in training for the fourth time this year. Neoprened up and smothered in Deep Heat we were all surprised to see him trot round the pitch without even a grimace. Sid attributed his recovery to the dedication of Juliet who had put in some serious hours rubbing his tender loins with Tiger Balm and manipulating his body back into shape, oh the hardships of being injured!

The first half was an evenly matched affair, with few opportunities for both sides. Enough said really, 0-0 at half time and some stern words from Coach Andre and captain John to raise our game in the second half.

The Blues were confident that they had the beating of Henley, and came out all guns blazing in the second half. Despite some minor resistance, the Swans slowly began to take control of the game and it was not long before we opened our account. Some swift interchange between the midfield and the forwards saw Matt Truman convert from close range to post his fourth tap in of the season. Five minutes later the score was doubled, when a penalty stroke was awarded after a Sid Hughes strike was illegally stopped on the goal lone. The Henley keeper gave Larry some banter (he had obviously heard of my prolific goal scoring streak and was trying to play dirty). Unphased by his words Larry converted the stroke, dished out some banter back to the goalkeeper, reminded the oppo what the score was, and bounded back to the halfway line to ruffle more feathers.

The game was getting increasingly fiery and it was not long before both sides were reduced to 10 men. A minor kerfuffle in the D, saw Liam 'angry man' Greene and a member of the oppo get given their marching orders. Liam seems to have far too much testosterone for his own good and a fuse shorter than a small bald person with a height complex. Hockey is becoming an expensive pastime for our fiery centre back as he racked up another £15 game. With numbers reduced, the game became increasingly open, which seemed to favour the Staines X1, as Staines laid siege to the Henley goal. Matt Truman was once again on hand to convert the third after some great work by Sticky down the right, and Sick note Hughes rounded off a convincing performance in the dying minutes, sliding in elegantly at the far post to put the final nail in the coffin and seal a convincing 4-0 win. The first clean sheet of the season for the Blue army and a return to winning ways, roll on the Ashford next week, battle commences at 11.30 at Faulkners, support for the old firm derby would be welcome.

Mens 2nd XI

Staines 2 XI entertained Basingstoke on Saturday with an 11.30am start which saw the skipper surprisingly early for the meet.

Staines got off to a steady start adjusting to Basingstoke's packed midfield with only two up front. Once we settled down to the task we looked awesome, some great inter-play all over the park. This led to a Lee picking out Shane at the near post who deflected onto the goalie for Rich Beeson to put away.

Basingstoke reacted quite well to their set-back with some pressure for the defence to deal with. Also Harvey thought it was time for Notcutts to have some pressure with a well guided defensive clearance Rio Ferdinand would have been
proud of.

Relentlessly, Staines continued to pass the ball around crisply seeing Andy O at the top of the 'D' drive the ball in for Jonny to cleverly deflect the ball past the keeper to make it two nothing.

The passing became more relaxed and less imaginative with the long ball being attempted rather too often. The Blue Army battled on forcing Basingstoke back on their ranks as Greenway made his way to the top of the 'D' with a well struck shot aimed at the far post saw Rich Beeson (thief) deflect it past the keeper for his second and Staines' third.

With two minutes to go and three points in the bag Staines minds started drifting towards Tesco Pies, beers in the Monkey and Ferret and watching England thrash the Aussies at Rugby, Basingstoke made a last ditch attempt and broke away to sneak a goal.

A good, solid team performance. With Woking losing to Epsom we certainly have great things ahead.

MOM : Rich Beeson, two goals
DOD : Roger Greenway, bought his junior stick to the game.

Mens 3rd XI

Noting the Men's first eleven game last week, it seems it is fashionable to have an entourage. Not to be outdone the Third Battalion have devised their own:-
Physio: Garrry Kemish
Equipment Supply: Kitty Hine
Nutritionist: Kings Fish and Chip emporium
Therapy: Porno Hudson has contact details in the form of postcards removed from phone boxes.
Team Bitch: By appointment on the day.

It is a bloody long way to Fareham and the team set off, well prepared with detailed maps and directions. A stoppage for fuel at Hook services saw Sponging Student Lees-Low (riding with Mik and Dave Hurd in Dave's car) buy up a shops worth of Porn magazines causing a queue at the checkout. Well you need to do something to relieve the monotony of the journey I suppose. Sometime later the Skipper receives a mobile call from a worried Dave, understandably concerned about the state of the navigational advice he was getting from Mik. Clearly too much porn was affecting his passengers ability to think rationally, perhaps the map appeared blurred to them, at least we were able to put them right so they didn't spend too much time lost in Winchester. The Curd mobile was last to arrive, doors opening with a shower of pubes like a burst cushion. Our squad assembled and duly warmed up and prepared in disciplined fashion. Mind you so did they - obviously Ashford had embarrassed them last week and they were well motivated to not have a repeat against us. Porno Hudson with his new sonic the hedgehog hair do, was pleased to see several adolescents that he so enjoys squishing.

The half opened brightly for Staines creating several early fast breaks resulting in exercising the Fareham keeper and sweeper. Then the game settled to a fairly even battle overall although we had the best of the fast attacking breaks which threatened their defence, Fareham appeared to have more of the game in Midfield playing only two forwards. Except for a couple of shaky moments around the time of our first substitution reorganisation, the Staines Bastions were largely untroubled. It was all a bit of a stalemate. The Housewives Favourite set up his picnic table and started buttering bread for his marmite sandwiches. It took a suicidal charge by Forrest Kercher to unpick the deadlock. Forrests understanding of Quantum Physics is different to everyone else - he thinks you can actually run through solid objects if you go fast enough - even goal keepers! Still the up-shot was Staines got only the second short corner of the game two minutes before half time, and Forrest was carried off to the subs bench to recover his wind. Duly set up by Rowley, Rengger and O'Brien, the shot from Pace crashed into the keepers pads and rebounded into the path of Dave Hurd who had strolled in - in the nick of time, to deftly sweep the ball home.

Sgt Major Dunners gave us a right Fecking telling off, we were not playing that well, the Skipper nearly went as purple as Uncle Fester used to. But he was absolutely correct in his assessment and we did perform better in many respects in the second half - however Fareham also stepped up a gear and the stalemate continued. The play became sometimes frenetic and occasionally agricultural as each side battered away trying to unpick some robust defending. Again Staines were unlucky not to score from one of a number of fast breaks exploiting the speedy work of Mik and Forrest. In the meantime the Umpires were getting twitchy and began waving several green cards in order to curb some over excitement. Fareham threw more bodies forward which required the Staines defenders to increase the rate of our crunching tackles. Strollers free hits were struck with frightening pace, unfortunately they were six feet off the deck and so possession was lost to Fareham and pressure back on Staines. Frustration was creeping into play on both sides. In desperation their number 22 swallow dived spectacularly over a piece of leaf mould in an attempt to gain a short corner. But the umpire was right on the spot and very fairly told him to stop pratting around. Then it seemed to get very busy in the Staines defence, Dunners appeared at sweeper, why is it such hard work all of a sudden? It seemed that Stroller Hurd's spleen had burst and he vented it in a foul mouthed torrent of expletives that had mothers rushing forward to cover their children's ears ! The umpire cordially invited him to go and have a short rest on a yellow. We were now heavily pressurised by Fareham, they even managed to kick over Rob G's picnic table and caused him to flail about on the floor several times, marmite was smeared everywhere ! Then Fareham lost a player on a yellow, so we got some relief - but wait, within moments Pace got a yellow for what can only be described as a stick tackle with a feather light touch. So we effectively played the last 10 minutes with an aggregate man down. This game went right to the wire with only moments to go Forrest and Mart the Tart broke clear and almost got a goal but for some good Fareham keeping. Then at the other end their number 68 nearly got clear of our defence to get 'one on one' with our keeper, only for Mr Safety to execute an exquisite charging tackle that knocked him into the middle of next week. Game over, 1-0 win to Staines, 3 points in the bag, it wasn't pretty but it did the job.

Hero: Despite having feck-all to do most of the time, Robbie was a clear winner, when called to arms he was always there and was a pillow of strength.
Girls Blouse: The yellow carded ones were mentioned. Keith Hine got a vote for selling Porno a crap stick! But Dunners was awarded, for shouting loudly and making our ears bleed.

Mens 4th XI

After last weeks demolition of Wallingford we were keen to add to our goals scored column but more importantly we wanted to keep our winning streak intact. With High Wycombe and Amersham & Chalfont only 3 points ahead of us the chase was on to be top of the table.
We didn't start to well, maybe this was due to having just seen the 5's score 16 and Tring had most of the early pressure and it only stayed 0-0 due to 2 good saves from Rich. Technically Tring should have played part of the 1st half with 10 as their left back nonchalantly plucked an aerial out the air 3 feet above his head!!! Staines then got their act together and had a goal disallowed after an undercut from Jeremy deflected off Alpesh's chest.
By this time Staines were looking the stronger team and eventually the pressure told and after good work down the left from Kingsley and Alpesh, Jeremy bobbled a hit in from the edge of the D. More good saves from Rich enabled us to take the 1-0 lead in at half time.
After a half time team talk that would have made lesser men weep, and an early wake-up call as Tring equalised, (Rich let one through his legs after the Tring forward made hay in our D), we started playing proper hockey and earned our first short corner. Again, practice made perfect as a pre-rehearsed slightly sneaky routine, which involved Rod taking the corner whilst 5 members of the team were still in a huddle at the top of the D with Jeremy over to one side, bore fruit. Jeremy's first shot was saved but with the keeper on the floor there was no stopping his second that hit the roof of the net. 2-1!
Tring then came back and the game opened up, this gave our midfield more space and allowed us to create more chances. Phil was unlucky to be denied a goal after a shot that seemed to be going in was bravely stopped by a diving defender, who then crashed head first into the backboard (ouch!!). Short corners proved to be Tring's undoing as first Alpesh converted a rebound and then Phil chipped a perfect shot over a logged keeper and into an unguarded bottom corner.
Overall, not a pretty game to watch but it yielded the right result.

Staines 4 (Jeremy 2, Alpesh, Phil) Tring 1

Mens 5th XI

Everyone was fired up for this one after nearly beating the leaders Woking Wasps last week, and that we would go top if we won and Thames Valley and Woking drew. With Simon back from his away day with the 4's last week, Gordon's knee much improved, and Richard available this week we fielded our strongest side of the season so far.

After a couple of minutes of early pressure we won our first short corner. THWACCKKKKK ... 1-0 thank you very much ... Keith gets the scoreboard rolling. A few minutes later and Gordon is rounding the keeper on the reverse stick and slips it over the line 2-0. Barely ten minutes gone and this time a shot - I think from Sohail - is kicked off the line by the defender - flick. Keith trundles up from the back and roofs it 3-0.

The next 15 minutes we got carried away with ourselves and decided that just because we were 3-0 up we could score from anywhere. First Diego missed from 6 inches - despite his protests that Gordon's pass had already gone wide of the post - nice try to avoid a vote. Then he ran passed three defenders, somehow slipped it round and through the keeper and then shot against the near post. *!*!%^"& was heard emanating from the four or five players waiting for a tap in in the middle. Sohail then took over and crossed several times from right wing firstly over the backline, then at the keeper then a few yds back from the keeper - more snarling inside the D where players where queueing up to take a pot shot. It was in this period that we lost our focus and seemed to find our ineptitude somewhat amusing.

A few minutes later and Simon fed the ball through to Martin who missed the far post by a couple of inches and our heads came back on. Sohail then found his passing to locate Martin at the near post who dinked it across the keeper to Gordon who swept home from a yard out. 4-0. Before half-time we still had time for Gordon to complete his hatrick after a sweeping move and a lovely return ball from Phil to the top of the circle. 5-0. Simon then slapped a loose ball home to make it 6-0 before the half-time whistle sounded.

Half-time teamtalk: that was just not good enough .. stop wasting good positions and give the ball to the free man in the middle, and don't let any of their players run unmarked into space behind you. You may think it harsh to have a rollicking at 6-0 ... but then ...

The second period started just like the first and within 5 minutes Gordon had already flicked one over the keeper and reverse sticked a cross for Phil to bundle in at the far post to make it 8-0. The visitors now were practically walking as we ripped them to pieces like a boardroom shredding machine. More goals came from two more howitzer short corner strikes from Keith ( that's four for him), another three from Gordon ( a lovely flat stick reverse shot, another flick high into the net, and a more mundane dribble round a ponderous defence and keeper - by the way that's seven for him) and not to be outdone Phil chipped in with two more at the back post ( one of which he poached on the line from my deft little reverse stick dink at the near post - and that's three for him also). Let's see that makes only 15 ... ah yes and Sohail converted one of many chances at the back post ( to give him the benefit of the doubt he does normally play right wing and it does take a bit a bit of time to become familiar with getting your feet right round when at the back left post). So final score 16-0.

Man of the Match: Gordon "7-goals" Scott
Dick of the Day: "He sweeps he misses" & "Cold Chips" - Sohail.

Amazing Match Statistic: Incredibly the player with the best shots on target ratio - 100% - was the Kenley centre forward. Mind you he did have their only shot on target and was denied by Andy - who more amazingly had kept his concentration and was not fast asleep in the goalmouth.

PS: With Thames Valley and Woking drawing 0-0 we are now 2 points clear at the top but have played a game more - and our goal difference is now the best in the league.

Mens Centurions

Ladies 1st XI

A fantastic weekend's hockey for the Ladies Ist XI began away at Southgate on Saturday.

Southgate, unbeaten in the league todate, failed to capitalise on their considerable home advantage on a very bouncy waterbased pitch. Mel (the Destroyer) scored a hatrick of goals - two from superbly executed short corners and one from open play - to give Staines a 3-0 victory and return them to the top of the Premier League. Staines played with renewed confidence and remained faithful to their passing game despite the unpredictability of the turf.

Home v St Albans (3rd Round Women's Cup)

A crowd of home supporters witnessed a thrilling cup match against National League opponents St Albans. Clearly the minnows going into the match, Staines put on a display of hockey that certainly caught St Albans unawares. Staines stuck to their usual game plan of fluid, attacking hockey and had by far the best chance in the first half. The hockey was fast paced, end to end and physical. Maggie Owen in goal and her defence had the measure of St Albans' short corner routines and put on a solid defensive display. An exhausting 70 minutes ended at 0-0 and 15 minutes of golden goal failed to produce the winner with Staines undoubtedly having more of the chances in this period. It was a gritty, determined and skilful team effort and one that every single member of the squad can be proud of. Unfortunately the bubble burst after the penalty flicks ended in victory to St Alban's. This display can only spur Staines on to win the league this season and play their hockey in a higher league next year.

A huge thanks to our coach Ben Brooks - with his shouts of encouragement and guidance from the sideline this weekend, it felt like we had an extra player on the pitch.

Ladies 2nd XI

Once again we had an away fixture on a misty Saturday morning in Teddington, but the Ladies 2's were very focused on winning this league match, especially after NPL Lensbury had beaten us 1 - 0 a few weeks before in a friendly. The game started and then almost immediately stopped again, when the umpire told us to put bibs on as the colour of our shirts were confusing, thank god they didn't stink like the training ones, otherwise we might have thought it was a ploy to put us off playing well. Thankfully this wasn't the case and couldn't have stopped us, even if they had tried.

Once in our nice orange bibs the game started again and Staines dominated all the play. From the start many short corners were won, unfortunately not all converted but the first goal was scored from a short, when Sarah Chandler swept the ball out left for Helen White to bash into the back of the net and the first half finished 1 - 0. The second half started well, although Staines were starting to feel under pressure with such a narrow lead and started to see some good running from the midfield and forward line. It was this determination which saw Staines score another goal. This time Ali cleared the ball out of defence to Duracell batteries herself (Miss Chandler) who took the ball all the way down the field and crashed the ball into the back of a net, a truly awesome goal which saw herself win Player of the match, closely contended by Jo Ive.

Ladies 3rd XI

Ladies 4th XI