Match Reports For Saturday 27th September Season 2003 - 2004

Mens 1st XI

Staines first eleven's final pre-season game ended in a 2 all draw away at premier 'A' side Oxted.

Staines started brightly, moving the ball comfortably around the pitch and creating a number of chances. Some great movement and passing by the midfield of Ben Brooks, James Chapman and skipper Stuart Hall put in Barry Thomas for one of many chances which were not taken. Other chances were created and James Hall drew a fine save from the Oxted 'keeper. Oxted rarely threatened and it took a desperate challenge by Adam Hart, giving away a penalty stroke, for them to take an undeserved lead. Soon after this Oxted broke again and this time a converted penalty corner
increased their lead. Almost immediately the half time whistle sounded with Staines disappointed to be 2 - 0 down.

The second half continued in a similar vein to the first, with Staines' back four and goalie Neil Hallsworth dealing with any Oxted attacks and the midfield dominating the game. Staines' pressure increased on the Oxted goal and a penalty corner was won and converted by Ben Brooks. Buoyed by this goal Staines continued to press and near the end of the second half, Brooks equalised with a miss hit shot after good work down the right by James Hall and Lee Atkinson. The game continued with not many chances created by either side up to the final whistle.

Staines were happy with their performance and are now looking forward to the first league game of the season, this Saturday away at Tulse Hill.

Mens 2nd XI

Mens 3rd XI

The first full weekend of this new season saw the 3rd Battalion of the Blue Army march over to Woking. This was a very different team to last year as several old stalwarts have semi retired to the 4's, due to ill health, age, alcoholism, Lard, and lacking a little energy. For some inexplicable reason the Club Captain continues to persevere with selecting a right old codger at left back, who by rights should be getting fitted for a bathchair and playing out his remaining years at a more sedate level. A depleted core from last year remain, including Mr Safety, Chewy Patel, Porno Hudson, Pathfinder Quinlan and Lurch Barnwell. A few new faces were having their first blooding, including Sohail, Dan Tomkins and Ollie 'Crespo' Tyrrell.

The opening 10 minutes looked quite promising with a fairly even battle developing. Mik and Crespo probed dangerously, Lurch held the centre whilst Porno crunched a couple of early tackles setting his stall out. Phil Lazlo marshalled the back line well, managing to draw breath occasionally between the chit-chat. Woking started to rack up some pressure creating a number of chances that the Staines defence cleared helped by a couple of good kicks out by young David Foster in goal. Until Chewy trod on one half clearance and the resulting short corner, Woking plumbed between Daves' gaping thighs !

On came Garrrry Kemish and with his ginger skills Staines pressed forward several times down the left, and a couple of times down the middle through Alpo bursting out of defence. Despite some good attacks by Staines, including winning some short corners we just could not convert. At the other end the Bastions, not quite as imposing as in past years, stopped everything in open play but conceded two more short corners which Woking were most happy to score from. Half time saw us at a 0-3 deficit.

The second half saw some early pressure from Woking with several dangerous attacks and shooting chances intercepted by our back line. But another fast break by Woking saw them nick their only goal from open play. We might be 0-4 down but the Blues drove forward with determination. Some good work by the midfield created some decent openings. Crespo went on several mazy runs but could not quite get a shot off. Staines won a rash of short corners, but still could not find the net, Lurch, Porno and Crespo having near misses. In the later stages Woking converted another short for 0-5 and soon after Phil managed to convince the umpire to give him a card. It took a lot of hard bargaining but after tough negotiations and an ACAS mediation, eventually he got the yellow one he wanted. Mik was brought into the rearranged defence, as befits someone of his pathfinding skills he looked a little out of place. Then he executed a typical forwards tackle in the D which resulted in a little bit of yellow plastic all of his own. The remainder of the 3rd Battalion fought on in a rear guard action which kept the final score at 0-5, but we won 2-0 on cards. Always try to turn a negative into a positive, as my old science teacher told me, the day before he electrocuted himself wiring up his cooker.

Hero: A clear winner was Mr Safety for a typically safe performance. No, I am NOT the f###ing Captain !
Silly Person of the Day: A virtual landslide went to the well built gentleman now wearing a rather fetching pink Dress. Never mind Phil - it was bound to happen!

Mens 4th XI

This weeks game was a lovely early morning game starting at 10:30 at Woking. It was a handy get-out-of-bed practice for next weeks equally early 10:00 match at home.

Again we were fielding a reasonably different team from the previous week, with Jeremy out on a day trip to Alton Towers and the 3s stealing some of our youth. We moved a few people around the team and brought in some youth at the back in the shape of Paul Dunne.

The first half went pretty well, with periods where Woking were camped in our D and kept out by strong defending and some nice counter attacks fuelled by Deano in the centre and some nice hockey from the halves and wings.

Despite all the pressure at the Back, we were first to score, with Martin Rengger laying off the ball to Sid at the top of the D and a nice crisp strike sending the ball into the corner of the goal. Sid's glory did not last long, though, as about 5 minutes later after taking the ball skilfully around the keeper he could only manage to send the ball wide of the post past the open goal.

Woking equalised before half time and we came off at the break feeling pretty good about holding a team so many leagues higher at 1-1.

The second half didn't start to well and Woking scored within the first few minutes (this conceding goals in the first few minutes of the second half thing seems to be recurring)... Despite some good play in the second half we just couldn't get the ball in the back of the net. With chances for Martin, Chris and Sid all going wide of the mark.

Woking scored 2 more goals but that couldn't stop us from enjoying the game and being very happy with our team performance.

Man of the Match: Robbie in goal for his grace, dexterity and athleticism.
Dick of the day: Sid for missing the open goal

Goals Sid

Other notable performances All of the team

Thanks to Edward Scott for Umpiring and Woking for the match and teas

Mens 5th XI

Mens 6th XI

Mens Centurions

Ladies 1st XI

Staines 10 Ashford 1

The first push back of the season saw Staines begin their campaign with a double digit win over Ashford on their home sandpit…erm, turf. With the serious pre-game pep talk from Shay describing the new concept of ‘the first priority: to win’, and being spurned on by handful of supporters from both sides (originally, excitement stemmed from the fact the ‘young Ashford mens team’ would be present. Thoroughly disappointing, they were) the game looked evenly matched with the first ten minutes remaining goalless despite chances at both ends. But a penalty corner awarded to the visitors paid off with a successful rebounded effort from Mel Attfield (one of two, the second being another cracker from some impossible angle), and the half ended with Staines up 3-0 following two more quick successive goals.

Sarah Hamilton, aka Baldy, wreaked havoc on the Ashford defence as centre-forward, scoring a hat-trick of goals from around the penalty spot area. The midfield were impenetrable, chasing down the very few-and-far-between Ashford breakaways, as well as being very creative in setting up the attacks – extremely pretty hockey. Credit must go to the young Ashford goalkeeper, Lianne, who cleared the goalmouth many times with her fantastic saves, but smart passing around the D and the determined efforts of the Staines forwards resulted in the goal tally rising to 10. Along with Baldy and Mel, there was Jo Ives, Nikki Walsh, Ruth Hine, Sarah Chandler and Man of the Match Christina Lind with one goal apiece. Ashford pulled one goal back in the final minute of the game, finding the net after a third consecutive penalty corner, much to the delight of the home crowd (although the sight of the scorer running around in her sports bra soon stopped that).

Dick of the day went (almost) unanimously to Jo Strudley for ‘being too gobby’ and being tricked by a deceivingly slow back pass, which an exclusive interview after the game later revealed to be a case of boredom in the back row.

An unfortunate symptom (the boredom that is), we hope will continue to be the case against all of our coming opponents.

Ladies 2nd XI

A much deserved win against Henley on Saturday will hopefully set the Ladies 2nd XI on winning ways in the league this season.

Staines certainly deserved the victory having at least 75% of the attacking play. Much goal mouth action in the first half from Helen, Lizzie and Ju failed to produce a goal. Encouraginly the ball was moved quickly out of defence by Ez to the midfield and with excellent movment up front, Staines successfully turned defensive moves into attacking ones. There was some good play down both flanks with Ali and Hels using their speed to good effect. The few times Henley counter attacked the defense was solid with some perfectly timed tackles to win the ball on the edge of the area. Oli and Lou in the centre of mid field worked well together and helped to set up some great attacking moves.

The first goal came from a superbly lifted ball into the circle (yes ump it was most definitely "under control") by Oli from some way out which Ju touched in with deftness - the training excercises with tennis balls had finally paid off. The second goal came from a well worked attack which Lou fired into the D for Ali to pull back for Ju to make it 2 - unfortunately Ju failed to convert her brace into a hattrick when her penalty flick was saved.

It was an encouraging performance and hopefully with some set piece practice at training this week, the team can take maximum points from their first league game against Ashford on Saturday.

Ladies 3rd XI

A civilized start to the day with a 10 am push back at home. We had the benefit of the newly swept astro to help us on our way to a convincing win over Henley on Thames.

A great level of energy was put in by all in the team and it was our forwards who managed to polish off those amazing cross-pitch balls being smacked from Kate on the right wing. Kate bolted down the right side of the pitch, bobby dazzling the opposition with some nifty stick work and every now and then smacking the ball over into the D. Tracy and Alison connected a few of these balls and before the opposition knew what had happened we were a few goals ahead!

The new rule of not having to stop the ball before shooting at a short corner got Claire back into the swing of things of tonking the ball to the back of the goal box before the Henley goalie realised we had already had the hit out!

Excellent effort was put in by all and we finished the morning with a 7 -0 lead against Henley. Thanks to Nicky for umpiring!

Well Done All - lets hope we can keep that level of effort up for the whole season!

OR

Staines took to the field in a very determined manner keen to pick up where we left off two weeks ago.

Sticking to the 3 4 2 formation that worked well last season and using the 'PRESS' implemented by our coach, Duncan Foster, we were able to contain a fairly average Henley side.

The team worked well as a unit and individually. The was some very good link ups on the left between Jeanette Tucker and Tracey Stanley.. and in the right Ingrid Fear and Kate O'Kane linked up on numerous occasions to cause havoc in the visitors defensve third.

The goals were all well worked, especially the first goal which was scored by Kath Windsor Bayne (possibly the oldest or should I say most experienced forward in the league!) who latched onto a suberb 16 yard hit from captain Kerry Burke, picked the ball up on the half way line and rode two or three dubious tackles to arrive in the oppositions circle... where we all held here breathe hoping she had enough of her own to make the shot! Fortunately she rose to the challenge and placed to ball wide to the flailing keepers left.

The other goal scorers were Ali Russell (1), Clare Mosscrop (2) and Tracy Stanley (3)>

All in all a very pleasing performance with the league season starting next week.

MOM was Ingrid Fear.

Ladies 4th XI