Match Reports For Saturday 9th October Season 2004 - 2005

Mens 1st XI

A memorable first home game of the season for Staines as they took the three points against Maidenhead.

Staines began the game in total control and this soon paid dividends when Matt Truman scored from the first penalty corner of the game. The confidence of an early goal and lots of posession meant that Maidenhead didn't get a sniff at goal and the blue army moved the ball around comfortably through the defence and midfield. Soon after a good move down the right hand side led to a cross being deflected goalwards by Truman, only for the ball to hit an onrushing defender, resulting in a penalty stroke. As last week, this was duly despatched by skipper James Chapman. At two goals to the good Staines continued to press and the odd Maidenhead attack was snuffed out by some hard work and good defending.

Twenty five minutes into the game and a super run down the left by Mark Hampton drew a number of defenders and the goalie, leaving space and time for Andy Evans to slot his first of the season. At 3-0 up and with Maidenhead not really having had a chance, only a mistake would let them back into the game, and in typical Staines fashion, one duly arrived! As the ball was being swept around the back Liam Greene's pass was intercepted by a waiting Maidenhead forward who had the simple task of flicking the ball into the net. This upped Maidenhead's performance and a couple of penalty corners were dealt with by the home defence.

Into the second half, and with confidence still high, the Staines team were looking for more goals. Unfortunately these didn't really materialise, as due to some sloppy passing by Staines and Maidenheads increasing workrate, Staines found themselves under a bit of pressure. Midway through the half Staines managed to win a series of penalty corners and finally tucked in a fourth goal. Chapman's strike being guided goalwards by Stuart Hall and then emphatically finished by Andy Evans for his second of the game. At 4-1 Staines relaxed and with only ten minutes left felt that the game was won. However, Maidenhead had other ideas and a breakaway goal brought the score closer. This was soon followed by another from a penalty corner and Maidenhead were right back in the game at 4-3. With the Staines defence in disarray for the final ten minutes of the game Maidenhead piled on the pressure and Staines were lucky in the end to hear the final whistle while still in the lead.

With two close wins in the league so far this season, Staines are pleased with their start, however they have got to start turning in better and more composed performances if they are to properly challlenge for the league title this season.

Mens 2nd XI

Mens 3rd XI

And so after our win last week, the Men’s 4th eleven headed off to Witney, a place, the wrong side of Oxford. The journey was pleasant enough, as we wondered who the hell “Witney” were as none of us had heard of them. All we did know was that they had scored 7 goals the week before.

Upon reaching the ground, we noticed that it had a “secure” feel to it. The pitch had high fences and walls around it and the changing room had the look of a prison cell. Still, it all looked quite new, was pleasant enough and as none of us were chained up, I guess that the annihilation of visiting teams wasn’t Witney’s master plan to win the league.

Staines had a different team to the one from last week. Barney was injured, Gnasher was out looking at naked ladies with his work, Hudson pulled out at the eleventh hour and the Chubby one had to move house this weekend. Gone is the house in the woods that was made from sweets, well when I say gone, the liquorice support frame still remains and this domicile has been replaced with a Bijou residence behind the bins at the Staines branch of McDonalds.

Replacements were in the shape of Stu “Pid” Kemish, the sponging Student Lees-Lowe, young whippersnapper Matt Brown and Mr Toad made up our depleted ranks. Colin “When I slap this on the dashboard, I want you to pull into the nearest dark lane and undo your top button” Reed returned from Umpiring duties to take his place in the middle of defence too. So there we were, raring to go as the umpires got the game underway. And for the first 10 minutes of the game we were all over them. We did everything but score. OK, so it helped that they started with 10 men, but in honesty I don’t think it made that much difference as only our finishing let us down. Then everything else started to let us down, gently at first, then whoosh! Our team went flat. Passing became inaccurate, on and off the ball running was headless at times and we looked somewhat disorganised in defence. One of Sid’s usual passes to the centre forward led to him pushing the ball back to top D where a waiting striker hit the ball goal bound. When I say he hit the ball, he sort of tickled it really, as it slowly rolled past my outstretched boot and into the corner of the goal.

Arse, a soft goal and 1 nil down. We attempted to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off, but we couldn’t. So crumpled and dirty we went into the half time break.

To be honest here, we were 1 nil down and we didn’t deserve it. Witney’s Goalie was on excellent form and their defence had the measure of our forward line that consisted of Alex and Gloria, so we thought that if things didn’t improve, we may have to switch things about.

With the re-start came another soft goal that looked a little dubious to say the least. The Witney right wing, ran down to the base line and pushed the ball past my prone corpse towards the goal line. Actually it was running parallel to the goal line and as Colin attempted to twat it off the sidelines, his stick was hit by an enthusiastic member of the Witney forward line, resulting in a sort of own goal. The lid on Sid’s dome blew and whilst arguing with Colin, he uttered the word “Bollocks”. The umpire took this as a comment on his umpiring and duly sent him off to cool down behind the goal. So 2 soft goals, 10 men and a team that had degenerated into shouting obscenities at each other. Things had to change so the Tart ordered the re-shuffle, bringing Deano into the middle, dropping Alex back and everyone settled into the new Monkey Rengger spear-headed formation.

Within a few minutes, the recently allowed back on Sidney Patel picked out our raging Monkey who ran into the D and scored a great reverse stick goal under the oncoming keeper. Soon after our Ape creature converted a short corner to bring us level and for the first time in the second half, we saw hope. Of course we had to let this slip as a hotly contested Witney short corner was converted by my good self who pushed it into my own net to give the home team the advantage again. This got the Tarts back up who began screaming and shouting that all his hard work was for nothing and in a fit of pique, he raged on and on until Sid picked him up with a great long ball, which he took round the whole pitch, down the road, into Sainsbury’s up the poultry isle and down the toothpaste and Ralgex isle, up to the counter and back into the car park where he realised that he had made the embarrassing purchase of a small plucked chicken and a jar of Vaseline. Regardless, off he went, still with the ball glued to the end of his stick back towards Witney’s ground, through the car park, in and out of the changing rooms, back out onto the pitch, past one defender, then another to slot home one more well executed reverse stick goal. All this whilst shouting at the top of his voice “Am I doing this on my Fu**ing own?” It seems that he was and as nobody was going to risk a nasty monkey bite, we let him get on with it.

With honours even, we bucked up our ideas but couldn’t get the winner before the end whistle blew. In all we played well for about 17 minutes in total, which was a shame, because the likes of Dean, and young Matt had great games. Another day perhaps and we will take apart this Witney team with a vengeance. Saying that though Witney must have missed at least 3 open goal chances that were spooned into the side netting, so perhaps a draw was fair.

Man of the match: An almost unanimous vote saw the one man Gorilla warfare specialist take the prize. A very good display from the Tart, though no jug to celebrate his hatrick.

Dick of the Day: A Harsh deluge of votes for the housewife’s’ favourite saw him complete with a nice pink blouse that, when fully buttoned up bulged in all the wrong places.

Next week, the return of Jezza, who will probably reach into his pocket and get a jug in to celebrate the Tarts hatrick. Because that’s the kind of guy that he is.

Mens 4th XI

Mens 5th XI

Mens 6th XI

The sun was shining but there was that crisp "hockey-season" chill hanging in the wind as we arrived at Ice Station Zebra (aka Feltham Community School) to start yet another league campaign. We were assigned to the furthest outreach of the Staines citadel because for no other reason than we have too many sides now to all get a slot on our own astro. Unfortunately due to a few absentees this week, 18 at a quick count on Thursday night, we couldn't quite get enough players to field our 7th XI this week.

This season has seen a rapid growth in our colts section, thanks mainly to an injection from our host school today, who supplied Chris, Luke and Ben for their first ever league games. Also making their debuts were two other colts, Tall Tall Tom, and James. With Little Phil, "Not so Little Anymore" Phil, Dougie and Kishan making up the rest of the young brigade I've definitely started to feel like a form teacher - I may need to get some old 1980's clothes to complete the look!

After a close call with the flu in midweek both myself and Big Matty managed to recover in time for the game, and the rest of the oldies were made up of "Nice Bloke" Bob, Greg and Jack. Last but not least was Frank "The Doughnut" who accepted the poisoned chalice of donning the goalie kit as our regular keeper was away in the New Forest.

The game started at quite a frantic pace, well at least from the Wokingham boys at any rate. It soon became apparent that their kids had a lot of pace and quite a bit of skill as well. Fortunately we actually got stuck in from the off and the game was failrly even. Chris was making some good runs down the right wing and almost got behind them a couple of times. At the other end most of the danger was coming down their right wing, and they almost took the lead when a glorious diagonal ball to the back post was touched wide by one of the visitors aging stars.

The pressure was definitely building on us, and was not helped by some curious umpiring decisions that appeared to be going against us. Good thing was though that we just dug in deeper and kept our concentration and held out. Then we broke forward and were awarded a short corner. Now, in the car on the way over I had discussed a new routine with Dougie. So when Tom whistled the ball out I just managed to control it before slipping it to Dougie who rounded the prone keeper and flicked it past the defender on the line. Yessssssirrrrrr !!!!! 1-0 to the boys in blue.

A round of substitutions saw us lose a bit of momentum for a while but then we seemed to get the hang of the difference between league and friendly hockey. Defending from the front we made the visitors work hard to get the ball forward and with some tenacious tackling we managed keep them at bay. Unfortunately the visitors won a series of short corners and from one we failed to clear and their forward hit a speculative reverse stick shot across goal - which unfortunately was too accurate for Frank - well he's not a regular keeper you know. Rats 1-1.

Frank then kept us level to half-time with some good clearing kicks to the sidelines.

Half-time 1-1
Message - we can win this. Things to improve on were the communication. Not surprisingly with so many new faces we got penalised regularly for crossing. Next was something Martin noticed - mainly that the visitors did play one handed a lot - a weakness that we endeavoured to make the most of by going in to tackles with more conviction.

Just like in the two previous games we put our half-time talk straight into practice by putting in some pansy-like tackles in before eventually one of their kids rifled the loose ball high over Frank and into the top corner. Double rats !!!! 1-2 and only a minute of the 2nd half gone.
For the next fifteen minutes it was nearly all a tide of yellow as we failed to build any meaningful momentum going forward. We got caught in the tackle too often, were trying to hit the ball too long, and failed to track the runners from midfield. Three key events kept us in the game. First up Frank made a great save with the toe of his left boot to deflect a goalbound shot going in at the far post. Next, a "goal" from a short corner was ruled out because the first shot at goal was above backboard height even though another player deflected it higher into the net. And finally, thanks to their striker who opted to shoot near post from an angle of about 10 degrees, with an unmarked attacker on the p-spot about a yard out of my reach.

Funnily enough each of these event built our belief and we started to break forward again. The advantage of having defended high all game and the regular rolling substitutions meant that we were finishing the stronger. Five minutes to go and Martin shelled a hit into the circle and Kishan reacted quickest to hit a solid shot past the unsighted goalie. 2-2. A few Wokingham players dropped their sticks aggressively into the astro in disappointment.

A minute and a half to go and Phil M drove towards the circle down the left and a ball across the p-spot was met by Dougie who lifted a reverse stick jab high into the corner. 3-2. The Feltham caretaker will be busy repairing dents in the astro this morning from the angry sticks of the Wokingham players.

Full time : 3-2. Win.

Great performance, true grit and what a result. Well done to everyone. Now I've got to think of some homework for them this week !

Mens 7th XI

Mens Centurions

Ladies 1st XI

Another day dawned across the grasslands of Staines. The smell of chilli wafted through the club house, a scattering of 3rd XI men were in the bar now gameless but soon to be supporters of the Staines Swans as they faced 3rd in the league - Oxford Hawks.
Coach Shay delivered his team talk, laying down the game plan and encouraging bouncebackability. However, despite the consumption of energy producing Jelly Babies it appeared that Red Bull and vodka would have a done a better job at getting the girls in to top gear.
The warm-up lacked pace and Coach Shay was beginning to lose patience. Perhaps it was the Hawks prancing side step move in the warm-up that was putting the Swans off? Senility also seemed to be setting in as dear Auntie Audrey was flapping about trying to look for her skirt two minutes before the whistle. "I need to go back to the club house", she said. "You've already got the skirt on, Audrey", pointed out Struds. It would be to the relief of many that Struds was clued in and had a keen eye for a fast travelling hard white ball.
The game began, twenty minutes passed and still no goals. Despite the shouts of "Blue Army" from the sidelines it was more like the Gobi Desert. Suddenly, from out of the sands (of astro turf) there came smEllie. As the sea of red shirts parted she smashed in the first goal for Staines. The squeal of delight could be heard back in the chilli smelling club house. Well done to smEllie and her first goal for Staines.
Immediately the Hawks were on the attack and the guts, shoulders, sticks and 'in the trenches determination' of the defence kept them from scoring...lots. Even the midfield said at half-time that the defence (Super Struds, GI Jane, Katie Kate and Twinkle Toes) played 'brilliantly'. Thanks midfield xo. Snatch of the Match was thoroughly deserved by Super Struds. That's two weeks in a row, girl!!!!
With Sue and her lipstick in place the second half began. Within a few moments the sheer speed, dexterity, dazzle and determination of the forward line brought the second goal for Staines via the glittery stick of Aud. The game continued and after much hacking, stick chopping and "timbering" Suzi (and two Hawks players) received a card and Doris of the Day. Then suddenly the speedy Oxford fowards, after a bit of stick and ball pinball or as umpire Dawn put it "nutmegging", scored a goal which was slotted in the bottom left and just out of the reach of Twinkle Toes.
Feeling sorry for the gutted Staines defence the rest of the team counter attacked and were awarded a corner in the last two minutes. A wonderful routine ended with Kez/Kelly touching it in on the right hand post. Final whistle went and Staines were delighted with the result after a hard fought match.

Does that mean we can have vodka and Red Bulls, Shay??????

Ladies 2nd XI

The Staines 2nd XI continued on the 'Win the league' campaign trail. Following last week's success, we wanted more points and more goals.

The emphasis on training was once again shots on target. Coach Duncan was sporting a new hair do, very fetching 'Autumnal Colours'. Perhaps by winter he will be white and grey instead of red and gold! The first attempt at the exercise resulted in the threat of punishment if things didn't improve. Seems as a team the Ladies 2s thrive on such threats, second attempt and Coach Duncan was bordering on being very pleased. Just in case there's any confusion on that point, we respond as a team to the 'Threat' not the actual 'Punishment'.

This week it was Eastcote AWAY…Captain Lou, distributed clear and concise directions that even a small child could follow. After their scenic trip to Harrow, it was a slightly worrying combination of Oli & Ali in the same car again. However with such clear instructions plus Coach Duncan & Umpire Alec in the car, there was definitely an incentive not to get lost. The journey was smooth and hassle free for everyone, except Lou and Fish who somehow did manage to take a wrong turn. Maybe those instructions weren't suitable for small children after all.

As we waited for Eastcote to open the club house, Coach Duncan announced that the team talk was going to be centred round an article he'd read in 'The Sun' on the way over about 'Thongs and Suspenders'. The mind boggles or at least Coach Duncan's did, the rest of us laughed nervously and smiled politely, as you do in such circumstances. I'm sure Coach Duncan's 'Bit on the Side' (remember he's two timing us with the Men's 2s), would enjoy that sort of talk, but we in the Ladies 2s prefer to be treated as Ladies!

Team talk over, once again nothing more than a win will satisfy our coach. Fish took us for a longer than normal warm-up. In fact it was so strenuous that Ez managed to trip herself up through sheer exhaustion during a side-stepping routine. We had the usual hamstring stretch call 'Try and get your chest to your knees'. With the best will in the world my chest is never going to reach my knees from that angle or any other for that matter, but one like's to make the effort.

The match started, and it was clear from the off that we had to make our mark early in this game. We always have a tough game against Eastcote, and we really didn't want to lose this. First blood went to Staines with a goal from Captain Lou. Sadly the match reporter was off with the pixies for that goal, I have no idea what happened but it hit the backboard so who cares.

Eastcote came back at us, and equalised. This wasn't in our game plan at all. Staines continued to pressurise the Eastcote defence, and were rewarded with another goal from Captain Lou. She made a superior reverse stick flick into the goal from a cross from Ali. It wasn't long before another goal came our way. Fish working tirelessly as ever, picked up the ball took it into the D and scored. The best part about Fish scoring is the look of surprise on her face, it's reminiscent of a small child at Christmas being confronted with loads of presents. As always the defence of Abi, Oli, Yvonne and Eryl worked hard at the back and kept the Eastcote forwards under control.

Half time whistle, and 3-1 to Staines. Coach Duncan arrived, we were good, but we could do better, if we slip up and let Eastcote back into the game, we could end up losing 4-3. Enough said !

Second half, and the grit and determination were evident for all to see. We've all decided that Helen White has an evil twin whom she lets out to play on a Saturday. Put a stick in her hand, and she's like a caged animal. Our passing in the second half was much better. The mid field Suki, Helen's F & W, and new comer Ruth, found the forwards and in particular Baldie who quite frankly terrorised the Eastcote defence. She was very unlucky not to score, but the goals will come.

A well worked move from Ali, to Oli who swept the ball into Ruth resulted in another goal, when Ruth hammered the ball into the back of the net. 4-1 Staines. Ju and Lizzy worked hard down both wings getting the ball into the D to put Eastcote under pressure. Lizzy took a nasty ball to the hand which came up in such a huge lump that it looked like an egg about to hatch, but she was undeterred by this and continued with the game, after a couple of sharp intakes of breath. We are tough in the 2s, we laugh in the face of pain.

We earnt so many short corners this week, but yet again somehow they weren't destined to find the back board. Eryl was unlucky not to score, we have the routines all worked out, they just need some fine tuning. Practise makes perfect, and we're certainly getting a lot of that. One goal from a short corner was disallowed, but the final one of the game resulted in what can only be described as a slick move from Oli (that's a fiver you owe me for that description). Short corner, push from Hels to Ali, strike from Suki to the far post for Baldie, didn't get past the keeper, but the re-bound found Oli, who looked up and calmly lifted the ball over the keeper.

Final whistle 5-1 to Staines, Coach Duncan was very pleased with us, he now expects this every week. We are now in 3rd place in the league, still a long way to go, but we are feeling more confident each week. The team work and encouragement for each other is fantastic. Thanks to our supporter Ruth's boyfriend Phil who braved the wilds of Eastcote to watch us (well Ruth really).

Man of the match Captain 'Fantastic' Lou for those 2 goals, Doris of the Day went to Eryl for tripping herself up during the warm up- Sorry Ez but it was very funny.

We now have two weeks off from league, and apparently it's a 10am push back at Feltham-what's that all about ????

Ladies 3rd XI

Staines went off to an early lead with a Goal from Tracey Stanley, unfortunately Mill Hill caught us on the break and equalized 10 minutes later. Staines continued to have all the play and were rewarded with a Goal from a short corner by Ingrid Fear. Despite Staines continuing to have most of the play in the second half the score remained 2 1. Player of the match was Linda McCormack and Doris of the day Wendy Valentine-Penny.

Ladies 4th XI

After our excellent performance the week before the pressure to win was really on and we were facing a very young and fit girl side (any blokes dream!). Their eldest player was 16 and the last time we played them we had a bit of a battering. They had even been warming up for a whole hour before the match so we were all feeling full of trepidation!

Captain Ali R's rallying words sorted us out and well done to Penny for volunteering to take a turn in goal.

We got off to a bit of a frantic beginning with the young nippers pressurising our defence right from the start, but excellent sweeping skills by Jules and saves by Penny kept the score sheet clean. Caroline and Kath in defence made some great tackles and good support by Kerry, Michelle and Tanya kept up the South African trio of midfield domination.

Midway through the first half we were awarded a short corner. Michelle's great push out and Jules's fantastic textbook strike had the goalie looking a little puzzled … yes it has gone pasted you! Hurrah!! 1-0.

Vikkie's fast runs up the left and crosses to Ali F kept the attacking pressure on but just could not seem to get the ball over the line. Suddenly the young ones broke down the right side and before the defence could re-group a shot from the top of the D slipped past the defence and rolled over the line, 1-1.

We managed a few attacks before half time with Carole and Ali R piling on the pressure but none could get past their defence who were excellent at keeping those sticks low. Half time and a chance to converse about schoolgirl hockey … those were the days!

Second half underway. Can only be described by how on earth did the ball not go over the line to give us back the lead. Even the spectators were jumping up and down in disbelief. Shot after shot was saved and a fantastic strike from Elly missed by less than an inch. Ali R, Vikkie and Ali F carried out some great attacking runs together but Teddington's goalie just kept making those saves. Helen did some strong running up the right hand side passing one player after another to deliver a cross into the D but it just was not meant to be our victory as no one could get on the end of it.

The game finished 1-1 and overall a great result for us as we are still unbeaten in the league.

We must mention a big thank you to Tim and Adam's coaching. The improvements certainly starting to show but maybe we should now be looking at our shooting techniques!