Match Reports For Saturday 23rd October Season 2004 - 2005

Mens 1st XI

Staines had another disappointing time in the league this week. Against Gore Court, a side they have comfortably beaten at home over the last few seasons, they struggled in the rain to a 3-3 draw.

Staines started the stronger side and took the lead through Stuart Hall with a clinical finish after a pass by Andy Evans. They continued to press and Gore Court had the occasionnal foray forward but were kept out by the defence. This was until a hopeful ball forward from Gore Court led to a striker getting a lucky deflection from the top of the circle, which wrong footed Andy Green in the Staines goal for the equaliser. The rest of the game continued in similar fashion with Staines taking the lead and Gore Court fighting back and equalising. With goals from James Chapman and Andy Evans Staines got their noses in front but were pegged back each time by Gore Court, who worked hard and frustrated the Staines attack time and time again.

Sunday v Hounslow & Ealing (EH Cup)

On Sunday Staines took on nearby Hounslow in the Cup and fought out a 3-2 win. With Staines playing much better hockey than on the Saturday against a side in the league above it was quite an even first half. Hounslow took the
lead with a deflection from a reverse stick strike but this was soon cancelled out by skipper James Chapman's penalty corner strike. With both sides looking to attack, the ball moved from end to end and chances were created by both sides but no more goals were scored in the first period. The second half continued with end to end hockey and chances happening at each end. It was Hounslow who retook the lead when they converted a penalty corner with a straight strike. This spurred Staines into action and as the half wore on they came more into the game, especially in midfield where good work by Geraint Hughes, Chapman and Adam Hart created a lot of space for Stuart Hall to start attacking the Hounslow defences. It was from an interception by Hughes that Staines got their equaliser. He intercepted a
weak pass and fed Hall who ran at the Hounslow defence before slipping the ball to Andy Evans. He drew the goalkeeper and then lifted the ball over him into the far corner.

Hounslow were beginning to struggle and Staines kept up the pace on the game and pushed forward looking for a winner. They thought they had it when Robbie Watson was cut down in the circle for a penalty stroke. Unfortunately, the usually clinical Chapman had his strike saved by the Hounslow 'Keeper. Staines heads did not drop and they continued to look for the winner. It finally came after another fast break and the ball was despatched into
the top corner by Andy Evans for his second of the game. With Hounslow appearing to tire in the last few minutes Staines kept them out and proceed to the next round of the cup where they take on National League side East
Grinstead.

Mens 2nd XI

Mens 3rd XI

Our first match of the season at home. Ashf*rd were too scared to turn up two weeks ago so there were a few things to look forward to. Amongst other things watching the 1st XI spank Gore Court all around the astro while it was hammering down with rain, enjoying a drink in the renovated bar area after the first home win of the season and watching Liam dish up food with a grisly smile, showing the gaps in his teeth as if to say how dare you question my home cooking!

Oxford Hawks at Faulkners. Our first match in a new look, weekly changing team provided us with some trepidation as we looked for our first win of the season. Alpo was sweeper, sponging student centre back, big Beno left back and kingsley, right back. With four in the middle of Andree, Bill, Dan and Tom while upfront it was the gazelle like characters of Tanker Lazlo and Chubby Jezza demonstrating their snow plough techniques and bulldozer tactics. In goal another stowaway South African gave us some fearful presence at the back.

In the first half we went one nil up from a short corner. Sponging student injecting the ball toward big bill who set it up for Chubby Jezza to spank at the keeper. Good work from Taxi Lazlo kept the ball in play as he flicked it over the keeper who parried to sponging student who flicked it in the roof of the net. Oxford got a lucky break and it was 1 all at halftime. Big Beno gave a churchillian speech at half time which roused the troops and had us all saluting at the notcutts sniper. Within a minute of pushback of the second half Staines had walked the ball up into the back of the net with a three pass move for Bill farmer Giles Roper to score. A bit of scrappy play and then it was 3-1 to Staines with Phil Laz getting in on the act putting one into the back of the net.

A few more wasted chances as Chubby Jezza swotted flies in the D as he attempted to roof a scorcher into the goal. Only for Mick Martin to give a free hit against us. Phil got a bit unlucky as he had a few one on ones with their agile keeper who was keeping in the game. Oxford attacked our right flank and their centreforward running into the D was adjudged to have been felled by Big Beno who was in the right place at the right time. 3-2 to Staines. The rain came crashing down while Staines pressed the game deep into Oxford's half while the Staines' back four stepped up to defend and attack from the halfway line. A bit of scrappy play in the last 15 minutes saw Andree take his chance. He seemed somewhat pleased as he celebrated his goal but he had worked hard and for his first season in the 3's he was doing well.

Man of the match had a few votes, Big Beno, and Sponging Student got a couple of votes each but Alpo took it by a few hundred whiskers. Some excellent defending, beating the opposition several hundred times and distributing the ball from the back.

Dick of the day. Chubby Jezza was looking worried as he had swot some flies in the first half, Big Beno gave a p-flick away but sometimes you just set yourself up for disaster. I read a book once called pride before fall. Big Phil Taxi Laz, Chelsea through and through (if you like that sort of thing) fell on his sword. Unfortunately in the prematch talk he said he'd be banging in the goals today, and while he took his goal well it was the various ad-infinitum chances he had for us to win by a double figure margin that earned him the unanimous vote.
Next week Sonning whoever they are.

Mens 4th XI

Rain. Bloody rain. I wandered over to the Astro at Staines to see if I could catch a glimpse of the Men’s 1’s and in the process got soaked. Time to leave and we sat in traffic in Staines whilst the rain poured over the car. As the congestion eased, we headed for the motorway and darted up the M4 in the direction of Sonning’s ground on the other side of Reading. It has already been noted that there was still a fair amount of moisture in the air and when we arrived, the rain looked to be letting up a little and indeed it did, so at least we wouldn’t get too soaked during the game. Getting changed we got to listen to Mr Hudson’s sexual adventures over the last week which, strangely were with another human-being this time. It all helped pass the time nicely till we were ready to go into battle.

This week as our Chubby goal scorer had been nabbed by the 3’s and Colin was off on his hols, we managed to lift Dave Farmer and Young Dougie from the 5’s and 6’s respectively. Oh, and Gnasher was back.

The game got underway and we really attacked Sonning. I think it’s fair to say that we had the lion’s share of the play and kept possession well with only our finishing touches letting us down. Up front, the usually lonely figure of the Tart was joined by Little Doug who linked up well with our simian hero. Doug wasn’t afraid to take players on either, beating them on many occasions. The young man later confided that he liked playing in the 4’s “because the adults pass to you”. Groan. Now I feel old.

At the back we generally were having a good half but some confusion and sloppy marking lead to Sonning’s well worked 1st goal.

Buggeration. All that work and yet we were heading into the break a goal down. Still with another half to go, I was pretty sure we could salvage something.

With the re-start we got back on the case and whilst we could keep them in their half, our finishing still left a lot to be desired. Good goalkeeping on Sonning’s part and bad luck on ours ended when we managed to scramble one of Gloria’s shots that rebounded off the post and into a tangle of players. Mr Toad then proceeded to bulldoze the ball into the net to pull us level. OK, so here we go, I’ve seen this many a time, where we start off losing, then end up winning easily leaving everyone wondering what all the fuss was about. Well that was our plan, but unfortunately Sonning were working to a different plan. One where they kept the ball out of their net and try to put it in ours.

Tempers were starting to fray and the exuberance erupted into a bout of puffy chested pushing and shoving in their D when Gloria tried to change the laws of physics by playing a ball through a fallen Sonning defenders torso. With a look of disbelief on his face he looked down at the ball that had bounced back off of the stricken player and decided that he needed to try this experiment again. Only this time a lot harder. Being walloped with a hockey ball is never the most pleasant of activities, just ask any goalkeeper, but without the benefit of ½ an inch of polystyrene strapped to one’s body, it can be a painful business as well. Rising to his feet, the enraged defender quite naturally decided that our budding Einstein needed a corrective shoeing, which was narrowly avoided when big brother Tart and the rest of the team stepped in to separate the aforementioned mêlée.

Nobody ever wins a fight you know. Patrick Swayze said that. I think.

Settling down again, we proceeded to pressure Sonning, even managing to put the ball in the net at one stage, but as it was hit on the wrong side of Mr Rengger Jnr’s stick, it wouldn’t be allowed to stand. We had short corner after short, yet still the force field around Sonning’s goal would not be broken. With 5 minutes to go we thought that perhaps a draw would be OK, when Sonning broke forward to score a poorly defended goal. Oh dear. 5 minutes to go. Mind you, a lot can be done in 5 minutes you know. And it nearly did. Gnasher this time had his moment in the sun when his stray pass went to Sonning’s centre forward who galloped towards me, closely followed by our red faced centre back, who determined to make up for his error, managed to overtake the charging forward and block his shot. The ball broke free and resulted in a most humorous display from Sonning’s collective forward line, all of whom had seemingly forgotten how to hit a ball with a stick into an empty net. We escaped this one, and had just enough time to win a short corner. Whilst lining up for it, the final whistle blew, so everyone pushed up to try and salvage a point from this last play of the game. And guess what happened?

Great goalkeeping by the opposition’s goalkeeper really counted against Staines this week as we were made to pay for a couple of defensive errors. Sad faced and soggy, we trudged back to the car park, where we made our way to Sonning’s club house. Looking around the clubhouse were began to think that perhaps they were “Bad winners” we couldn’t find any of them in the bar area and assumed that they had all gone home without celebrating their win. What made this worse was that it seemed they hadn’t laid on any sustenance for us to commiserate with And then we realised that we were at Reading Hockey Club…… Not Sonning no? Reading. Arse. Well their showers were nice as Mr Toad succumbed to the old everyone-pour-shampoo-on-your-head-when-you-have-your-eyes-closed routine. Nice shiny hair though, and smells like summer sky too! The final mention must go to Gloria, who not only was run over last week in our own car park by a stationary Nissan Micra, but was tricked into venturing out into the car park dressed in only his undercrackers as he had left his jogging bottoms in the Tarts car, only to find the MonkeyMobile locked when he got to it….. Now we had a school boy with us, and he confirmed for us that this was indeed a bit of a mistake.

Dough-nut!

MOM: Showing Great skill and promise, Young Dougie gets the shirt.

DOD: For two bouts of unorthodox marking which resulted in two Sonning goals, Dave Farmer would have worn the blouse, but as he had already disappeared, Gloria got to dress up like a woman this weekend

Mens 5th XI

Mens 6th XI

Mens 7th XI

Mens Centurions

Ladies 1st XI

Ladies 2nd XI

The Ladies 2s have had a 2 week break from the 'Win the League' campaign. It's half term and apparently, just like the kids we need a break. So this week it was a friendly against Henley at the ungodly hour of 10am and even worse at Feltham or 'Ice Station Zebra' as it has become known.

Coach Duncan elected to dump us this week, and have a boys day out at Gore Court with the Men's 2s. Each to their own, but it did mean we could have a later than usual meet time-hurrah. The Ladies 1s had heard about our fabulous keeper Abi, and pinched her this week. We in turn 'borrowed' Chantelle, who coped admirably with us and played very well too!

With no coach to sort out the subs, Captain Lou had been working hard on the game plan all week. She came armed with a 'huge' A3 sized note book and pages of substitute scenarios! However with 15 mins to go she still wasn't happy with it, the book was full of scribbles and arrows all over the shop. Coach Duncan does it on the back of a fag packet. At first glance it looked like a small child had scribbled all over Captain Lou's work, but once she took control and told us what we were doing it all became crystal clear (well it was once you'd tuned yourself onto Lou's wavelength). The bottom line was that we were swapping after every 10mins, and as long as we knew who we were coming on for then it would all be fine, with Oli moving effortlessly into every position available it seemed! Still versatility is good.

We pressured Henley from the off, we really need to score to boost our confidence as a team. The mid-field as always worked hard to feed the ball to Baldie. We earned short corners in the first ten mins, but still they weren't hitting the back board. To be fair the Henley keeper and one of their defenders were strong and thwarted us and in particular Baldie at every conceivable opportunity. The first substitution was effortless, with Hels W and Ali now off for 10 mins. More short corners were awarded our way, and it took a few mins for the team to realise that the short corner routine pusher and stopper were both off at the same time. This happens most weeks, Hels & Ali are going to start timing you all next week-pay attention girls or there will be fines!!

Henley were starting to look dangerous, pressurising our defence and keeper Chantelle had to make some good saves. She did all this without much protection (I'm sure Mags and Abi have far more padding from their kit), but it didn't seem to worry her, although the mother's amongst us were concerned for her well being. It wasn't long before Henley finally cracked our defence and their first goal went in. Still we kept our heads up and tried in vain to get that 'damn' ball in the goal. I've lost count of the number of times we hit the post, or watched the ball land on the line but not actually cross it. Anyone of a nervous disposition is advised not to watch us play, it's nerve wracking stuff.

The half time whistle went, by this time frustration had set in. It didn't matter what we did up front, the ball just wouldn't cross the line. Baldie has come to the conclusion that she must have done something awful in a previous life which accounts for the fact that she's not scoring.

Still undeterred we raised ourselves for the second half. It was a huge team effort, everyone worked really hard to get the ball to the forwards. We earned loads of short corners, Henley got 2 all game, but to no avail. There was an interesting umpiring decision when Baldie was fouled by 2 Henley defenders in the D but the decision went against her. She was so incensed that she questioned the umpire firmly but fairly after the game, to which he replied 'With hindsight yes you probably should have had a short corner'……hmmmmm bit late now!!!

Henley kept up the pressure; we had to clear the ball off the line and everything! They finally managed to put another one past us, and the final result was 2-0. The frustrating thing for us is that as a team we are working well together, but for some reason we aren't scoring. This week it's league and I'm sure that if we can win, once Baldie gets the first goal, the floodgates will open, and there'll be no stopping us.

With the game over and Suki bravely taking on the umpiring of the Men's 5s, Baldie announced she was off to 'kill herself' and such is the team spirit in the 2s that half the team offered to help her, while the rest offered to watch just to make sure she did the job properly !

Many thanks to Chantelle for standing in as keeper for us. Man of the match this week went to Baldie. Next week sees us take on NPL in the league at home at 10am. Set those alarm clocks girls!

Ladies 3rd XI

Ladies 4th XI