Hockey at 9am on a Sunday morning is never the most appealing of prospects at the best of time. This Sunday was made even worse for two further reasons. The first was the weather; the beautiful sun of the past weeks replaced by grey skies and a freezing rain. Secondly the night before had been Presidents Day at the hockey club, and therefore there were many players and umpires, who longed for a comfy bed rather than a cold wet astro.
Nevertheless, as the saying goes, the show must go on, and on it did, as group 1 underwent a crucial round of matches. Going into the weekend, three teams had a realistic chance of qualification from the group, Derwent 1sts, Halifax 1sts, and Alcuin 1sts. All three won again, but the margins of victory were crucial.
Alcuin probably faced the toughest prospect of the three, with their opposition being a resurgent, if somewhat depleted James 2nds side, who were a player short. There is undoubted quality in the James side, and they pushed Alcuin hard. Alcuin used the break to great effect in the first half to go into the interval leading 5-1, with five Tom Sherwood goals, whilst White pulled one back for James.
In the second half, James came out in search of goals, with Chris Butterworth supporting the strikers from midfield, and Ashley Collinson scoring his first goal for the team, before White added another. James’ renewed hope of a comeback was soon ended as Ashley Emmett scoring for Alcuin 6-3, although this didn’t stop Collinson who, despite the best efforts of Dave Washington, slotted in the world’s slowest goal at the back post. In the end they fell just short, slipping to a 6-4 defeat, but it was a valiant effort in the circumstances against an Alcuin team, who despite not losing a game on the pitch, face a mammoth challenge to finish in the top two of the group.
Halifax meanwhile recorded their fourth straight victory, to maintain their place at the top of the group. However their progress is not secured yet, as they still face Alcuin in a crucial last match, which Alcuin need to win by a significant number of goals. Today Halifax were to strong for Goodricke 2nds, running out 9-2 victors, as Cat Johnson, Alex Francis and Craig Dixon shared the goals. For once Halifax were struggling for players, astonishingly starting the game with a meagre three players, before quickly being reinforced. But they soon got up to speed, and overpowered a resilient Goodricke side to rack up another win.
If Alcuin to beat Halifax then it is likely to come down to goal difference to decide who will progress through, and Derwent did their goal difference no harm today. A rout is not fit to describe the scenes in their game against Langwith 2nds. Eventually the score ended 19-0, I’m not sure how, but it did. In doing so Derwent recorded the first clean sheet of the tournament, whilst scoring the most goals in a single game to date, a record which is unlikely to be beaten. If they beat Goodricke in their final match, despite comprehensively losing to Halifax, their progress through to the semi finals will be secured regardless of other results.
Vision Player of the Group: Cat Johnson
how did a member of Derwent College not get player of the group? if the team wins by 19 then surely someone deserves it. Also why does it not get a better report? You could write a book on how the langwith were taken to the slaughter house. Secondly, if you watched the match last week it was not a comprehensive win, just a few lucky goals was the difference. the sides seemed pretty even from where I was standing on the sideline.
Twice I’ve scored six goals, twice I haven’t been mentioned. Good journalism lads.
I am not in Derwent, but it seeps somewhat suspicious that Chris Butterworths average performances are noted week in week out, despite shows of true class and panache from the likes of Hammick, Leech and Bradshaw in the Derwent 1’s… Who writes these reports?
Hi guys
I appreciate your comments. With regards to this week due to the 9AM timing we only had two reporters there. Both of whom were playing in the Alcuin v James game, so therefore that took centre stage of the report.
We had nobody reporting on either of the other two games, so had to put a report together on what others had told us. Halifax came up to us and gave us all of their goalscorers and told us the basis of the game, in comparison we received nothing from Derwent apart from myself having to come and find out the score before i switched my attention to the second round of matches. Again i think this demonstrates why i can’t give POTG to a Derwent player.
With regard to “the comprehensive win”, i know the first half was very close, but my reporter has told me the second half was dominated by Halifax, and 8-3 is a fairly comfortable scoreline.
Regards
Dave Washington (Sports Editor)
Bearing in mind only a couple of years ago college hockey didn’t get reported on at all, I think it’s nice to see vision take an interest. I personally think that the reports are a half decent standard especially when you consider that there are three matches going on at the same time and only two people who have put themselves forward to write match reports, both of whom were playing at the time.
Maybe instead of moaning that you don’t get mentioned or the write up isn’t correct/in depth enough you could talk to dave on Saturday and offer to write a paragraph or two about your match.
As far as the Halifax match goes I love the idea that they got 5 lucky goals in the second half. Obviously a different game from the one I saw! First half was very even but in the second half Derwent couldn’t intercept any of the long balls which led to several simple (rather than lucky) Halifax goals.