Gorleston Hockey Club

Gorleston Men’s Hockey Club made the trip to visit Cambridge University, to face a side that have recently been the draw specialists in the League after a shaky start.

Gorleston were on top for the majority of this game but were undone by five minutes of play were a lack of concentration presented the lead to the University side.

For the first 20 minutes of the game, Gorleston were rampant, particularly down the right wing where Mark Vaudin and Kevin MacDonald combined extremely well to beach the University defence time after time. Gorleston should have taken the lead when midfielder Andrew Lilley stormed into the University circle and smashed a shot across the face of the goal, with Crawford unable to apply any sort of touch at the back post.

After 20 minutes, the University team came to grips with the work being done of the Gorleston right wing and moved more player there to stifle the visitors and allow themselves to start breaking out into Gorleston territory at great pace. Rob Harlow and Jamie Higginbotham had dealt with every University play, some of it with great tackling and some with acrobatics from Harlow, until Gorleston five minutes of disaster, which came after 25 minutes.

Firstly, the University side won a short corner and a miss-hit shot bounced off Keeper Barney King’s pads and into the goal. Gorleston attacked from the restart, only for the home side to break this up and sweep down to the Gorleston goal at pace for their second.

Despite a concerted effort before half time Gorleston could not reduce the deficit. The second half was virtually all Gorleston with ‘Red Light’ Lilley and ‘Farmer’ Pallant bossing the midfield but Gorleston unable to make clear inroads into the University circle. Then Crawford made some amends for the earlier miss by feeding a pass through several defenders for Neil Hudson to push under the advancing University Keeper. The last 10 minutes were frenetic, with Gorleston pouring forward and winning a number of short corners but no goals. As the clock ran out, Gorleston won a short corner. The first was stopped illegally and Gorleston had another opportunity. All to no avail though as Gorleston’s shot on goal was deflected wide of the mark by the home side and the game finished to the absolute delight of the home side.

Fortunately for Gorleston, other results went their way and they are still not far short of a mid table position, with second half of the season commencing with a return fixture against Norwich City next weekend.

Squad: B King (C), K MacDonald, R Harlow, H Cheung, J Higginbotham, Martyn Vaudin, M Reymont, A Lilley, Mark Vaudin, R Pallant, R Crawford, N Hudson.