Slough Hockey Club

A 1-0 defeat by Argentina completed GB's Champions Trophy campaign - it resulted in GB Women win Silver after reaching their first Champions Trophy Final in history, losing in a narrow defeat to the hosts. Slough's Nicola White and Ashleigh Ball were key members of the GB squad with Ashleigh scoring a couple of important goals.

Semi-Final: Great Britain beat Germany in the SF broadcast live on BBC Red button on Saturday. A 1-0 win took GB through to the final against Argentina.

Quarter-Final: Great Britain beat Korea 4-1 on Thursday to set up a Semi-Final against Germany on Saturday. Watch the SF live on BBC Red Button at 8:30pm Saturday and spot the Slough players, Ashleigh Ball and Nicola White representing GB.

Great Britain beat China, the Olympic silver medallists, at the Champions Trophy in Rosario. A 3-1 win was finished off by Ashleigh Ball of Slough netting the third goal for GB.

Full Final Report:A Late First Half Penalty Corner Ensures Argentina Win Gold on Home Turf.

Despite losing to the World Champions by a single goal, the result represents Great Britain’s best ever finish in the Champions Trophy and can only be a positive influence as we look forward 6months to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

D’Elia’s penalty corner in the 30th minute of the first half proved decisive in a match that finished 1-0 in favour of the hosts, and saw both defences on top with Great Britain’s Reading GK Beth Storry pulling off a number of awesome saves from numerous penalty corners and field play.

After D’Elia’s goal gave the hosts the lead, Leister defender Crista Cullen was unfortunate to see her goal bound drag flick deflected off the Argentinian line by Luchetti just a few minutes before the half time break, Cullen was subsequently named the Champions Trophy Tournaments Top Goal Scorer.
The second half saw Great Britain’s defence play much the same and hold strong throughout a chain of Argentina penalty corners, whilst at the other end the play was lacklustre, Sloughs Nicola White was unable to connect cleanly with her deflection on goal, whilst Readings Alex Danson flashed the ball across the circle late on in the game.

After the match Great Britain Head Coach Danny Kerry reported, “I thought Argentina played very well tonight. They defended well and their defence held out. We started to get back into it in the second half but it was not to be”.

He continued by saying, “We won four, drew one and lost just one in a major world level tournament. We’ve made history tonight winning the Silver medal”.

Earlier on in the day, the Netherlands won the Bronze medal after beating Germany 5-4.

The Champions Trophy is the first of three major tournaments for Great Britain ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games, from 2nd – 6th May Great Britain will play in the Olympic Test Event, and just seven weeks before London 2012, they will host some of the best teams in the world at the Investec London Cup in Chiswick.

For a full match report please visit Great Britain Hockey