Men's 3rd X1
Matches
Sat 26 Jan 2013  ·  East Central 1
SWINDON HOCKEY CLUB
Men's 3rd X1
4
3
Chippenham A
Swindon 3rds 4 - 3 Chippenham A

Swindon 3rds 4 - 3 Chippenham A

Thomas Kerslake3 Jul 2019 - 21:25
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Swindon produce a shock win, no thanks to our hero Hazel.

It was the day most of us had been dreading, the return of Chippenham A, who beat us 10 - 0 the last time we met. Things looked set for much the same to happen, fielding a weaker team than last time with the likes of James Newman and Deep Reyatt missing. There were suggestion of chucking snow and ice back onto the pitch or taking a trip to the Link Centre to see if the Zamboni could be borrowed for a bit.

You could be forgiven for thinking you were at a Wildcats game to start with. Jordan McKenzie was tearing up the left wing, beating everyone in the race towards the goal...nearly. It would seem the only way to stop him was to land a nice clean body check on him.

After much pressure, the first goal of the game came from Swindon by Andrew Kettlewell with a cool finish. The dominance continued and Swindon went 2-0 up with a beauty by Thomas Roblin (apologies for the lack of description, wasn't really looking)...

Chippenham pulled one back though through another well taken drag flick. Although not as fast as the previous, it was just as accurate and placed in a awkward position to the keepers left glove side.

Swindon increased the goal gap again by converting a short corner. The initial drag flick by Will Porter was saved but the rebound was put back across goal by Alex Hynes, leaving Jordan McKenzie a simple tap in.

Swindon's final goal came from a string of great passes starting from the defensive 25 yard line with Will Porter. Will then moved the ball out to the left to Alex Hynes, Will made a run deep into Chippenham's left half before receiving the ball again. Will's final move was putting the ball into the D to Phil Scarisbrick, who passed it back to Will who had run towards the top of the D, leaving the goal wide open.

Chippenham capitalised from Swindon's attempts of playing football in the D. The drag flick that followed was an absolute rocket. Dead straight down the middle, leaving the keeper no time to get his hands up that high in time (insert Tom is short joke here), with the ball hitting the roof of the net. Credit to that man! An awesome flick which you could only stand and applaud really.

Ten minutes to go, panic stations again for Swindon! Chippenham were pressing hard with the ball being put in and around the D. Eventually a Chippenham shot crept through from outside of the D. Not thinking the ball had taken a touch, keeper Kerslake opened his legs letting the ball go in. This was followed by a lot of Chippenham cheers but no goal was initially awarded. There was a large dispute over whether there was a touch and despite not playing the cleanest game themselves, Chippenham put pressure on Will Porter to be sporting and admit a touch.

The dispute was soon settled though with Alex Hynes approaching the umpire asking:

"How long is left umps?"

"Two seconds."

"Yeah let them have it."

What a result and a mega team performance! We easily could have given up on this game before we had even started after the last time we met, but we remained optimistic, we connected the passes and ran at the opposition, taking their brand of hockey and using it on themselves. Just an amazing game to be a part of!

A special mention has to go to Ian Hazel for his heroics on the post, facing two short corner rocket speed drag flicks and putting his beautiful body on the line. Without his reactions on the post, the score could have been very different!

Match details

Match date

Sat 26 Jan 2013

Kickoff

14:00

Competition

East Central 1
Team overview
Further reading