Report : 26-09-2004 – Boys U10

Competing in the Yorkshire Youth Hockey League; Held at Huntington School, York. Sunday 26^th September 2004.

The start of the first of five tournaments planned for the 2004-2005 season was delayed due to the late arrival of the facilities key holder.

Slazenger’s start this season playing in the lower of three leagues, our team of three Boys and two Girls (we are desperate to recruit more Boys to the side) been made up to the necessary six with the help of players gratefully borrowed from Chapeltown or Wakefield. Our opponents on the day were reduced to four teams with the absence of Thirsk.

The first game was against Harrogate who were a strong team that our inexperienced players, suffering from the lack of the strong defensive strength of the absent Ailish Hendry, found it very difficult to defend against. The result being a resounding 5-0 defeat.

In our second game, against Ben Rhydding B, although the team began to come together and find more shape, even putting together a chance or two on goal. Again our competition proved too strong scoring four goals, the first of which came from a shot from outside the D, rebounding off of our post into the path of their attacker (but they all count). Final score 4-0 to Ben Rhydding B.

Slazenger’s started our third game against Chapeltown in a much more positive manner, putting our opponents under pressure from early in the game. This pressure bringing a goal in the first few minutes scored by Daniel Perry after all our attacking players had seen a touch of the ball inside the Chapeltown D. They were quick to come back at us, until an attack on our goal was thwarted by the umpires whistle when Slazenger’s Issac Fisher was struck in the chest by a ball unintentionally flicked up off a Chapletown stick. We were soon back on the attack ourselves though, Daniel again managing to force a goal after another goal mouth scramble. Chapeltown popped in a consolation goal near the end of the eight-minute game with some neat “brake-away” play involving Joshua, a playing we had “borrowed” earlier in the tournament. Final score 2-1 to Slazengers.

In our final game against York B a third girl, Sophie from Chapletown made up the numbers off our team. We began in the same attacking style and again found ourselves one nil up early in the game. With players committing to attack we were vulnerable to any York break, but half way through the game Issac turned one of this breaks into a goal for Slazengers by driving the length of the pitch, a terrific effort from the six year old. After a final successful tackle on the edge of York’s D Daniel was on hand to pick up the loose ball and force through from the right wing, along the goal line and finish the move with a reverse stick push into the net. The final score of 2-0 could have been 3 when Heather Bates was ideally positioned in front of goal at the end of a pass when the full time whistle blow.