PHILIPPA AND MURRAY AGAIN AT THE HELM

Another season will soon be in full swing under, I’m pleased to say, the continued presidency of Philippa Taylor and chairmanship of Murray Graham. Philippa is now in the second year of her three-year term while Murray is into his third year of office and as I’ve told him on several occasions one member I could name did the job for six years!

This season we welcome estate agents Musker McIntyre as sponsors of the Ladies’ 1sts and it is also pleasing to know that Dynamic Sports Clothing & Equipment Ltd will once again be sponsoring the Men’s 1sts as they return to the national league. The club is indebted to these companies and to our other major sponsors, namely accountants Lovewell Blake, IceniPost.com, accountants Larking Gowen and M.R. King & Sons with garages in Halesworth (Volvo), Lowestoft (Peugeot and Suzuki) and Saxmundham (Peugeot and Suzuki). Our thanks are due to all our sponsors and advertisers and it is to be hoped you will kindly give them your support if you are able to do so. If you do please mention HMHC!

Preparations for the new league season continued last weekend with practice matches for the Ladies’ 1sts (Birmingham), Men’s 1sts (St Albans) and Ladies’ 2nds/3rds (Norwich School). Sadly both Bryony Lund and Simon Hipwell suffered broken collarbones playing against Stourport and Southgate respectively and will be out of action for several weeks. I am sure we all wish Bryony and Simon speedy recoveries. This Saturday the Ladies’ 1sts are at the PLUM Tournament at Lee Valley.

Meanwhile also this Saturday our other teams have pre-season friendlies against other clubs or will be playing in the Club Day at Weybread as follows – LADIES CLUB (for 5ths, 6ths, 7ths and Dev) between 10.00 and 12.00 with the MENS CLUB (for 1sts, 2nds, 4ths, 5ths and 6ths) between 12.30 and 2.30 followed by a training match for the 1sts and 2nds. Please see the website for all matches.

The season proper gets underway over the weekend after next when on Saturday 12 September the Ladies’ 1sts host Wimbledon (2.00) and all of our other ladies’ teams commence league action except for the 7ths. The next day the Men’s 1sts start their national league campaign away to Cambridge City with the other men’s teams having to wait until the following Saturday for league action. Please see the website for more details.

The Men’s 1sts will unfortunately be without Chris Barber who has moved to Crewe where he is working as a design engineer for Bentley. Chris was a relative latecomer to hockey but he soon showed he had inherited the skills of his father John, one of the club’s best ever players, and he was soon in the first team as a highly talented forward. We were delighted to have him back at the club two years ago after his graduation from Loughborough University and he was soon testing opposing defences with his speed and stick skills as well as contributing a regular supply of goals. Last season he helped the team to win East Premier A and after the injury he sustained in scoring in the home victory over Wisbech in late February he returned to action to help the Mixed team to win the national mixed trophy in June. There is no doubt the club will miss Chris but he goes with our best wishes for both his career and hockey.

CONGRATULATIONS AND BEST WISHES TO

Katie and Jason Devereux on the birth of Leo James. Leo arrived on Friday 10 July weighing 7lbs. Before she stopped playing early last season Katie was captain of the 4ths – a position she had held previously. It would be good to see her back playing again in due course.

Our three members who will be competing in the Sainsbury’s 2015 School Games in Manchester from 3 to 6 September, namely Maria Andrews (England Red), Donnie Archer (England Blue) and Toby Price (England White). The other teams competing in the two hockey events will be Scotland, Wales and Ulster. The Sainsbury’s 2015 School Games is a multi-sport event for the UK’s elite young athletes of school age. For more details please see www.2015schoolgames.com/sports.php

The England women’s team on their stunning victory over the Netherlands in the EuroHockey final on Sunday. This was certainly a case of victory being snatched from the jaws of defeat as few spectators would have given them a chance at 2-0 down, after some heroic defending, and with seemingly worse to follow. The team’s subsequent recovery and the way they dominated the penalty shootout was something to behold and a fine example of never giving up until the final whistle. Maddie Hinch was as ever in fine form in the England goal. I wonder if she remembers Emma Lee-Smith’s penalty corner strike which rocketed past her at Weybread on Saturday 21 September 2013 when Holcombe beat Magpies 3-1?!

EUROMASTERS HOCKEY

It is also congratulations to the five club members who represented their country in their respective EUROMASTERS events last weekend with all winning medals. Kath Johnson won gold at Old Loughtonians for England O45s in an event in which her team twice played Netherlands and Ireland and in the first game with Netherlands Kath converted two penalty strokes in England’s 3-1 win. Phil Cobbald helped England O50s to pool victories over Netherlands, Scotland and France at St Albans before his team had to settle for the silver medal following a 1-0 defeat by Germany in the final while also at St Albans Jon Aldridge was helping England O55s to gold by winning all their five round-robin games against Scotland, Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Wales. Phil scored against France while Jon found the back of the net against Scotland.

Meanwhile at Southgate David Blackmore was helping the England O60s to win their four pool games before facing world silver medallists Netherlands in the final. As to be expected Netherlands were well organised with their plan to slow the game down and to hit England on the break. The game ended 1-1 (the only goal conceded by England in the tournament) and England took gold winning the nervy shuffles 2-1 which ended in dramatic fashion when the Netherlands player lifted the ball over the goalkeeper only to see it hit the top of the bar! Also at Southgate Peter Finnie was playing for the England LX O65s Whites in the Grandmasters Trophy and they went on to earn a bronze medal which Peter tells me should easily have been silver. Being a newcomer to the squad Peter was required to slot in where needed and this meant playing mainly on the left wing a position he vacated some 45 years ago in favour of sweeper! Unfortunately Peter suffered a recurrence of his knee/back problem and will be out of club action for some weeks. We wish you well Peter.

OTHER NEWS AND COMMENT

The annual handbook is now at the printers thanks to the hard work of commercial manager John Rowe with the support of a small group of other members and will be issued to members on payment of their 2015-16 subscriptions – details of which will be issued shortly. Please see the website for accessing the online version of the handbook.

Unfortunately the England men could not match the women in the EuroHockey championships but they have the comfort of knowing that in the form of the GB team they had already, like the women, secured their coveted Rio Olympic place.

Please note the first social event of the new season is the Quiz & Chilli Night to be held in the clubhouse on Saturday 10 October.

Photos coutesy of Pat Leate.

With kind regards
Mike Denham
[email protected]
1/9/15

www.magpies-hockey.co.uk web site hosted and managed by IceniPost.com

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