GOALS GALORE
There was a feast of goals at Weybread last weekend with 43 coming in seven matches and 35 of them were scored by Magpies’ players – and all at the right end! The Ladies’ 3rds got Saturday off to a good start by beating Norwich City 3rds 8-0 with goals from Kara Kilbourn (2), Jemima Jacobs (2), Sophie Long (2), Keira Booty and Rachel Herod. The team has recovered well from their opening day defeat by the club’s 4ths to record a draw and two successive wins to move them up to fifth place in their league just behind theLadies’ 4ths who maintained their unbeaten record by drawing 0-0 away to Dereham 2nds.
The Ladies’ 1sts were next on the water-based in their top of the table clash with close rivals Ipswich in a game including a Mrs Wheelhouse on each side! It was also a game which went against the trend of the day producing no goals despite the ball reaching the back of the net three times with Magpies twice having efforts ruled out for high shots at penalty corners against one by Ipswich. We thought Magpies had clinched a well deserved victory with three minutes to go through Emily Wilford only for the umpire to signal no goal with our players almost back to the halfway line. Let’s hope the team has more luck when they entertain St Albans this coming Saturday (12.30).
When the Men’s 1sts took the lead against Chelmsford in the next match with a splendid reverse stick shot by Tom Graham I immediately looked at the umpire to see if yet another effort was to be ruled out! It wasn’t (and nor should it have been) and by half time we were 3-0 ahead with two further goals by Tom who was giving the performance of his young life. He continued to make life very difficult for the visitors’ defence after the break with his wonderful ball control during which the even younger Toby Price showed great maturity to beat the goalkeeper in a one-on-one before reverse hitting the ball into the net for his first league goal. Tom created a chance for a grateful Pete Bale with further goals in a sparkling 7-0 victory coming from Simon Hipwell and Tristan Baynes. The team is away to Ipswich this Saturday (11.00) looking to build on their encouraging start to the season.
Meantime the Ladies’ 2nds were making rather heavy weather of beating Long Sutton 3-0 after an early goal by Anouska Hipperson but a win is a win and two second half strikes by Katherine Ridley ensured a deserved victory for the league leaders who this Saturday are away to Ipswich 3rds (12.00).
In other Saturday matches at Weybread the Men’s 5ths more than deserved their first point of the season in drawing 1-1 (Mitchell Tompkins) with Ipswich Cranes who equalised late in the game while the Men’s 6ths, who have started the season well, went down 7-2 to Bury St Edmunds 3rds with both goals coming from the spirited Pete Thornett. Away from home the Men’s 2nds lost 4-2 (Phil Cobbald and Richard Larkin) at Havering while theMen’s 3rds went down 4-1 at Spalding. This Saturday they will be out to ensure home advantage brings them three points each when they take on Crostyx (2.15) and Dereham 2nds (4.00) respectively.
Please see the website for the full list of this weekend’s fixtures which include the Magpies’ Minis on Sunday at Weybread with the U10 & U12 Boys at 9.30 and U10 & U12 Girls at 1.30. Good luck to all our teams this weekend.
Last Sunday both the U18 Girls and Boys opened their respective EHB Cup campaigns with the Girls beating ten-man Bury St Edmunds 14-0 at Weybread while theBoys beat Spalding 8-0 away. It was good to see the Bury girls playing throughout with spirit despite the goals piling up against them with two each by Sarah Brook, who set the ball rolling in the first minute, Jemima Jacobs, Jess Howland, Holly Baker and Emily Brown with three from Lizzie Jones and one from Dominique Dyball. Scorers for the Boys in an almost equally dominant performance were James Bensley (3), Tom Graham (2), Tom Ridley, Dominic Absolon and Rhodri Furlong.
I am sad to record the death last week, all on the same day, of three hockey umpire stalwarts, namely Julia Gill, Peter Lambert (Peterborough) and John Whitehead (Cambridgeshire). Between them they gave outstanding service to our sport over many years in various umpiring and other capacities. Julia was a former men’s national league umpire and technical delegate at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics while Peter and John were, before their retirements, top class umpires both nationally and in the East. We are in their debt.
Over the summer and early autumn a number of Magpies’ girls and boys have been working hard at their JRPC (Junior Regional Performance Centre) and following trial matches over two Sundays in London last month it is congratulations and best wishes to the following who have been selected to play for the Saxon Tigers in the Futures Cup (England trials) at Cannock in early November; U18s – Sarah Brook and Tom Graham, U16s – Amy Campbell, Sam Lyne, Toby Price, Saffron Wilford and Kira Woolterton. It is also congratulations and good luck to Lizzie Jones who has been selected for the U17s training squad for a camp, with Arianne Dyball as a reserve, during half term.
Other news and comment
a) I remind you of the Club Quiz Night this Saturday (13 October) in the clubhouse at 7.30pm. Please come along for what promises to be a fun evening.
b) Congratulations to the Archbishop Sancroft High School team which has won the Norfolk U16 Girls Championship beating Wymondham College, Greshams School and Norwich School. The team, mostly made up of girls from Magpies’ 2nds and 3rds, now go forward to the East finals.
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With kind regards
Mike Denham
10/10/12
LONDON 2012 – GAMESMAKERS
All who were lucky enough to attend the Olympics or Paralympics cannot fail to have been impressed by the thousands of cheerful volunteers who acted as Gamesmakers. In their various roles they have rightly been highly praised for helping to make the Olympics and Paralympics such a huge success.
Two club members, Catherine Cranmer and Karen Ray, were proud to be Gamesmakers and I am grateful to them for kindly letting us know a little about the important part they played during those memorable few weeks.
Catherine Cranmer
I was very fortunate in my Gamesmaker role at the London 2012 Olympics. I was an NOC (National Olympic Committee) assistant, which meant I was based in the Olympic Village and assigned to a country, expected to help them as required. Many people were attached to countries for good reasons – they could speak the language or had some personal or family connection with the country. Not so for me. When I found out that I was to assist Estonia, my first action was to reach for an atlas.
The experiences of NOC assistants were very different. I came across many who were kept very busy by their chef de mission (the manager of all the athletes, coaches, medical staff etc), and they worked long hours, buying things from the huge Westfield next to the Olympic Park or driving demanding delegates around various venues in London. Because my chef was über-organised, my experience was much more relaxed and I was able to enjoy wandering around the Athletes’ Village and the Olympic Park, sometimes managing to pick up a ticket for an event. We did have busy times, though, and these came when there were Estonian medals which needed to be celebrated. As everyone knows, two Estonian medals were won in London – a silver in the Greco-Roman wrestling, and a bronze in the discus.
I must admit to being quite impressed with myself for getting to my first shift. Some people liked their Gamesmaker uniform, but I wasn’t a big fan and I felt hugely self-conscious on that first day – walking from the house to the car was fairly bad, but getting from my car to the train took every ounce of courage I had. Once the Games started, though, praise of the Gamesmakers began to gather momentum, and I felt less inhibited and more proud of my poppy and purple kit. But epaulettes? Really??
I had some amazing experiences, but the thing I enjoyed most was the driving. The Estonians had ordered three vehicles, two Picassos and a BMW, and I made it clear early on that the BMW was to be mine. The Sat-Nav failed me a couple of times and I didn’t get to drive as much as I’d have liked, but cruising down Olympic lanes in my logo-clad BMW and drawing admiring glances from my fellow road-users (they were probably in fact cursing me for being able to dodge the queues, but I don’t care) was a tremendous feeling.
My overriding feeling looking back on it all is that I was very privileged. I was allowed into places I had no real right to enter, and I was at the heart of what seems to have been an incredibly important event for the country, one which will be talked about for many years to come. And I’m so proud to have been one of the Gamesmakers. I’m pretty sure I didn’t ‘make the games’, but I did my best to play my part and I thoroughly enjoyed the attempt.
Karen Ray
I was one of the 70,000 lucky Gamesmakers at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
My typical day started at 5.00am by crawling out of my tent in the dark at Eton Manor Rugby Club. I, along with many other Gamesmakers, had made the decision to camp at a reasonable rate of £10.00 per night rather than pay for a hotel room I was a volunteer at the Riverbank Arena – home to hockey during the Olympics and 5-aside football and 7-aside football during the Paralympics.
My shift each morning started at 6.30am, the whole team at the venue had a briefing from the Event Services Management team at 7.00am each morning and by 7.30am we were deployed to our section of the venue. Each day we were in a different team made up of one team leader, 6-8 volunteers and about 4 security staff. All but one of my shifts was in the stadium. I was on entrance just one day. Duties on ‘entrance’ involved scanning tickets as spectators entered the venue. During the Paralympics there was unreserved seating in the arena. A Park day pass gave entry to wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis and the football. This meant that there was a constant stream of people coming into the Riverbank Arena. The day I was scanning tickets I had a breakfast break at 8.00am and didn’t get another break unit 3.00pm. I didn’t volunteer for ticketing again!
All my other shifts were spent inside the two stadiums and in general involved showing spectators to seats.
The 5-aside football, played by blind footballers, took place on the hockey warm up pitch. It was a very intimate stadium for about 2,000 spectators. The whole stadium had to be kept quiet throughout the matches and this could be quite a challenge but spectators being fewer in number made for quite easy days. The matches were truly inspirational; these players are so skilful and brave.
7-aside football, played by footballers who had different degrees of cerebral palsy, was played in the main stadium. The 7-aside days were busier and slightly longer finishing around 6.30pm.
The volunteers were a brilliant bunch to work with and our team leaders were excellent. I worked a couple of days with an elderly volunteer who had been a volunteer at the 1948 games – he had many good stores to tell. At the end of my shift I’d have something to eat at Westfields excellent food hall with one of the other camping volunteers. One evening I visited the Magnum shop and sampled an ice-cream cocktail and saw Jonnie Peacock and Hannah Cockroft.
The final gold medal to be awarded at the Paralympics was the 7-aside medal to Russia. Consequently our last shift finished quite late and by the time we were leaving the Park the athletes were making their way to the main stadium for the closing ceremony. We stood and cheered as they went by and they in turn cheered us – it was an incredible evening and that along with the whole experience is something I shall never forget. They were long days when working and there were a lot of trips to London for training. We were given our uniform and free travel on the underground during Games time but apart from that there were no other perks but I would not have missed it for anything.
My thanks again to Catherine and Karen
Mike Denham
8/10/12
