Prinsenbeek 2005/6

Thames Valley Hockey Club Veterans went on the usual biennial tour to Prinsenbeek in Holland despite having few playing members available. The players and results are shown on the attached table. Match reports also follow, though as the tour proceeded my memory failed.

With the Thursday and Friday matches, perhaps with the exception of the second match against Eastcote, we played some very good hockey, keeping the ball moving and finding a green shirt with our passes. Long ball passes never really worked, as most teams were playing 4-4-2 and were able to intercept.

Some highlights were :-

The play of Linda Beere against men mostly a lot younger than her. She was never intimidated, and, though beaten for pace occasionally, more often than not came away with the ball in a tackle.
The monumental effort put in by the Shrewbury lads Richard and Bob. They played eight games a day, guesting both for us and for the Bangers. Richard especially deserves praise for his efforts at centre half.
The team spirit which helped us bounce back after getting heavily beaten by Eastcote.

The matches went like this:-

Thursday

v Wuhlmause

After a slow start Valley gained control of the match, with the odd wobble, and save off the line. We scored in the last minute of play and the oppo were well sick that they didn't even get time to restart the match. As usual with Wuhlmause the match was keenly contested but friendly. Their right wing complained that he had no answer to the pace of Linda who marked him out of the match.

v Teteringen

A tighter match than it should have been. Valley really took control scoring two excellent goals, and with several other chances missed in the first half of the game. The tackling as we attacked down our right was fierce, and cards would certainly have been shown were it not a festival.

While continuing to press we let the opposition score a gift, and then spent the remainder of the match on the back foot. The oppo pressed, but ran out of time, with a shot trickling over the valley goal line a second after the whistle had blown. Derek says he had it covered and we all believe him.

v Old Willies

We were more closely matched than this result displays, and the win next day supports this.

Conceding a rather lax goal, attacking to get one back and conceding more. The penalty corner tally was 7-2 in our favour but the scoring routine was not there, and the oppo took all three chances they had. A very friendly match with no bad tackles at all.

v Eastcote

Always likely to be the hardest match we would have. We did play well, but were beaten by the better side. Kev Coleman gave them a shock with a wonder goal, running past four players before making the net bulge with a fierce shot that their goalie probably never saw, but we ran out of time as they had already put two past us.

Friday

The above teams were played in reverse order.

We started with Eastcote who were clearly upset that we had put a goal past them. They fielded their strongest team, while we had lost our potent strike force as Kevin Coleman and Andy returned home. The 0-5 result was justified, as we lost our heads and repeatedly tried long ball passes which the oppo received with a smile and whacked past our midfield and into the goal.

Spirits recovered when we played Old Willies and beat them quite well. There were a number of times we were one on one with their goalie who played very well. A deserved win, and, again, a friendly match

The return match with Teteringen did not go according to plan. We spent the entire game on the back foot in a spiteful match against a much stronger side than that of the day before. They deserved to win given the amount of possession, but given their control of the match they did not need to manufacture short corners quite so blatantly.

Finally a gentle match against Wuhlmause, who had also taken the opportunity to bolster their team with younger players who were not really in the age group. This didn't seem to help their cause as we still nicked an early goal with Sav on the receiving end of a sitter as we opened up the german side's defence with superb passing, to a point where they just ran out of defenders.

Having scored we were put under the cosh, but the defence held firm and luck was on our side for once. Gerry Beere took a bit of a battering from the german forwards who thought they could headbutt their way through him rather than run round.

Saturday

Having won two matches on each of the previous days we came second in our pool. This was obviously a big mistake as we ended up playing younger sides.

v Prinsenbeek

A strong side, with younger players in the team. They were not really ready for the start of the match and we should have capitalised, but without Sav at CF we were struggling to get attacks going. There were some chances, and even a couple of one on ones with goalie, but they scored and we didn't.

v Part-timers

A friendly match, but our legs had really gone and we struggled to move, let alone play hockey. Not much more to say.

v Bedford

A strong team well drilled, and still able to play, while we were not.

Its fair to say that had we had a proper squad, with some subs we might have been in better shape for the last day. It was just not to be this year.