PRESIDENTS DAY - 16TH APRIL

Following the success of last years Presidents Day we will again be holding 3 matches - Ladies First XI v Presidents Invite XI, Vintage/Vets v U18, Mens First XI v Presidents Invite XI.

The times for these matches will be posted shortly. Please do come and support and make a real day of it - bring a camera as well!

The Club Annual Supper will follow in the evening, so it is as always a good start to the day and festivities.

MENS CUP SEMI-FINAL

The Men's First XI have progressed to the Semi-Final stage of the Hockey England Vase tournament. Drawn away to Old Midwhitgiftians this will prove to be every bit the hard battle that they had against Eastbourne last year. With a real chance to progress to the Final your support could be crucial. The match will be in Croydon on Sunday 3rd April - so please make every effort to keep the day free and come down to lend your support and have a top day out while helping the team and club!

LADIES 4'S

I would like to complain in the strongest terms about my experience at the Ladies 4's Awards.

I got the 'Granny' Award. Now, I accept I could 'legally' be Alice or Rachel's Nan, (sad but true) but to get 'Granny', not 'Glamorous Granny' has hurt my sensibilities.

Outraged of Chalfont

ANNUAL DINNER

As you've heard or seen the Annual Dinner is on the 16th April. Currently 17 tables have been allocated to teams and individuals, leaving only 3 tables left (30 tickets). If you haven't spoken to your team captain or social rep re the Hockey Dinner and tickets, you need to urgently or if their tables are full, please call Bob Hance on 0780-1411928 or email bob.hance@bt.com marking your email "Annual Dinner".

Tickets are £30 with full sit down dinner, Disco, speeches and awards and full licensed bar, the evening starts with drinks at 7pm, and last dance is at 12:30a.m.

Thank you to the following that umpired for us last weekend:

FIXTURES BOOKLET

Saqib Ahmed is currently signing up companies to take advertising space in this seasons Fixture Booklet. If you know of anyone that may be interested in taking up some advertising with us then please let him know as soon as possible at saqib.ahmed@sabre.com.

PRE-SEASON TRAINING

Pre-season training continues for the Phoenix this Sunday. The session will start and 11am will run for the usual couple of hours. As with all training sessions everyone is welcome regardless to how experienced they are.

LOAN SCHEME DRAW

The latest draw was held on 19th March 2005 at the Club. The lucky winner, with number 13, was Janet Carter as witnessed by Alison Spicer and David Peters. Thanks again for the continued support of all the Loan Scheme members.

A&C travelled to Reading this weekend for a crunch game to retain the number 4 position in the league. The south of England was seeing a mini heat wave so the ladies knew this was going to be a hard game. Arriving at the pitch with a somewhat weakened attack and a few key players suffering from injury we adopted a new warm up technique, sitting in the sun on the cricket field and having a chat about random topics.

Reading has a stunning water based pitch which we eventually got on to and after a good warm up we settled down to business. Due to injuries a couple of players were out of position and so we were all holding our breath at the start. Having started very slowly in our last two games, we came out firing on all cylinders and within the first seven minutes had won a short corner. The ball was struck neatly by Janet Carter onto the keepers pads and Julie Whitehead following in from the left swept it into the far right corner, good goal.

Reading then showed us why they are 5th in the league with some good attacks, however some great co-ordinating between Vicki Williams and Gill (the battler) Brewer kept our defence in place. A&C did have chances with some fine breaks by Hannah Towers and Alice Wainwright who were finding Fay Rider up front, who was doing a great stand in job as striker. Unfortunately, two minutes before half time, Reading had a break and some scrappy play in the D saw them beat our defence to level the score at 1-1.

After some position changes at half time and much needed water, we once again emerged the stronger side with numerous opportunities missed. Kate Hext was finding some good space on the right, however we still felt it could go either way. The problem was Reading were not lying down. Then, six minutes from the end A&C won a hit two yards out and quick thinking saw us re group quicker than Reading. Everybody got five and Janet Carter stroked the ball onto Julie Whiteheads stick to deflect it into the left corner by an inch. 2-1 up we were not going to let this slip and everybody gave 110% to finish up winners.

A really good game to watch and a thank you to Mike Snell for umpiring.

Team: Vicki Williams, Janet Carter, Val Cremin, Gill Brewer. Rosemary Brand, Alice Wainwright, Julie Whitehead, Hannah Towers, Kate Hext, Fay Rider (c), Sara Daughtrey, Jenna Kirby.

Last game of the season... needed to win to ensure survival... 30 seconds from making it. What a game, loads of drama. Over the course of the week, we lost 5 players but we still managed to start with 11. We immediately put Newbury under pressure and once again looked like the better team. We had a few good chances before Newbury opened the scoring with their first shot on goal. No idea how we managed to find ourselves 1:0 down. We continued to work hard and managed to make and miss more chances in the first half. At half time we made a few changes to cope with their particularly fast winger and after that we started to play better as we weren't getting pulled out of shape so much at the back.

In the second half, Russell made a surging run into their D only to be scythed down by two defenders, neither of whom played the ball... flick... not likely, although for some reason we got a short corner. We kept up the pressure and eventually Tony scored from a well worked short. The short from Nick to Pete was rolled to the right and then back to the P-spot for Tony to coolly roll the ball under the keeper. 1:1 and we were in the driving seat. A goal from Oscar was disallowed...he clearly kicked it but neither umpire spotted it so they disallowed it just in case. A second (third) followed soon after. Another short and a drag flick from Gobby was deflected in by Russell. 2:1 with 10 minutes to go.

Newbury tried to come back into the match as they knew that a loss would put them in the relegation zone. They started to put more pressure on and a failed clearance from us resulted in a free hit. The ball was smacked into the D, deflected from an A&C stick to an unmarked Newbury defender who flicked the ball into the net amid jubilant Newbury cheering. There were only 30 seconds left to go...

This has been a hard season for the seconds and injuries have blighted our cause. We will not know whether we have been relegated or not for another few weeks as it now dependent on results in the league above us. The players who have come in this season have worked extremely hard and all credit to them. Some of them have felt that they were playing above themselves and were out of their depth but I think each player who has played this season has done themselves proud in battling for little reward in some very hard games. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the players who have played seconds this season.