Match Reports for November the 5th and 6th from Lindum Hockey Club, as compiled by Sean O’Kelly and written by the man himself, Helen Clarke, Alex Cooper, Mandy Warrilow and Laura Latarche.

Men’s 1st Team

• v. Gateshead 1 (away), written by Sean O’Kelly
• Drew 4 – 4 (Goal scorers: George Johnstone, Mike White, Ian Ferraby, Harry Swift)

“2 points dropped but positives in draw for Men’s 1s”

The 1s made the long trip up to the bleak north-east full of optimism following an end to the run of defeats of recent weeks. Despite troubles locating Mike White, he was finally found wandering somewhere along Nan Road in Bawtry.

The game began in an end to end fashion with Gateshead missing a sitter inside 2 minutes, before a good opportunity for Rob Johnstone who fired at the keeper. Harry Swift, fresh from his first Lindum goal, also shot at the goalkeeper in a 1 on 1 scenario. Gateshead then capitalised on some sloppy defending to take the moments later in the 5th minute. Lindum didn’t falter in their attacking, however, and after some great play in the middle of the park from Swift, beating 2 or 3 defenders, he laid the ball through to better-brother-this-week George who finished with aplomb on his reverse to level the scores. Matt Ingram had a glorious chance to give Lindum the lead following some great inter-linking play down the left, but twice fired at the keeper, before captain Temple-Baxter also fired wide with G Johnstone unable to tip in the shot at the far post. The lead was soon Lindum’s, as a rather unorthodox penalty corner routine was slotted home by Mike White at the second attempt. Both sides had chances to add to the score-line thereafter, with both keepers in fine form to deny the opposition, particularly Ward making a string of saves to hold Lindum’s lead. Unfortunately, a turnover on the halfway and a lapse in concentration led to a Gateshead PC on the half-time whistle, which was despatched underneath Ward. HT: 2-2

Lindum started the second half strongly, creating opportunities for the forwards and were awarded a penalty corner almost instantly. Injector Ferraby tapped in from close range after R Johnstone deflected a slap from Temple-Baxter through the keeper’s legs. Lindum continued to assert their dominance and were rewarded with a simple tip in for Swift following brilliant work in the circle by car-won’t-start Treadgold. The bearded White had a wonderful chance to extend the 2-goal cushion but flicked at the keeper shortly before a penalty corner goal for Gateshead, finished at the second attempt over the downed Ward. This lead to a rather nervy final 15 minutes in which Lindum hit the t**t-switch, as it has now come to be known. Ferraby was shown a very dubious green and then Ingram was also given a short sit-down, moments later, leaving Lindum at 9 men for 2 of the final 5 minutes. The resultant penalty corner led to the completely incorrect award of a penalty stroke for Gateshead – apparently a lifted ball, into a defender, going towards the side-line with GK Ward on his goal-line warranted a flick – pure b******s. It was converted into the bottom right-hand corner, and ultimately resulted in a draw. The result leaves Lindum M1 in the bottom 3 moving onto next week’s must-win game at home against Lancaster and Morecombe. FT: 4-4

Team: Ward (GK), Ferraby, Saunders, T White, Ingram, Treadgold, M White, Temple-Baxter (Capt.), G Johnstone, R Johnstone, Swift, L Sadler, Dewhurst, Johnson
Head Coach: Gary Johnson
Team Manager: Sean O’Kelly
MOM: – Sam Temple-Baxter – excellent, controlled performance deserving of a goal and victory
DOD: – Mike White – turning up to play against Gateshead in his Gateshead shorts

Ladies 1st Team

• v. Norwich Dragons 2 (home)
• Won 3 – 0 (Goal scorers: Vic Fiddies (2), Emma Geary)

Men’s 2nd Team

• v. Sheffield University Bankers 3 (home)
• Won 3 – 1 (Goal scorer: Dave Knowles, James Hillsmith, Mark Sadler)

The 2nd XI lifted themselves out of the bottom 2 with a victory against Sheffield University Bankers 3s at home.

Ladies 2nd Team

• v. Bridlington 1 (home), written by Kirsten Parslow
• Won 1 – 0 (Goal scorers: Jo Siddans)

After a great 3-0 win in the England Hockey Cup last weekend we were keen to carry this momentum into the league. Bridlington were an unknown entity but we were up for the fight. The first half was end to end with both teams having chances, but no one managing to get that important goal. Bridlington came out fighting and were a physical side which meant it took a little while for us to get into our rhythm. Shortly after half time Jo Siddans received a great ball from Linsay Pritchard and smashed it into the back board, 1 nil to Lindum. For the rest of the half Bridlington were determined to get that equaliser with a several great attacks but due to some fantastic team defending an amazing saves from Kayleigh Porter the score line stayed 1-0.

Lindum Ladies 2s are now 3rd in Yorkshire Div 1 and next week travel to Ben Rhydding, who are currently top of the league.

Ladies 2nd Team (Sunday – YHA Women’s Yorkshire Cup QF)

• v. Sheffield University Bankers 2 (home)
• Won 2 – 1 (Goal scorer: Angie Green (2))

Men’s 3rd Team

• v. Acomb 1 (away)
• Lost 3 – 2 (Goal scorers: Simon Duke, Stuart Kirk)

Ladies 3rd Team

• v. Slazengers 3 (away)
• Drew 1 – 1 (Goal scorer: Kerry Rough)

Men’s 4th Team

• v. Lindum 5 (home), written by Alex Cooper
• Lost 2 – 0

Things that currently give me cause to worry in life, to a greater or lesser degree:

• Losing a loved one
• Donald Trump becoming President of the United States (at the time of writing)
• Hillary Clinton becoming President of the United States (at the time of writing)
• Triggering Article 50
• Any form of DIY required on my house
• Lincoln’s never-ending obsession with closing roads
• This club not reaching its full potential
• This club falling apar

The latter one can be demonstrated by the events of the Lindum 4s v. 5s game on Saturday. A half four start at home may not be everyone’s idea of the ideal start time (though at least it isn’t a half four start in York or, even worse, Slazengers) but I’d been really looking forward to this game all week. A busy week at work, followed by plenty of other hours on hockey-club-related things, set this inter-club game up as a perfect escape from all that.

At ten past five we still hadn’t started. Our warm-up ended ages ago and there’s only so much pre-game preparation you can put in before you fear it will take energy out of the game itself. More pressingly we were without umpires; two of the club’s lower teams seemingly not important enough to warrant such luxuries.

While Paul Hamnett reconvened at the pitch he’d just vacated at the end of the 8th Team game (thank you Paul), we lost Chunky to the other whistle in the absence of anyone else volunteering. Chunky, of course, hadn’t spent the week trying to turn out several teams to fulfil our fixtures so he was quite prepared to miss a game…

Before we got underway there was still time to play musical chairs with players going between the two sides. To say that I was pretty hacked off before the game even began was an understatement.

Credit to the 5s, they were good. They played some lovely hockey right across the field with some nice triangle passing, solid defending from Vinny and Cameron Smith, and Steve Deville seemingly everywhere on the pitch. They were heavily aided by the 4th team not being able to hold onto the ball beyond the halfway line, leading to a period of continuous breaks from the 5s that eventually lead to two goals. The handy thing about having 11 players in a team is that you can pass to one of your team-mates … though this might come as a surprise to certain people who prefer to run into groups of three members of the opposition.

After 70(+) of the most disheartening minutes that I can remember, I went home.

Following calls for assistance from club members, throughout last week, from Caz, Chunky and John Sisman that were largely left unheeded, this game just showed what’s happening on a larger scale within the club. Just as Chunky asked for someone to umpire and nobody put their hand up, nobody steps forward for the club which leaves things falling apart as the same people are always called upon to actually turn the wheels every time. We can’t even get teams filled every week because, despite the large numbers of players we have, our collective availability is beyond lousy – giving even more work to those few. Then you get Geoff Ngao who, pre-season, sorted out the pitch slots and venues for each fixture and then arranges details with the opposition in the run up to the game, only to be given additional work when we can’t fulfil those fixtures and have to cancel.

Lindum Hockey Club is the 6th largest club in the country. Whether you want to argue what that statistic actually means, with regard to participation figures, is up to you but you can’t deny that we have the potential to be a big fish within hockey in England. That’s largely thanks for Gary Johnson and Hurricane Sports (who gets an inordinate amount of grief for what he does). In 10 years I want to be able to look back and say that I had an involvement – no matter how small – in getting a merger between two small Lincoln clubs to a single club that gets mentioned in the same breath as Beeston, Reading, Holcombe, etc. We have the potential to do that but it’s not going to happen if the wheels fall off. What’s more, if you rely on the same people all the time then they’re going to realise at some point that there’s more to their lives than doing the lion’s share of work for a club this size.

Ladies 4th Team

• v. Grimsby 1 (away), written by Mandy Warrilow
• Lost 6 – 0

No great firework display at Grimsby from Lindum – just a few oooohs and aaaahs!

Early pressure by Lindum unfortunately did not pay off and Grimsby started to find their form and soon found the back of the net. A couple of their goals ‘rocketing’ home from short corners. 3-0 half time. From the restart of the second half, it was soon obvious Grimsby were goal hungry and scored two goals in quick succession. 5-0. The score remained like this for some time as Lindum worked hard to win possession and make chances. Unfortunately, the team’s endeavours were not rewarded. Moments before the end whistle Grimsby struck again (against the run of play) and netted their 6th goal.

Men’s 5th Team

• v. Lindum 4 (away)
• Won 2 – 0

Ladies 5th Team

• v. Hull University 3 (home), written by Laura Latarche
• Won 12 – 0 (Goal scorers: Laura Latarche (4), Cathy Burgess (3), Charlotte Pell-Reynolds (2), Leann Lynch-Anderson, Sally Gregory, Ailsa Christian)

A terrific victory for Lindum ladies 5’s this week. An early goal opened the flood gates and resulted in a final score of 12-0 against Hull Uni 3. Some good communication and passing from midfield allowed us to assert ourselves in the game and dominate play, however Hull Uni didn’t take their foot off their pedal to make it easy for us. We had an injury early doors with Ailsa taking a ball to the ribs, but she recovered well and even scored in the second half. Our defence worked hard when the ball did make it into our half on a handful of occasions, giving Amy, our goal keeper, a well needed rest.

Men’s 6th Team

• v. Leeds 7 (home)
• Lost 4 – 1 (Goal scorer: Paul Topham)

Men’s 8th Team

• v. Chesterfield 4 (home)
• Lost 1 – 0