As the season progressed, the boys each took on more responsibility in matches with Jakob Kridle directing operations from centre-half and the indefatigable Archie Sturton leading the forward line to great effect. Tom Gooding took his opportunity to show his prowess in front of goal with a well-taken hat-trick against Watford and only a misguided bet Alistair Dean placed with goalkeeper Abel Lamaj, (a quarterpounder from Burger King if he could beat three opponents in a row!), scuppered his chance of playing the full seventy minutes of a game.
James’, as well as tight matches against St Benedict’s, Trinity and RGS. Indeed, there were only a few matches across the two terms when the opposition outclassed us, but we emerged from the campaign on a fairly even balance in terms of results and goals. Core Squad: Ollie Axbey, David Buchanan, Sam Mackenzie, Leo Malka, Andrew Merriman (GK), Tom Miller, Max Salisbury and Tom Whittle.
Sport
which go a long way in sport. Sure enough, after a mixed bag of results against Trinity, Millfield and KCS Wimbledon, the boys entertained Whitgift in the return fixture. Augmented by the presence of Jake Winterbottom on loan from the 1st team, the boys put in a powerful performance that resulted in a narrow 2 - 1 defeat and were only a short corner routine worthy of the name away from a famous victory.
Under 16 ‘A’ Boys
With only the energetic and consistent Ben Doble and the rapidly improving speedster Gus Nicholds leaving us, the future prospects of the team look very rosy indeed. Squad: D.Buchanan, A.Merriman, A.Sturton, J White, G Nicholds, B Doble, M.Cooper, T.Gooding, A.Lamaj, N Foulsham, A.Dean, E.Hudson, G.Kitson, J.Kridl, S.Svarovsky Mr Durban
3rd XI boys
Looking back on the season as a whole, the one word I would use to describe it is overachievement. We knew we had a squad with the capability of going far in the national tournament, but the question was whether we could put this capability into practice on the pitch. The start of the season saw us play a number of friendlies with mixed results and things not quite going to plan. When the start of the national tournament came around we were drawn against Trinity school, where winning would not be an easy feat. After what proved to be a tense and nervy affair, we came out on top with a 4-2 victory, helped with a hat trick from Zach Wallace and a goal from Will Freeman. However, the final against Whitgift demonstrated how far we needed to improve to go as far as we wanted to.
This season has been a challenging one for the Third XI, not only because of the strength of the teams that we have played against, but also due to the difficulties in selection posed by a small squad. This is not to say that the team were any the less committed, but with longer term injuries in the higher sides, the Third XI were often left with only a handful of regular players to be joined by players from the Second XI (often meaning that both sides were fielding the minimum eleven players) or increasingly common as the season wore on, fielding girls from the 2nd and 3rd XI teams. My thanks therefore go out to those boys and girls from other teams who represented the Thirds on a number of occasions, including Alistair Dean, George Kitson, Matt Cooper, Nathan Foulsham, Sophie Gallagher, Lucy Skinner, Katinka Ronberg, Charlotte Bassett, Paula Roth and many others who turned out at least once. As it happens, a lot of good Hockey was played, with pleasing wins against King’s College (Wimbledon), Reed’s and St
The next stage of the tournament was in Southampton at King Edward VI’s School. We progressed through this round by winning all three games [Ardingly 2-1, King Edward VI, Southampton and Magdalen College 3-2] with help from Joe Hughes’ pin-point drag flicking and solid defence. After progressing through this stage we had to play a match against Stowe, which saw us perform dominantly and win with a comfortable 5-0 scoreline reflecting our attacking and defending ability. Next we travelled to Tonbridge to play in a knockout game against Sir William Borlase. This was a tense affair with us just coming out on top with a 2-1 win to qualify for the South Final. If we had won the final then we would be through to the national finals. However, we once again came upon a dominant Whitgift side who won the match 5-1, but I think with the ‘rub of the green’, things could have been different. This loss put us into an ‘Onward qualification’ stage against Queen’s School, Taunton. This is what our season had led to: if we won, we would qualify for the national finals, but if we lost, game over. Unfortunately for us,
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