Potters Bar 1st XI v West Herts 3rd XI
Saturday 10th October 2009

The Bar have found themselves at the top of the league by 2 clear points after only 2 games. So today was an opportunity to keep out front.

And that’s just what we did! A fine team performance, one of the best seen at Dame Alice Owen's for a long time.

Here follows the long list of goals (reading this comes with a warning – if you are currently revising for exams it would be better to stop reading now because this will take you a long time. Potters Bar Hockey club will not take responsibility for anyone failing an exam)

Some lovely one touch play worked an easy goal for Turpin.

Good work by Turpin in the D made an easy tap in for Tomkins.

This was a special one! Some good patient build up play between Rob and Chits gave Tomkins time to hit a perfectly placed ball across the goal for Turpin to tuck in.

Half-time – An inspirational talk from Whybrow combined with the fact that the opposition were really tired in the 2nd half led to a flood of goals.

Graham was left regretting his remarks about no negative chat when Edson managed to reverse sweep a ball the wrong side of the post from 1 yard.

Charlie found himself with the ball on the top of the D after a lucky deflection of a Herts foot. He went on to beat 2 players before hitting the left corner.

Turpin picked up a lose ball from a defensive clearance, and decided he didn’t need any help from Tomkins and went on to score.

Miles Edson

Herts got one back. It was a loopy flick. Graham was beaten on the off side and blinded Geoff at the same time to ruin any chance he had of making a save.

7-1 Ed Whybrow

8-1 Miles Edson

9-1 This goal was of biblical proportion because of the similarity to the parting of the red sea during the Exodus (Exodus chapter 14(true story)). Graham made a break from defence and the Herts midfield kindly decided to make no attempt to tackle him and instead just move out the way. This left an easy through ball to Turpin and he did the rest.

10-1 Turpin again. He made an interception near the D and then scored.

Full time 10-1

The bar go on to head the top of the league table.

Other mentions should go to the defensive work. A great team performance defensively. There was an incredible lack of diving in, which was fantastic and meant Herts were unable to do anything with the possession they had. Whybrow and Chitts dominated the middle of the park and made some very good players look very average.

The back 4 looked tight all game, and are starting to look more comfortable in possession and switching the ball side to side. Vish is turning into a solid defender despite not playing there much before. Owen and Rob were solid as usual. Making many a crunching tackle. I love your flat sticks!

Geoff deserves a special mention. He made some great saves, kept our defenders aware of opposition runs and all round flawless performance.

Come on the bar!

More photos and a video from the game here

Team: Geoff Smith, Vishal Patel, Owen Hughes, Ben Graham, Rob Donoghue, Miles Edson, Chris Chittleborough, Ed Whybrow (C), Charlie Irish, Miles Tomkins, Mark Turpin, Mark Calderwood

by Ben Graham