SONNING 4 - 3 HENLEY
15th September 2007

As the pre season friendlies continued we had another home game. However, the university's turf was out of action and Sonning descended upon the Bracknell Sports Centre. Again a pieced together team turned out on a rather warm day but at least it's nice to know that summer is finally here, tisc ...

Once the pitch was finally ready to play on (having cleared acorns, leaves and waited for the goals to be unchained from the fence! [we were in Bracknell remember!]), Sonning started play with a push back to the opposition defence.

It wasn't long however before Sonning made it onto the score sheet with a brilliant run from 25 yards out, to the base line by Ian Ta. He finished his run with a cheeky flick across the goal to Grant who pounced on it in mid air and placed it neatly onto the back board.

In the remaining minutes of the first half Henley equalised after a weak Sonning clearance resulted in an intercepted ball.

The frustrations of the first half were characterised with the typical torrent of criticism that results from missed opportunities - however this week, we decided to aim them at ourselves rather than the umpires or opposition!

At the start of the second half Sonning started with much better shape and discipline. Wise passing and aggressive running gave us a three goal lead. Grant pouncing on another loose ball, Matt with a fine short corner effort and Mike with a confident strike brought the score to Sonning 4 Henley 1.

Liam in goal even got carried away with himself when a loose ball found its way to a Henley forward. Liam took charge of the situation and charged the opposition down, missed the ball completely, and took the oppo out with a flourish!

Contrary to plan however, the oppo walked away smiling and Liam spending the next 5 minutes looking rather groggy (as he always does...)

The final spell of play was rather sloppy again, giving Henley the chance to get two goals back to bring the score to 4-3. Despite a Sonning resurgence towards the end the score remained that way till the final whistle

The goal scorer this week was: Grant (2) Mike (1) and Mat (1)

Man of the match goes to Grant who is ready to put a challenge to Matts goal scoring dominance in the 4's. DOD must go to the staff of Bracknell Sports Centre who only realised that the hockey pitch was missing its goals on the second time of asking...

H Jnr