Edinburgh University Mens Hockey Club Newsletter

Edinburgh University Mens Hockey Club Newsletter - February 2010

Welcome to the EUMHC February '10 Newsletter

I hoped you enjoyed last months edition. If you have any stories/news/pictures that you'd like to be included in future editions, please email me at publicity@mens.euhc.co.uk.

Dennis Hay "One" Minute Interview

Best and Worst parts of being a coach?

Best - seeing things happen on the pitch which you have working on. Worst - Repeated mistakes

Most treasured possession?

My Wife...although that's not really a possession.

Where did you last go on holiday?

Hawaii for New Year

Reveal something about yourself that not many people know?

I'm an Abertonian.

Favourite film and TV programme?

Film - ET. TV - Graeme Bell and His Extremenes.

Favourite Joke?

Knock knock. Who's there?

Interrupting cow.

Interrupting Mooo who?

If you ruled the world, what would you do first?

Ban guns

If you could liken yourself to anyone currently playing in the club, who would it be?

Kylan Pathmanathan (BOSH!)

Who do you think has the biggest potential hockey-wise at the club?

Frasier Hirst.

Where do you see the club in 5 years?

Full time performance director/admin and at least four coaches

What do you consider your greatest achievment?

Has to be working with a team to win a Medal. Also EUMHC, but that's not just me.

Finally, can you imagine a world without hockey?

Yes. No probem. I'll achieve it within 2 years...

Annual Hockey Ball - Wed 24th March

The highlight of the social calendar:

£43 gets you champagne, food (Scottish smoked salmon parfait and Guinea Fowl breasts wrapped in Pancetta), wine, a ceilidh, music from The Big Cheese DJ and all the naked men you can fantasize about in the form of the EUMHC Committee Dance. Oh, and the girls will probably also be doing some kind of twenty minute freeform interpretive jazz exploration, or whatever it is that they dare to call entertainment.

Tickets on sale this week from Sandy Hendry (you should know him by now) or Bridget Stamp.

Sports Union Colours

Congratulations to Duncan Birse, Craig Thurtell and Will Butler who have awarded colours for their outstanding commitment ('above and beyond the call of duty') to the club.

Beerinteering, Varsity and AGM

A quick heads-up on a few other events this month:

Beerinteering this Wednesday (3rd March) - Essentially a pub crawl but with clues given at each pub, which should guide you to the next pub. Big turnout expected. Click here to view Facebook event

Varsity (17th March) - one of the biggest games of the year! Watch the 1st team hopefully crush local rivals Heriot Watt Uni in the annual Varsity competition. Peffermill will be a hive of activity as many sports have joined the line-up this year (although only certain sports count towards the overall result). More details to follow...

EUMHC AGM (19th March) - Round-up of the year from each captain, treasurer and club captain. Next year's committee decided (an email will be sent detailing each position available). Sandy has promised me it will be more social and fun this year! Seriously, all club members are encouraged to attend.

Tour

35 days to go...

Fantasy Hockey League Table!

Promotional Video - Click Here

Match Reports

1s vs Watsonians - 27/02/10

A cold February afternoon saw the Uni 1’s face local rivals Watsonians in the third instalment of their survival campaign. The 1’s were hoping that the pure presence of player/coach Graeme Moodie on the touchlines would send them back to winning ways after their recent drubbing at the hands of Manchester University. Michael Witchell’s late Valentines trip to Paris to visit his ex-girlfriend meant he was unavailable as was star right-back Kylan Pathmanathan (shoulder) and Phil Kahl (suspected broken wrist). A reshuffle at the back meant that Steven Morrison was switched to right-back, with incoming Fraser “MILF” McCurdy taking the left-back spot. Following his anger management classes during his two-match suspension, Neil Fulton was welcomed back into central defence.

The first half started ominously, with both sides seeing attacks halted through dominant defences. Olympian Graeme Moodie started on the bench despite ‘flicking his wrists skilfully’, ‘tangoing around the opposition’ and ‘Messi-like flicks’ the previous Saturday. With news that the Journal newspaper reporter was present again, Olympian Graeme Moodie, decided to introduce himself. It was Watson’s, however, who exchanged the first blow, with an intercepted ball in the middle of the park. The ball was distributed immediately to their centre-forward past the despairing dive of Neil Fulton. The opposition made no mistake of their 2 v 1 situation. Moodie was duly removed.

Edinburgh were visibly shook, but belief and determination brought them back in the game. Minutes later Stewart Laing, following a run down the middle, fed Andrew “smug” Campbell, whose reverse-stick cross was deflected just wide from Jay Harman. Alarm bells in the Watson’s defence started ringing. Soon after, Uni’s short corner found its way to Neil Fulton at the back post, whose deflection was blocked on the line by a Watson’s body. Paul Heron coolly despatched the resulting penalty flick.

Going into the break at 1-1, Uni needed lifting. Comparisons to Graeme Moodie’s mother were flying about as were Duncan Birse’s inspirational/angry words “Do we f****ing want this?” Freshly cut Fairtrade oranges presented in a ceramic bowl disappeared as quickly as Witchell for a shooting weekend. Whatever it was, Uni came out from the break with more purpose, more determination and vigour. A ball through middle found its way to Nick Bryan who turned effectively and found himself with a 3-on-1 with the keeper. With Jay shouting to feed it left, the ball was passed to Stewart’s reverse on the right, who did well to get the ball under control. From a fairly tight angle, Stewart missed the resulting open net, an act which achieved him joint Dick of the Day.

One must acknowledged that the best move of the game - a weaving run from a young Watsonian opened up the space for a reverse cross-pitch hit to a teammate. His first time deflection was pin-point establishing a one-on-one situation. Fortunately for Edinburgh, his first touch was poor allowing Dave “I hate encouragement” Forrester to clear the ball to safety.

Indiscipline from the Watsonians around free-hits was going unpunished, enraging the Edinburgh coach. This boiled over into an unnecessary shove in the back from the otherwise calm Fulton culminating in a green card. Some say he was lucky not to be sin-binned. The Watsonian’s No.10 was not so lucky and was yellow carded for backchat. Uni took full advantage, scoring two vital goals in this period.

Fraser McCurdy, whose distribution under pressure had been terrific all game, fed Laing down the left touchline. The forward cut inside, laid it off for Campbell on the baseline, who cleverly shielded the ball with his body from the onrushing keeper. After deliberation, the umpires awarded a flick for a blatant foul from the keeper. Steven Morrison nicely tucked the flick into the bottom right-hand corner.

Uni continued to place every Watson’s player under extreme pressure and shouts of ‘another, another’ from the coach were taken onboard. In another Uni short corner, the ball had found itself to the back post with Steven Morrison on hand again to volley home from a few yards out. Statisticians were currently number crunching to see whether the Edinburgh backline had scored more than the frontline collectively. A few minutes later, Andrew Duke found himself unmarked in the D. A simple lay-off past the keeper allowed Stewart ‘AJ’ Inglis to score his first goal of the season whilst on two feet.

Watsonians looked dejected whilst spirit was high in the Uni camp - even Paul Heron was whipping out aerials! Overall, an impressive second half performance against a challenging Watsons side swung the tie our way. Determination and work rate were second-to-none and this was key to our success.

Congratulations to Man-of-the-Match, Fraser McCurdy, for his impressive performance deputising at left-back. Joint ‘Dick-of-the-day’ were Stewart Laing and Neil Fulton. Special mention to Tom Swarbrick, who demonstrated great ‘ball’ control stopping an aerial with his crotch. Another shout-out for Nick Bryan who muttered to the bench, ‘I just want a goal.’ Your time will come my friend.

Click here to view The Journal Report on 1s vs Stepps

Click here to view The Journal Report on 1s vs Watsonians

6s vs Inverleith B - 13/02/10

Edinburgh Uni 6th team went into this game with a six match unbeaten run and were looking to extend this quite impressive run of form against Inverleith B. Despite the unbeaten run, and captain Theo’s constant reminders to everyone he sets his eyes on that the 6’s are “the in-form team in the club”, we found ourselves on pitch 2 with the 1’s getting preference.

Earlier in the season Edinburgh 6’s came away with a 2-1 victory against Inverleith B and were hoping to come away with another 3 points but, due to the Valentine’s weekend crisis (you know who you are) and Jonny Davis’s moment of drunken madness, they found themselves down a few players.

The game started with 6’s having the better of the play and the first chance falling to Hamish ‘hot sister’ Tate who dragged his shot wide of the post from the edge of the D. The 6’s quickly began to dictate the play with Charles Jamieson displaying some quite impressive distribution skills. The constant pressure quickly paid off as Graham Patterson played a ball into the D which found Matt Haywood and, after a moment of confusion between the opposition Goalie and Matt, the ball found the back board. The crowd went wild, all two of them. While some teams might have sat back and taken the result to the half time interval and enjoyed the half time oranges, the 6’s began pressing forward with more gusto. And after some lovely build up play from the defence, the ball found Rob Hill at the edge of the D and obviously inspired by his parents at the sidelines placed the ball accurately into the bottom corner. Rob Hill was in surprisingly good form and after a second glance towards the sidelines we all gained some extra “va va voom” to carry us into the half time interval, with a 2-0 lead, then to discover there was no half time oranges. Poor show Rob Hill.

After a few words of wisdom from Dennis Hay the 6’s began the second half strongly with Rob Hill and Charles Jamieson spreading the play beautifully but as the game went on Inverleith B found a bit more fluency to their game and won a few controversial short corners. However they lacked the ability to capitalise on their chances as the goalkeeper Tom McDermid protected his helm easily. Gradually as the game progressed, it became incredibly scrappy and loose tackles were flying in everywhere. Tom Lacey wouldn’t be Tom Lacey if he wasn’t involved in an incident with the opposing team; he committed himself to a 50/50 challenge and “came out trumps”, much to the opposing players misfortune.

James Skinner, playing his first match of 2010 after coming back from injury was brought on as a substitute and had a moment of brilliance as a he used his superior stick skills to skip past a number of attempts to thwart his chances of entering the D and was unlucky to have not scored as his shot whistled past the post. The 6’s began to regain their composure and forced a number of short corners from the Inverleith defence, on one occasion the 6th’s even tried the infamous no 3: the Sandy flick. Sadly nothing came of it as Sandy decided to kick the ball instead of using his stick to flick the ball.

As the match approached its end defender Graham Patterson and goalkeeper Tom McDermid had a lapse of concentration which resulted in a casual and a disturbingly calm passing exchange which almost resulted the 6’s conceding a goal. The match finished with no further incidents, the game ended 2-0 and 6’s unbeaten run continues.

The 6’s showed tremendous character to see off the game without conceding a goal and with only a few points from the summit anything is possible.