Ladies 1 vs Welwyn Garden City 1

Hello HHCers, your Ladies 1s were the first match of the day today meaning an early start at Woollams. The atmosphere was buzzing in the changing room , apart from Karen who was feeling particularly peaky due to a bout of “food poisoning” and was quietly feeling sorry for herself in the corner. The juniors were looking slightly bleary eyed (it’s the crack of dawn for them) but on the whole everyone was happy and full of hope. 

Coach Bob presented the little cones again for various tactical discussions and was brimming with positivity. Lovely start. 

The warm up playlist this week was based on the 2010s with a Nicki Minaj track getting rave reviews and the juniors starting to recognise some of the music. Good intensity, good energy. We started off very well.

The game began in our favour, decent dishes around the back, midfield putting some serious shifts in and the forwards pulling apart their defence. Laura was back from her holiday ( seriously, am I the only person that isn’t going abroad during the season?) and her bronzed tan was just too dazzling for their back line, allowing her to intercept various passes they attempted to make.

Our width was playing to our advantage and we had a variety of chances up the wings, making use of 1/2s of play that ran rings around the oppo. 

NBN made an appearance as chief sideline supporter and seemed particularly delighted when a ball was smashed into an oppos foot. Lots of comms from him - nice one NBN👍

Despite our intensity and a period of time when the ball seemed to dance around everywhere in the D apart from in the goal, we couldn’t get the ball past the keeper. 

Half time 0-0

Second half, Welwyn upped their game a bit. Physicality a plenty, but also too much chat. Vijay wasn’t happy about it, green card for one of them. Nigel seemed to feel sorry for them and evened it up by carding Laura for a particularly bad stick tackle. Both teams down to 10. Dammit.

A little later we had another short corner, we’d chatted at half time about the pass back to the injector was on and so we lined up ready to execute. Clare to Karen, Karen to Clare … it’s got to be… oh damn… straight past Clare. Our Clare was gutted, perhaps more so because the entirety of the Mens 1s who were on the sideline let out a resounding “awwww”. That’s the great thing about HHC, we all feel collective pain. 

Again we continued to press with attacking spirit aplenty, but Welwyn were decent on the break and at one point yours truly found herself legging it back to deal with a particularly high forward.  I’m thinking “just track her, no foul” but apparently my brain wasn’t connected to the rest of my body and I found my stick ploughing through hers giving a silly short corner away. 

We lined up “this can’t go in” but a ball comes careering into the D and finds one of their striker’s upturned stick, deflecting it past a diving Kim. 

Harps 0 - 1 Welwyn.

Bugger. 

It’s fair to say our heads went down, we’d worked so hard, played the better hockey and wanted it so much more. 

Frustrations were verbalised, tempers slightly frayed but we did everything we could to try and equalise. Karen subbed herself off to vomit , we went 3 at the back and tried to press higher . With seconds left we get a short, the final whilst is blown and it’s everybody up to the D. 

10 versus 4, it’s got to be a goal right? 

First crack at it, the ball is leathered straight at the keeper, but a defender plays the ball off the back line we get another go. Sadly the second go still doesn’t materialise to a goal and the game ends 0-1.

Oh HHCers, the Ladies 1s are a little sad. We need a win soon, but we go again next week in the hope we can convert. Any supporters for home games are very welcome,  come and give us a boost! 

Player of the Match: Isla 👏

Dunce of the day:  Karen for the following:

Vomiting (and potentially pooing, I can’t confirm) 

Losing her stick

And losing her car… yes her car.