Men's 1s vs Southwick M1

A new season, a new league, a new (temporary) home venue but a performance straight from last season’s highlight reel.

After promotion into the division at the end of last season, Hailsham mens 1s faced a Southwick side who finished 3rd in the table last year. A big thank you should go to Bede’s school for allowing us to use their pitch as our home venue whilst our usual pitch awaits repairs/resurfacing.

The only unpleasant thing about the day was the weather which hadn’t seemed to have got the memo that hockey season has now started, it felt more like the team should have still been sipping mimosas on the beach; a bit too warm for a game of hockey.

The game started well with both teams trading chances. Hailsham struck first with a goal from Jamie Hayes opening the teams account for the season with an incredible solo goal. Shortly after Southwick returned the favour by scoring from an opportunity created by bringing the ball down on the reverse from an aerial. Luckily for us, Jamie was again on hand to score whilst diving to the floor to take us into the half time break 2-1 ahead. Sometime during the first half yours truly slipped over by the sideline whilst turning gracefully on the ball, because of this I won the great pleasure of writing this match report.

Shortly after the break, Southwick again equalised through a well placed strike from a short corner that snuck between keeper Ryan Moore and post defender Josh Headey. At this point in the game Hailsham started to click and remember their play from the previous league winning season. Free flowing attacking hockey brought further goals from Alex Smith, Josh Smith-Jones, a volley off the keeper from Flo Pietzsch, Alex Smith (again) and Kieran Gurr. A final tap in came from Josh Smith-Jones as David Antonia ran through 4 defenders to the left of the circle, spotted Josh in space behind the keeper so used the angle to pass to him off the post.

With 5 goal scorers across the team including the returning Alex Smith, the first game of the season showed good signs for Hailsham mens 1s with an 8-2 victory.