Hannah Holloway reports: “Brighton Women's 1s faced off with Bromley & Beckenham on home turf this weekend. With B&B only one place above Brighton and four points separating the two, it was a vital match to win and a much needed opportunity for Brighton to close the gap to the mid-table.

A number of unsuccessful outletting opportunities from Brighton in the first few minutes allowed B&B to hold on to possession and make some attacking advances down the wings and into the Brighton defensive 25. The deep defence of the centre mids, Bara, Bills and Sophie, supported the back line and prevented B&B from making any convincing advances into the circle.

Brighton soon settled and, in a disciplined manner, sussed out the B&B defensive line. After a series of transfers and beautiful build up play, Brighton took advantage of a shifting B&B defence and after a number of shots on target, Joey and her quick reactions took advantage of a close rebound and she was able to find a gap to open the scoring and give Brighton an early lead.

Not much time passed before Brighton’s continued determination had earned themselves a short corner. Big Baz stepped up and delivered a brilliant drag flick only to be intercepted by a brave B&B defender a mere inch before the goalline. Not to worry though as the rebound was perfectly placed for an opportunistic Orla to waste no time in smashing the ball back over the goalline and give Brighton a 2-0 lead.

The half time talk was full of positivity from Captain Bara and Coach Sean and the team headed into the second half hungry for more goals. Ellie, Elodie, Eliza and Amy were resilient against the physical opposition and found their way through the B&B barrage to awaiting forwards Dani and Aoife. Having made a brilliant lead, Joey received the ball behind the B&B defensive line and in a skilful one v one with the keeper, came out on top securing what most would think a convincing 3-0 lead.

We like to put on a show, however, and goalie Jess decided more excitement and suspense was needed to keep our adoring fans on the edge of their seats. In a quick turnover, the ball found its way through the Brighton back line and onto the stick of a high B&B attacker. With Jess as the last line of defence, she went to ground, aiming for the ball of course. The B&B attacker maintained her full speed sprint and in an unfortunate collision, fell badly. The umpires were set in their decision and sent Jess off with a 10 minute yellow and awarded a P-flick for good measure.

After a quick regrouping whilst the injured B&B player was helped off the pitch (shoutout to Rich), a brave Big Baz marched off to the goal to everyone’s astonishment. In just a face mask, she made a valiant attempt to save the P-flick. Unfortunately, despite being Wonder Woman, B&B scored their first goal.

With only their 10 outfield players, possession was the aim for Brighton. Simon (Hannah S) thought this tactic was way too boring and passed a B&B player the ball in our defensive 25. A quick scramble from Bella, Abby and Hannah H and Simon shut down the B&B advance and possession was regained.

Brighton managed to run down the time on the yellow card and kept the ball in space however, hungry to make the most of this opportunity, B&B won a short corner. Desperate to maintain the scoreline, Hannah H made an attempt to pick the straight shot which Bara could probably have saved and instead the ball was deflected into the corner of the goal to make it 3-2.

The nerves increased as Brighton’s lead was now within reaching distance. To further increase the excitement, an unfortunate Eliza found herself with a green card and, for two minutes, Brighton went down to only nine outfield players. Jess returned to the pitch for the final 10 minutes of the game just as B&B increased the intensity of their attack. Brighton held strong as a team and the final whistle came after what felt like an eternity, securing the win for Brighton.

MoM - Joey.
DoD - Hannah."

BHHC Over-35s 3
Epsom Over-35s 4

Alex Smart reports: "With Amanda and Ali polishing their World Cup medals across the pond, a mighty 11 over-35s took to the field for the second round of the Masters Cup. There was a quick laundry turnaround for kit on Saturday night with Bills taking on the role of Widow Twankey for the Women’s 1s.

There was a lot of eyeing up between the two teams as we each counted the number of South East and England players on the pitch. Thankfully Epsom was also a tad depleted and with just one sub, they agreed to our suggestion to play quarters and limit the chances of needing to get the defibrillator out.

We worked out that the biggest threat would be the player who felt that she had enough pace and one v one skills to not wear shin pads and Lisa did a great job keeping her tightly marked. It was hard for them to find our biggest threats as everyone played so well.

In defence, Poppy stepped in front of her player time and again to win the ball and Kath’s tackles were consistently clean. Diva did a great job transferring the ball and even managed to still win a few tackles after she did her back in and couldn’t get above the pace of a hungover snail moving around the pitch in the final quarter.

Bara capitalised on opportunities to go for danger dribbles up the pitch. At one point she took the ball even further than the end of the pitch. Bills’ vision from the centre to send balls into pockets of space was spot on and it felt like Kelly had every inch of the pitch covered with her interceptions and options for a pass. Ange and Joey definitely had strong legs up front to put the Epsom wall of defence under pressure and threaten in the D.

The game was incredibly close from two evenly matched teams, with some cracking goals from the home side. Joey nailed a one v one with the keeper, calmly carrying the ball around her to get our first goal. Bara and Joey had a slick in and out on a penalty corner for our second. Followed by Bara winning the ball at the top of the D for Joey to slot the ball home at a minuscule angle on the right post in the second phase.

Steph kept the game tight with some cracking saves but Epsom managed to keep the scoreline tight throughout and we went into the closing minutes thinking we might get to play penalties. Having been indecisive before the game about whether we wanted flicks or shuffles if it came to it, sadly we didn’t get to make that choice as Epsom snuck a fourth goal in. We had several good chances in the closing minutes, including getting painfully close to scoring a penalty corner on the final whistle, but sadly the final result didn’t quite go our way.

We look forward to a third round regardless, which might be a Vase, possibly a wooden spoon.

Massive thanks to Jess and Julia for umpiring a fiesty bunch of mature women on a Sunday morning."

BHHC 3s 3
Lewes 2s 1

Alex Smart reports: "It was a big day for the 3s against local rivals Lewes, who kindly gifted us our second season in division one last year. Despite finishing a place above us, they refused to continue trekking to Surrey every other week to come home with no points, an empty petrol tank and a large Starbucks drive-thru bill.

A fellow undefeated team this season, we prepared for battle by running through their key players and how we were going to take them down. None of the players we feared were actually playing so that plan went out the window.

With some last-minute changes to our line up and Jo doing shots of Calpol in the corner of the changing room, it was surprising to score three goals from rogue penalty corners. We went for the Jo and Alex in and out which rebounded off the keeper but then expertly hit the backboard with a rebound from Jo. Elise was on hand at right post to make sure that the ball was definitely in the goal.

Georgie injected (or launched the ball through the air) for our next successful corner, buried at great pace in the left corner by Lizzy. The third satisfying corner was slipped left and slapped to the right post for Elise to claim full rights this time to getting it over the line. Lewes snuck a goal back towards the end of the second half but it was a strong victory to put us into top spot above Lewes and Mid Sussex.

PoM: The 4s for securing a draw against Mid Sussex to put us top of the league."

Other results

BHHC 2s 2 Team Surrey Spartans 1s 2
Mid Sussex 1s 2 BHHC 4s 2
BHHC 5s 4 Crawley 1s 1
Lewes 4s 3 BHHC 6s 0
BHHC 7s 2 Hailsham 3s 1
BHHC 8s 0 South Downs 3s 4