Another great Cheltenham festival

by Felicia Dennis:

Marlborough Hockey U10’s continued their winning streak and put on another great performance at the recent tournament in Cheltenham.
We took a team of 9 girls with birthday girl, Cecily Gates, captaining the team and also offering to play in goal in the first match, in the absence of Jess. Sadly, we lost this match 0-3 to Cirencester A’s, who were a strong team and we struggled a little to settle into the game. However, as the day progressed, we started to find our feet and we played some very good hockey. This was reflected in the 5-0 win against Cheltenham Tigers with goals coming from Eleanor Dennis, Isla Ince (2), Cecily Gates and Anna White.

Gaining in confidence, we went on to play extremely well against Gloucester City, but just couldn’t get the ball past their GK, and sadly, a breakthrough from Gloucester resulted in the only goal scored-an important lesson into what a momentary lapse of concentration can do. Well done to Alice Rich however, for her goal keeping efforts in those last two games.

The 4th game against Cheltenham Lions saw another win for MHC with an impressive goal from Eleanor Dennis (Robin’s words, not mine!) and Cecily Gates. This time we decided not to play with a GK, which meant that there were more opportunities for passing. However it was also a good exercise for the defence, to make sure that they were working well as a team to cover the goal, and that is exactly what Freya Henry, Thomasina Keyes, Florence Miller and Mia Terry did.

In the final game against East Gloucester, the girls were starting to tire slightly, but they managed to keep up the momentum and win the match with a goal from Florence Miller.

Overall, the girls played really well. There was some great defending, stick work and strong passes and playing them all in different positions was valuable in making the girls become aware of what each position has to do. They were coherent as a team, sometimes so much so that they preferred to huddle up together rather than using the whole pitch! Nevertheless, they all thoroughly enjoyed the day and were great sporting ambassadors for the club.

A special thanks to Robin White for umpiring, Louise Terry and Alice Gates for scoring and timekeeping and, of course, all the parents for their continued support and encouragement.