Firstly I hope that you and yours are doing well in these unusual times. All best wishes from the Chair. In the last edition of ‘Red and Black’ I focused on the great entertainment value of watching Ashford Teams and this continued into March before the season was suspended because of you-know-what.
The last two weeks were no exception! In March the senior teams featured in an incredible 74 goals in two weeks.
The Men’s 1’s had evidently been keeping an eye on the exploits of the free scoring Ladies 1’s and managed to slot 11 past Reading 3’s for their biggest win for quite a few years. Freddie Cottrell and Saj managed to plunder 4 each. The Ladies 1’s managed to end their season by thumping Staines 5-0.
We don’t know how the Men’s Leagues will conclude as the South are awaiting for guidance from Hockey England. But as of the time of going to press, the results season-to-date mean that the following Teams are in the frame to be the Best Performers.
Highest goal scorers are lethal Ladies 1’s that found the net an incredible 74 times. They pipped the Men’s 3’s who were prolific on 68 occasions. The Men’s 3’s however pipped the Ladies 1’s as regards the best goal difference with a positive difference of 44 goals. They also won the most miserly defence accolades by only conceded 24 goals all year. The Ladies 1’s were by far the highest goal scorers in their league and incredibly scored almost double the number of goals scored by Staines Ladies 1’s who pipped them for second place.
The Ladies 1’s did however get the best of their Inter-Borough Local Derbies by drawing away at Worple Road and winning convincingly at home. Bragging rights for the Ladies in Spelthorne then. The Ladies 1’s storming second half performance must give them great confidence for next season.
The most wins in the year go to the Men’s 3’s with 14, followed by the Ladies 1’s with 12 who pipped Gordon’s Mens 4’s with 11. It should be noted that Gordon’s 4’s played the least number of games of all the senior teams so well done. The age separation of their two top goal scorers is actually 40 years but Gordon will no doubt elucidate elsewhere on that amazing fact.
Well done to all our Teams with special mention to the Men’s 3’s who were Champions and to the Ladies 2’s and 3’s who plugged away every week and many weeks did not get the results they truly deserved. Saj again topped the MBBO League scorers chart with 25 goals in a truncated season and remains climbing in the All-Time scorers’ table in 4th place.
On the Admin front, your Committee met this month as scheduled courtesy of Zoom and the club is still running as smoothly as ever. As you will know from past AGM, AHC has always been conservatively run (kindly note small ‘c’) and we are financially resilient and will be able to weather this storm in relatively good shape. However we need all your monthly Standing Orders to keep rolling in as we still need to pay our rent! Thanks for your support.
I will look forward to hearing the stories of what you have been doing to stay active during Lockdown when we all return from these unusual times. One of the exciting things that have happened in Lockdown is that some of the Ancient Mariners in the Men’s Section have posted online a huge archive of old Team photographs and Tour pictures that will, I am sure in time, become a great addition to the Centenary Archive. It is rather surreal to think that our Centenary Season just as it should have been reaching its exciting conclusion is actually under wraps. My own thoughts during my seclusion have been that the long anticipated Centenary Ball and other end-of-season activities will be all the sweeter when they do happen after we get through all this. Truly something to look forward to! Stay well and the next time we all see each other, the pint or the prosecco is on me!
All the best,
Chairman Sherpa
