The Old Loughtonians England Hockey Academy completed its assessment and selection process in September and the first session for the 25 boys and 25 girls aged between 15 and 17 took place this Monday. Congratulations to all those selected from the East London, Essex and Hertfordshire catchment area.

Loughts own youngsters also had an excellent week culminating in good wins for the teams in action.

A strong boys under 18 team played London Wayfarers and won 9-2 with Archie Crowley bagging a hattrick, Nathan Gladman and Guy Morley- Jacob each scoring 2 and Toby Gayler and Joseph Logan completing the scoring. Not to be outdone the girls under 18s won 8-1 against Hampstead and Westminster. The boys under 16s were due to play Bury St Edmunds but the fixture was cancelled but the girls under 16s did play and beat Hertford 6-0. The final Sunday match saw the boys u14s in action against Cambridge City whom the beat 2-1 in a close contest.

On Saturday Loughts men’s and ladies first teams were in action after both winning their first three matches of the season. Sadly both had days when everything seemed to conspire against them.

Old Loughtonians W1s 1 – 4 St Albans W2s

Old Loughtonians Women’s 1s lost their perfect start to the season in the East Area Premier League to a strong St Albans side who were clinical in front of goal at Luxborough Lane. A tight first half with little between the sides saw both teams go close but ultimately fail to break the deadlock.

Loughts started the second half strongly but were unable to capitalise on a number of entries into the D. The game was then turned on its head within 5 minutes as St Albans struck on 43, 46 and 48 minutes with 3 powerful finishes that left Loughts completely shell shocked. Emily Holmes gave Old Loughts hope of a comeback within 2 minutes of the third St Albans goal when she finished coolly into the corner.

Loughts drove forward in search of more goals to bring them back into the contest with player of the match India Blake gliding through the St Albans defence on a number of occasions. However St Albans had the final word 5 minutes from the end with a counter attack to secure a fine win for them. Loughts (now 1 point behind new league leaders Bury St Edmunds) will look to return to winning ways at home to Broxbourne W1s next Saturday.

Loughts ladies 2s were away against Basildon 1s in another tough fixture in Division 1 South but played very well to win 3-1 with Dottie Blake and Kim Grave defending strongly and regularly creating good attacking opportunities and Agnes Briscoe, Siobhan Daley and Cressida Jamieson finishing well. The 3s drew 1-1 at home to local rivals Waltham Forest 2s with Olivia Ross-Bell the scorer. The 4s were also in action against Waltham Forest (3s) and won convincingly 6-0. Keira Keogh scored 2 for the second week running as the 5s won 2-0 away at Witham 3s.

Old Loughtonians M1s 2- 3 Canterbury M1s

Old Loughts' unbeaten run in Division 1 South of the England Hockey national league came to an end on Saturday evening under the floodlights at Canterbury. A large and vocal crowd urged the home team forward and ultimately a determined Canterbury managed to hold out against a resolute all-out attack in the final minutes as Loughts strove to secure an equalising goal.
Canterbury had lost heavily last week to Southgate but had clearly learned from that encounter. A no holds barred approach frustrated Loughts free flowing hockey from the start. Canterbury were the most compact team that Loughts had encountered so far this season by some distance and by breaking down play frustrated Loughts’ attempts to move the ball quickly. The Canterbury counter attacks were launched at a blistering pace and the whole Loughts team needed to be disciplined in their organisation and fully focused. After 13 minutes Loughts found themselves 2 goals down after two avoidable goals and needing to steady the ship and stay in the game. To their credit Loughts did not allow decisions against them to distract them and came back into the game and began to retain possession better and pass the ball around. A goal from Tom Watson following a weaving run from Euan Gilmore helped to steady the ship.

However, approaching half time Canterbury scored once more; this time from a shot at the top of the penalty area that came through a crowd of players. On the stroke of half time Loughts managed to claw their back into the game with a well worked short corner routine that was slotted home by Will Godfrey.
At half time coach Lee Ible again emphasised the need to remain defensively strong and to ensure that Loughts were tougher in the 1v1 encounters which Canterbury had been winning. Loughts also needed to close down Canterbury's penetrating aerial bombardment from shorter distances.

The second half saw the game swing from end to end with both teams playing some very good hockey and both having scoring opportunities and both feeling aggrieved at times by what appeared to be inconsistent umpiring decisions recognising it was under difficult light conditions for the umpires.
In what was a very close game Loughts created enough goal scoring chances to win but came home empty handed. Despite dropping their first points Loughts remain second in the league and look forward to welcoming local rivals and league leaders Southgate to Luxborough Lane in their next fixture.

Every other men’s team faced higher sides.

The Men’s 2s lost for the first time this season in a high quality match in the East Area Premier league against Cambridge University M1s. CU took an early lead but Archie Crowley equalised shortly afterwards. Loughts pressed forward but CU had 2 very good defenders who repeatedly thwarted Loughts’ attempts to penetrate along the wings. After a tight second half it looked as if the teams would share the points but with under 2 minutes to play CU scored to win 2-1.

The M3’s were away at Beehive Lane to face Chelmsford’s 2s. Sam Bond scored twice as the 3s once again overcame 1st or 2nd team opposition in the South 1 league to sit in second behind Bishop Stortford 1s. The M4s were away against Saffron Walden 3s and lost 2-5 and the M5s lost 0-3 at home to Brentwood 3s. The M6s and M8s fixtures were cancelled. The M7s won 2-1 at home against Chelmsford 6s with Nikhil Amin scoring both goals.