Old Loughts under 16s have qualified for the England Hockey finals as Supra league pool winners. The finals will take place at Nottingham Hockey Centre from 11th to 13th April. The other group winners were Belper, Wotton-Under-Edge and Surbiton. The runners up (who also reached the finals) were City of York, Repton, Wimbledon Stormers and Wimbledon Tornadoes.

The competition started last year and with an excellent pre-Christmas run Loughts were unbeaten in their South Central group against Amersham & Chalfont, Marlow and St Alban’s scoring 30 goals and conceding just 2. Loughts qualified as winners to play in one of 4 challenging Supra League pools.

First, Loughts faced Oxted (National champions 2 years ago as under 14s) and won 1-0 after a whole team defensive master class. Next up were Wimbledon Stormers, Supra league winners at under 14 two years ago. Not the easiest pool! Wimbledon went 1-0 up but Loughts turned it round for a 2-1 win. Even with 2 wins from 2 the boys needed to draw their final match away at Canterbury to proceed to the national finals.

The match could not have started better. The well drilled press led to 3 goals in the first five minutes. They won a short corner in the third minute after a fantastic transition that led to Dan Palmer tucking in the save. In the fourth minute another turnover and speedy transition led to a Sam Kendrick goal; and then on the pushback (only minute five) another turnover and speedy transition led to an Oli Hinton strike.

The boys pushed for a fourth, and a couple of chances went begging. Canterbury had 6 short corners with no end product. Freddie Goddard was supreme, ably supported by the outfield players. Ralph Peddy and Barney Heard were incredible at the back. A loose pass at the back brought Canterbury back to 3-1 but the Loughts boys struck back immediately with another fast transition and Dan Palmer slotted in for 4-1 as half time approached.

Canterbury pushed hard in the second half and were awarded four penalty corners and a penalty flick which was skilfully saved by Freddie Goddard. Two green cards for Loughts came and went. Both sides had good chances to score as the half dragged on and Canterbury made it 4-2. Man of the match Goddard and his defenders reeled off a quadruple save to keep Canterbury from scoring a third. The final whistle was greeted with much relief . Well done and good luck to Mitch Jones, Anna Lewis-Martinez and the boys.