Andrew Bromley reports: "After the recent events at Blatchington Mill School forcing home matches to be cancelled, the M4 had their fixture shifted to Roedean School, as they are already committed on the formal slip date. Much gratitude goes to Roedean and their staff for enabling this (including BHHC players Sean Campleman and Steve Perry).

In what was possibly the first South East League match to be played at Roedean, the exposed location made for tough conditions for both players and umpires alike.
Eastbourne managed to get out of the blocks fastest, scoring two soft goals in the first 10 minutes. This was frustrating as we then managed to get into the game and cause problems. BHHC hit the post and tested the GK on numerous occasions but just couldn't get the rub of the green. Sadly Ivor took a nasty blow to his head and grew an egg. Get well soon bud!

Half time came and we agreed that as we were still very much in the game, we had to push for the points. But Eastbourne managed to score another couple of goals as we were now aggressively chasing the game. Sadly we only managed one goal in response from our numerous attempts and D penetrations, scored bottom left by Bromley (and it turns out the goals weren't on the line properly!)

MoM went to Dr Dave with DoD assigned to Joel who was playing in his final match before heading to Costa del Bristol. Best wishes Joel and bon chance boulanger!"

Eastbourne 5s 1
BHHC 9s 2

Alistair Thomson reports: "After a resounding virtual thrashing of Crawley the previous week to keep The Glorious Vengeance in contention for promotion (Dreaders – don’t get too excited, we are NOT going up), the team was glad to revert to physical hockey.

The eco warriors within the team decided that there hadn’t been a lot of planet-saving activities recently so these brave souls risked all by electing to travel by Southern. Reedy’s faith in Southern’s ability to run to timetable was risky to say the least and was unsurprisingly proved to nearly be a calamitous mistake. The net result of the Shoreham train coming in late meant that three members of the team (Kobe, Reedy and Thompo) ended up having a race off from platform 1 to 7.

No surprise that box2box came first, although Reedy and Kobe will claim to have been hampered by a madman with an electric bike randomly shouting about a bike. Awaiting on the Eastbourne train, in fits of laughter were Doc and Wappy. Wappy, still traumatised by the battle of Halisham in 2005, erred on the side of caution, and refused to get us any expressos to get us prepared for the oncoming battle. Reedy did however point at that a simple expresso was rather different to spending two hours in Costa pre-match at Hailsham.

The train journey wasn’t particular eventful and Eastbourne was reached at said time. Surprisingly on reaching The Saffrons ground, the brave band of eco warriors were stumped by a padlock on the gate to the ground. Luckily Thompo was on hand to guide the physics teachers that although the padlock was locked it actually wasn’t locking anything. Teachers don’t you just love ‘em!

Perhaps there should have been team expressos after all, as the spine of the team were caught asleep at the wheel minutes into the game, and a long speculative pass from Eastbourne found an unmarked forward in the D to guide it past Mr Smith.

Compared with previous years, there were quite a lot of new faces in the Eastbourne team. “First game in 5/6/7/10 (delete as appropriate) years” was the stock reply. Good to see that they were all kitted out so well considering they hadn’t played for so long. On realising the quality of the oppo, the team realised they needed to get into focus for a tough game. This was especially tough as Thompo for some reason had drawn the short straw and was in
charge of positions and subs. As 15 into 11 doesn’t go very easily, chaos ensued, so very soon Thompo had the combined vocal chorus of Dreaders, Miles, Kobe, Doc, Matt and Wappy all barking at him for some reason or another about different tactics, positions etc. etc. As you’d expect, Thompo simply ignored them all.

Gradually the team got going and started to caused difficulties to the Eastbourne defence, but yet again the lack of clinical finishing let us down. Short corners were ineffective as per usual and on one occasion led to a Thompo McEnroe style ‘there was chalk dust’ moment last seen in Bognor in 2005, due to Thompo being infuriated that his weak short corner strike was momentarily not considered to be the first strike on goal and due to that another short couldn’t be awarded from the ensuing chaos. Luckily after all parties agreed it was a shot, albeit rather rubbish, the short was awarded.

Half time came and went very calmly with a couple of key points from Wappy and whiteboard-less tactics from Kobe. Love it or loathe it, half times feel strangely empty without the coloured magnets.

The second half started and the team slowly to control of the game and camped themselves in Eastbourne’s half. The game although physical at times, cue axe from Thompo, chuckling shoulder barge from Reedy and usual targeting of skilful Wappy by the opposition enforcer, provided no cards. Even when Kobe was floored by the feisty Eastbourne forward neither said forward nor ranting Kobe received sanction from the umpire.

Having spent so much time trying to pass the ball into net rather than a good old-fashioned welly, eventually the 9s struck with a well worked short (probably as Thompo and Wappy weren’t on the pitch). Miles stopped for Jesse who, rather than drag flicking and upsetting the umpire, decided to lay it off to Dreadful who slapped it in with aplomb.

Barely had the bench finished celebrating when they were called on to discuss how unlikely Miles would reach a byline ball let alone drag it back. Showing how little faith the team had in his sporting agility, Miles pretended it was 1996 again, and not only reached the ball but delivered a precise pull back into the path of Toby who drilled it past the keeper and celebrated in the style of Dreadful.

A well-deserved 2-1 win in the end, especially since we had been on top for most of the second half. The youngsters all had great games and have all really kicked on since the last game in December. Well done to Noah, Harvey, Evan, Jesse, Toby and also to Killian who had his best game of the season, calm, confident and focused at the back against several difficult opponents including the regular feisty Eastbourne forward from previous battles.

After such an enthralling match, the team were happy to retire to Eastbourne’s clubhouse and enjoy hearty teas of sausage, beans and chips plus the usual bonhomie. Simon Smith and his entourage decided to sit on a separate table, no doubt to avoid the discussion surrounding the one thing our keeper had got right all game.

Whilst the rest of the team returned to Brighton in their polluting lumps of metal, the eco warriors bravely negotiated the padlocked gate as before to make the short journey to the train station minus Kobe, who interestingly had rushed off to travel alone. Maybe the opportunity of another 40 minutes listening to Reedy spout on about the Albion wasn’t that appealing.

Having arrived at station too early, the brave eco warriors resisted the lure of the evil realm of Wetherspoons. Looking rather lost, the eco warriors were asked by a kindly chap if we needed directions. ‘We do’ was our reply, ‘but we’re not sure to what!’ The chap sensibly walked away rather than get involved it a discussion vortex involving Wappy and Doc.

However, the brave eco warriors recovered their senses to find a jolly good independent craft ale bar/coffee shop/record emporium called rather cleverly The Vinyl Frontier. A must visit if you are ever stuck near Eastbourne station and guess who was sitting at the table at the window, the previously mentioned kindly chap!

Alas,having missed the planned train, Reedy ruled that we couldn’t return to The Vinyl Frontier due to pass out issues, so we were subjected to 30 minutes on a freezing cold platform. I would think the rest of the team would agree with me that Eastbourne away is probably our favourite trip of the season especially since Lewes now only want to play us at Falmer. Maybe by next year the polluters in the team will ‘Let the train take strain” as British Rail used to say.

As previously mentioned, if you're looking for a fun hockey team to watch and socialise with, look no further than the BHHC Men’s 9s, AKA The Glorious Vengeance!"

Other result
Crawley 2s 3 BHHC 6s 1