Sheffield Hockey Club

An early start on a Sunday can mean only one thing… the start of the Yorkshire Youth Hockey League.

First stop was Pocklington, where the team arrived with only seven, none of which were a recognized goal keeper! A quick game of rock, paper sissors saw Kip step up for the first game, to be followed later by Luke, Feddie and Thomas.

The team started strongly with a 7-0 victory against a young Bradford side, a hatrick from Thomas Gemmell, a brace from Freddie Ward and Adam Sanderson chipped in with one as well.

The boys went into their second game very confident after the previous win but came up against a strong Halifax side which resulted in a 2-0 defeat.

The third game saw Freddie in goal in which he played very well keeping us in the game, until a scramble in the D lead to a penalty goal being awarded against us. Sheffield then came back very strongly with lots of height and width from the forwards and midfield, this created enough space for Thomas to slam home from close range, ending the game as a 1-1 draw.

Thomas then went from goal scorer to goal keeper in the final game against local rivals Doncaster. Sheffield found themselves 1-0 down early on from a brilliant penalty corner strike into the bottom corner. The boys responded with good movement up front leaving Adam in acres of space at the top of the D to slot it past the keeper. Minutes later, Adam found himself 1-on-1 with the keeper, doubling his tally to make it 2-1.  In the closing minutes 2 more penalty corners from Doncaster took it to 2-3 leaving too much for Sheffield to do in order to come back again.

On the whole the boys played well, showing signs of what is to come later in the season. Congratulations to Adam Sanderson who was voted 'Player of the Day'.

A big thank you had to go to our young umpire for the day, 12yr old Maddie Pearce who did very well often showing the other coaches how it's done!