Awoken by the chime of a spond notification I jumped out of bed ecstatic as everyone is on a Saturday morning as today was in fact hockey day.  

I arrived at Ely and instantly regretted my decision not to take up an indoor sport. Wet, windy, and not as wild as one might hope we gathered in the hallway of Ely’s pavilion until we realised that we were given the luxury of a changing room.

After finding Ely’s formation plans, complimenting the crockery, and summoning enough courage to brave the elements we made our way onto the pitch. 

Our warmup was organised enough apart from the slight musical chairs of keepers and after a few laughs, shinpads being placed cheerily on the correct shins and a sprint or two, we decided to grab a few balls to pass around. This is where I took the opportunity to practice a few hits and shots on goal which you’ll soon find out was a waste of everyone’s time. 

With us all in high spirits Nicky started us off with a strong pushback to Avi in which I am pretty confident in saying Avi hit all the way to the end of the pitch to get us the first of many 16’s. This began my arduous task of shouting “PRESS” at every opportunity (at least 30 times) and charging towards the ball like a mad woman. This proved effective as beating our press seemed to be a near insurmountable task for the Ely side allowing us to have some exciting opportunities on goal. Unfortunately, the winds blew about something sinister, and Ely forged their way through our incredible defence to meet our D, a short corner, and the back of our goal for the first time. With some fighting talk from Bex we were back in the zone and started moving the ball around the pitch magnificently with some particularly notable switches from the defence to allow us to use the wings in a way that would give the M1’s a run for their money. This leads us to the next goal of the match, although I very much had a front row seat to Nicky’s goal I cannot for the life of me tell you how Nicky got this ball. All you need to know is Nicky was top D and the strike... the strike she had on the ball (!!!) incredible. The sound of the ball hitting the back board was music to our ears. No need for celebration as Nicky was already making her way back to the halfway line ready to go again. We had a few more shots excruciatingly close to going in but with only 12 players we were ready for half time.  

Avi clearly longed for the first half again as that’s where she decided to set up for the second (kept that one to yourself though didn’t you, doubt I would’ve got lemon if that was common knowledge). Once Avi was on the correct side of the pitch the second half commenced and I started chasing the ball (as a devoted hockey player would) and through such abiding commitment, ended up on the floor which instead of praising, apparently, we ridicule and assign lemon to. Ely scored once more but as we were playing so marvellously our defence were occasionally confident enough to step up and join us forwards and mids in our 25, was lovely to see you girls up there with us, poor Lou must’ve got lonely. In this half we had a fair few short corners which were once again agonisingly close to going in (whoopsies) but we held our heads up and were rewarded with a great first goal from Eleanor where she became particularly acquainted with their goalie. 

The 2-2 score truly doesn’t depict how well we dominated the possession and the game as a whole. Ultimately the L6’s fought to the end, and I could not be prouder of how we played as a team, special mention to our POM Meg for her unfaltering defensive abilities, as I said, I’d be nothing without you. <3 oh and big love to our travelling fans <3 and the teas!