HOCKEY: Blues vs St Alban’s

Cambridge 1 – St Albans 2

The light Blues faced league leaders St. Albans at home this Saturday, losing in a close fought contest. Having beaten Dereham the previous weekend, the team was confident of toppling the leaders, but were unfortunately defeated.

The game started well with Cambridge taking control and working hard all over the pitch. There was excellent work from Rory Preston and Dan Balding, both working together and providing strong attacks down the right hand side. Several chances came and went for the Blues, with St Alban’s relying on their keeper to keep the scoreboard blank.

The Blues launch an attack

Following a period of solid play from the boys in Blue an attack broke up the left, this found fresher Jamie Bristow on the baseline who was able to give a superb ball for Grimshaw to tuck home. Joyous celebration followed and with the visitors looking very disgruntled, the pressure turned up.

A couple of yellow cards followed for the riled visitors, and the Blues soaked up wave after wave of attack until half time.

After the break the visitors came out all-guns-blazing, rattled by the upset earlier and determined not to lose their perfect record. The Blues again absorbed the pressure for ten minutes before St. Albans scored a well-earned goal to bring the score to one apiece.

 Putting bodies on the line

This tension wasn’t going to stop the home team, and the Blues responded well and another chance flashed past the post after a second Grimshaw deflection.

The Blues pressed harder and the game became progressively more heated as each team wanted to take the three points home. However, despite the dogged determination of the Blues, with two minutes to go the visitors crashed a ball through the ‘D’ to be accidently deflected high into the net for an own goal leaving the score 2-1 to the visitors.

Looking to hit back after a late goal.

There weren’t any more points after this and though the Blues fought hard, they unfortunately lost 2-1; the Man of the Match was awarded to Graeme Morrison for a fine performance between the posts.

With lots of positives to take from the game the Blues face City of Peterborough 2XI next week.