You could have been forgiven for thinking that you had stepped into a time machine. The names of the scorers were familiar – Grimley, Kerly, Sherwani and Bhura – as were the faces, although the latter were a little older than we may have remembered them.
The occasion was the ‘Heroes Return’ weekend hosted by Brooklands Hockey Clun, to mark the 20th anniversary of the GB gold medal win at the Olympics in Seoul. Proceedings were started on Saturday afternoon with a golf match, followed by a dinner at the Cresta Court Hotel in Altrincham, attended by the GB team circa mid 1980s, supported by the bronze medal winning women of 1992, and – of course – TalkHockeyRadio.
On Sunday afternoon, the GB men played an England seniors team. The England team got off to a flying start with two early goals from Andy Batchelor but, finding their feet again as a team, the GB men struck back with a penalty corner by Martin Grimley (who had organised the event) and a field goal from Sean Kerly. Imran Sherwani briefly gave GB the lead but they were pegged back by a third England goal from Andy Batchelor just before the break. The second half was less than two minutes old when Sean Kerly hit his second, but it was Batchelor who again scored to bring the score to 4-4. As the final seconds ticked away Kulbir Bhura scored the winning goal for the GB men. Final score 5-4.
Our photograph shows some of the GB team with Barry Davies, who was the BBC TV commentator in Seoul for the final. Barry has recently suffered a injury playing tennis – hence the track suit bottoms.
The men’s game was preceded by a very lively match between the 1992 GB team and the current England Lady Masters. Linda Webb gave the Masters an early lead, but two goals from Sue Fraser took GB into the break on 2-1. Pat Wells equalised for the Masters soon after the re-start but Faser scored her hat-trick to give GB a 3-2 victory.
Photographs from both matches and the dinner at the Cresta Court Hotel will appear on our main web site at www.talkhockeyradio.co.uk soon.
