Beeston made hard work of their second and final match in Round 1.2 of the EuroHockey League here in Paris this afternoon. However, some of the credit for keeping the English side waiting for a goal must go down to their opposition, host club St Germain. After a poor showing against Leuven on Friday, when they were beaten 7-1, St Germain came out determined to put on a display in front of a very partisan home crowd.
In truth Beeston were marginally better of the two sides, but both sides had scoring chances in equal numbers. With the minutes ticking down, and with the evening becoming increasingly dark and chilly, Beeston had a series of penalty corners but were unable to find the net. It was eventually a field goal from Wayne Rowland that settled the issue and although St Germain mounted a determined counter attack in the dying seconds, the one goal was enough to give Beeston two wins out of two.
Final score 1-0 to Beeston, and they now have the benefit of drawing a second-placed side from one of the other pools in Round 2.
In other matches today Rot Weiss Koln beat Club Egara 3-2, Amsterdam, in the same pool as East Grinstead, beat AWF Poznan 6-0, and Bloemendaal beat Club an der Alster 2-1. Both East Grinstead and Beeston qualify for Round 2, which we understand will be in an undisclosed location in The Netherlands at Easter.
There are photographs of some of the matches in Paris currently on our sister web site at www.hockeyimages.co.uk and more will be added over the next few days, including all the games involving the English sides. Our on-line magazine HockeyTalk, which can be viewed at www.talkhockeyradio.co.uk, will carry a full report on Round 1 and will be available from Thursday.
