Hampstead and Westminster made it the second weekend on the bounce to rattle the Men's Premiership leaders, Beeston. Last weekend they knocked them out of the Cup. Today it was in the League, where H&W forced the Nottingham side to their first draw of the season.
Beeston's Sam Dixon had given Beeston a 1-0 lead in the 17th minute, but Tom Kavanagh equalised 11 minutes into the second half to giv a final score of 1-1.
Despite the draw, the gap between Beeston and second placed Canterbury opened up to 10 points after the Kent side went down 6-5 away to Loughboroough Students. Canterbury staged a bit of a late recovery, with three of their five goals scored in the last ten minutes. The result moves the Students up one place to third in the table, displacing Cannock who lost 2-1 away at Reading.
Surbiton, who were propping up the table for five weeks earlier in the season, have moved up to fifth as a result of some useful wins, the latest of which was a 3-0 win over bottom placed Southgate this afternoon. Brooklands MU, who historically have had some good results against East Grinstead, were not so fortunate. Despite leading 0-2 in the 44th minute, they went on to lose 2-5.
TalkHockeyRadio was at Guildford v Cheltenham after the weather forecast put us off visiting our original venue in Kent. It was a slightly odd game to say the least, which caused us to comment that if Guildford had been a darts team, the safest place would have been in front of the board! The matched started with one of the most spectacular own goals we've seen this season – a cross which deflected high into the Cheltenham net – and Guildford managed to net the ball themselves twice in the next few minutes to give themselves a 3-0 lead. After that, Guildford continued to dominate the match, but managed to miss the target time after time. The air around the Cheltenham dug out was blue during the half-time briefing, and they did manage to make amends for a fairly dire first half, with a much improved second. But one could not help feeling that the final score should have been more like 8-1 to Guildford than the 3-1 which was the actual final score.
Pictures from this match are on our sister web site at www.HockeyImages.co.uk.
On the back of their win Guildford move into top spot in the West Conference, displacing Cardiff by virtue of goal difference. Cardiff could only draw against University of Birmingham this afternoon. The leaders are being chased hard by University of Exeter and Bath Buccaneers, both of whom recorded wins.
It looks as if we missed a cracker when we decided not to go to Holcombe. They made up for a poor performance last weekend with a 6-1 win over Cambridge City. They head the table, three points ahead of Wimbledon, who beat Richard away 3-5.
North Conference leaders Bowdon stay top after a 2-0 win at home to Wakefield. Sheffied Hallam's Phil Roper had a penalty corner hat-trick in his side's 1-6 win away at Khalsa. They remain in second place.
Chelmsford and Bowdon Hightown played their WOMEN'S CUP QUARTER FINAL a week early. The match ended 0-4 in Bowdon's favour.
FULL LEAGUE RESULTS AND TABLES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR MAIN WEB SITE.
