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Cardiff Summer Tournament 2007

The Croydon Chavs rocked up to the Cardiff tournament with a team of plucked from all levels in the club: for the girls there were Julia Johnson, Lorna Elliott, Sarah Withers, Karen James and debutante Sarah Hole. For the boys there were a hairy Dan Pratt, a hairy Zu Omar, Andy Withers (c) and, fresh from finishing his studies, Adam Champion. The weather weas set fair all day and Croydon started the tournament against the Flying Dutchmen. And the Chavs got off to a flyer with two long shots from Sarah Withers setting a fast pace but the dutchies were wily and despite another from the Englanders, the game was drawn 3-all.


Croydon then took on Cardiff City and a fine experience it was for new-girl Sarah as Croydon made light work of their opponents, cruising to an eventual 8-0 win including 2 identical cheeky running in shots from Johnson and a dubious "no-look" (and "no-score" either) penalty from captain Withers.

Next up were the dubiously named Leeds Super Hippos. From Leeds they mostly were but we're not sure about the rest. Anyway, despite goals from Champion and Pratt, somehow we lost 4-2 and a further loss to a scratch team 3-2 (despite some good work by James and Elliott) meant that we ended up in the bottom half of the draw...never mind the sun was shining and we were playing well together...altho by this stage Pratt had started falling over again.

So after Pratt embarrassed the club at the long shooting competition, Croydon then took on Cardiff Dragons. In a dull as dish water game, Croydon made hard work of it in attack but eventually the Withers got some goals and Croydon came away with a 4-1 win. The next victims, Exeter, followed a similar fate in the end, despite taking an early lead through a free pass, but this time Croydon were thankfully more fluent and notched 5 with only 1 against.


Which left the final. With new-comer Sarah primed and ready for action, Croydon put their (sun-tanned) "game faces" on and took on Manchester Pirates. The other Sarah got Croydon off to a great start with a goal from the first attack but the Tigers started brightly too, scoring with nearly every shot they took in the first 10 minutes and Croydon were behind 3-1 and then 3-2 at the break. But Withers was on the scoresheet again with 2 running in shots and Croydon pressed their opponents in defence and, whilst Manchester had their chances with 2 missed penalties, Elliott scored to put Croydon ahead (I think?) and then new-starter Sarah found some space a couple of metres out and scored her very first goal in Korfball! Once she was reminded that she needed to stop celebrating and defend her player, Croydon were back in business and before long time ran out and the Chavs were winners, 5-3.

All told, a great day, great fun and some great performances for the team...except Zu who didn't score all day. Rubbish.





Report by: Andy