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Croydon at the U23s

Last weekend 9 of Croydon's youth players took part in the 2 day, BKA U23 Championships at St Mary's, Twickenham, under the watchful eye of coach Ross Carr-Taylor.

With only 2 players aged over 16, and our oldest player only 20, this was always going to be a tough tournament to take part in, but it would provide some valuable experience for many of the youth players hoping to break into higher teams next season.

The first day started with one of the hardest games against an in-form Bec side. After battling well, it was no surprise that Bec eventually took the points.

Second game of the day was against UEA, and coach Ross, fancied the team's chances. Croydon led for much of the game, helped with hat-tricks from de Jager and Moore, plus a brace from Furlano. The Croydon youngsters couldn't hold onto the lead though and were unlucky to lose by one goal (10-11).

Next up were Nomads who also had a strong team, but not quite in the same league as Bec. If we were lucky we could pull off a surprise win here. Despite another 2 goals from Moore, added to by 2 from Etheridge, it was not to be, and we eventually lost out 6-9.

Cambridge came next but tiredness was beginning to tell for Croydon. Cambridge also had the impressive Lucy Northfield playing for them (GB U16 player) who scored 4 for them. Croydon couldn't match their level of play, and lost out again by 6 goals to 9. (Another hat-trick for de Jager).

Our last game of the day was against Trojans, the eventual winners of the tournament. They were simply much older, much stronger, and much better than us. 2 fantastic goals from close to the half way line by Etheridge against GB star Matt Brooks, led to Brooks' being substituted by his coach though, and Mills, in the same section also scored 2 wonderful long shots over the head and hands of his fast approaching defender. Final score 5-19.

The 2nd day saw us competing in the plate competition. We were without Dan Moore for the this day due to GCSE committments, but managed to secure the services of guest players Sam Larkham from Highbury, and Johnny from Nottingham.

The early start didn't do much for us as we lost the opening game against Kingfisher 13-4.

In the 2nd game, once again against Cambs we were looking to reverse the result from the previous game. We were pressing hard, and working well, when Leah Palfreyman ended up falling and hitting her head hard on the floor. Due to the nature of the injury she couldn't be moved until the ambulance people arrived to check her over. (In pain, and extremely shaken, nothing was broken and she was eventually taken home by her dad). The match was lost 11-10.

In the final game of the day, Croydon battled and battled to ensure that they won at least 1 game during the tournament and held out against Birmingham Uni to win 12-9. This game saw Dan Pratt score a hat-trick, de Jager score 4 and Etheridge score 2. A well deserved team win at the end of a long and tiring day.

Final position: 11th

Given that most of our players could still be playing in this tournament for the next 6 years at least, this was not an unexpected result. Perhaps with a few more training sessions together, and a bit of luck, next year the results will be somewhat different.






Report by: Andy