Our own version of Super Sunday was a great success, starting at 9am with the final colts session of the season and eventually finishing almosy nine hours later with the 1st XI reaching their third straight Surrey Cup final. In between there were awards, fund-raising and some great hockey.
The main match of the day was the EHA Over 40s semi-final against Alderley Edge which lived up to the billing. For an hour we controlled a no-nonsense game in which few prisoners were taken (as the battered Wizzer and Charlie Packham can testify), carving out the majority of chances without being able to put the match to bed. Although a cracking strike from Wizzer early in the second half gave us a deserved lead, we were eventually left to rue a number of other squandered chances. David Knapp had one deflection brilliantly saved by the superb (and massive) Alderley Edge keeper, and second later he could not quite get his feet round the ball with the goal at his mercy.
In the last ten minutes the visitors pressed much higher and we suddenly looked vulnerable as we struggled to clear our lines and had to weather sustained pressure and a string of short corners. In the final minute a free hit was drilled into the D and deflected in for the equaliser. There was barely time for the re-start before the game ended. We lost the resulting flicks. So near to a second final but credit to Alderley Edge for defending robustly when other sides would have caved and keeping going to the very end. We wish them well in the final.
The first game of the day was the EHA Mixed last 32 contest against Eastbourne who turned up in an even more fragile state than we were, following end –of-season celebrations which last into the early hours. We went two up inside six minutes only for Eastbourne to level the game by the 10th minute. By half-time we had restored our two-goal lead, and when we went 5-2 up seven minutes into the second half we seemed home and dry. We then decided to throw everyone into attack and leave Goalie to cope with the resulting mess, and in so doing found ourselves pegged back to 5-4 with a quarter-of-an-hour remaining. Fortunately sense was restored and two further goals secured us a 7-4 win.
The final game was the 1st XI’s Surrey Cup semi-final against Wimbledon and that too proved to be a goalfest as we contrived to go 4-0 up only to let the visitors back into the game before eventually winning 6-4. Our third Surrey Cup remains a reality.
All in all a memorable day with so many old (and young) faces supporting the sides and the OC Club. Thank you to them and all helpers and volunteers for making it a very special occasions.