Beth Storry (with a little help in brackets from Alex Danson!) sent us through this report on their tournament so far…

Right a quick update for you of the Champions Trophy.

We are currently sitting on the bus on the way back from the pitch in Rosario, having just beaten Korea 4-1 in our quarter final. Everyone is elated, but absolutely shattered. It was such a good team performance and so good to get the win and to have played so well, especially in the first half. Our next game is against Germany in the semi-finals on Saturday, so it’s important we get back to the hotel and rest up before then.

Argentina probably has to be one of my favourite places to play hockey. The fans are so passionate about their sport. Plus, I confess, I love playing in the sunshine (although last Sunday’s game was far too hot).

The tournament do far has been a really funny format. We have dominated our games, winning two of our pool games and drawing against Holland to finish second in our pool. I say that it’s a funny format, in that the quarter final stage is a new addition to the Champions Trophy, and basically means that you could win your pool, but lose in the quarters and find yourself playing for 5-8th place. Luckily we’ve performed well and beaten Korea, which now means that we are in the semi finals on Saturday.

Life when you are away at a tournament is rather busy, playing 6 games in 9 days. When it’s not game day time is spent either doing recovery work in the pool, watching and analysing the opposition, or relaxing in our rooms. Alex Danson and I are always roomies when we are away on trips, which is really good fun. (as she is the best roomie in the world and super duper cool!!! Hahahaha) It’s so important to share with someone you know well and are comfortable with. We tend to get into watching a TV series when we are away and this trip it’s the West Wing! (which I (Alex) tends to either not understand or fall asleep to!! hahahaha) Yes, I know, there are probably more useful uses of our time, but it’s great to be able to get back to your room and just relax and switch off from hockey occasionally.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us whilst we have been away. It’s such a great feeling knowing that there is so much support for us at home.

Good luck to everyone this weekend, come on the Ding, we’re all supporting, thinking of you and following you from here. We’re really looking forward to playing in blue again soon.

Maxifuel Super Sixes – Ticket offer for Wembley Finals on 29th January

Following last weekend’s qualifying rounds, both Reading Men and Ladies have qualified for the semi-finals of this year’s Maxifuel Super Sixes National Indoor Championships – so now’s the time for us all to show them our support.

In the men’s competition both semi-finals and final will be played at Wembley Arena on Sunday 29th January in front of a potential crowd of 7000 – so we already know we’ll have one Reading team there on the day. For the ladies there is one last step to join them, as in the ladies comeptition the semi-finals will be held at Loughborugh University this Saturday 14th January – keep everything crossed that they can win through and we’ll have both teams to cheer for on finals day.

The Maxifuel Super Sixes is hockey’s thrilling, skilful six-a-side showpiece indoor event where goals are guaranteed in action-packed, lightning-quick, 20 minute halves. The event features four fantastic matches – two men’s semi finals, the women’s final and the men’s final – plus, a whole load more entertainment including the chance for kids to meet their Olympic heroes and the opportunity to ‘beat the goalie’, Great Britain’s very own James Fair.

Doors open at 11am. Matches will take place at the following times with entertainment intervals throughout the day.
12:00 – Men’s Semi-final 1 (Reading vs East Grinstead)
13:35 – Men’s Semi-final 2 (Beeston vs Bowdon)
15:20 – Women’s Final
16:50 – Men’s Final

Tickets are available online, and some of you may have already booked your place, but as one of the competing clubs we are able to purchase a block of tickets for supporters as a discounted rate – however we need to know numbers quite quickly – by next Monday 16th January. So if you want to join the blue army and support your teams please apply by close of play on Monday to admin@readinghockeyclub.org.uk with details of how many tickets you would like, and if we have big enough demand we’ll organise a group booking.

The ladies would also love your support at Loughborough on Saturday to help them through to a place in the Wembley final – their semi-final is at 6pm against Bowdon-Hightown, with the other semi-final betweem Leicester and Sutton Coldfield following on at 7:30pm – tickets are available online from the England Hockey Store.

Come on Blue Army!

For more information on the tournament visit the England Hockey Website

Both Reading men and ladies progressed to the semi-final stages of the Maxifuel Supersixes National Indoor Championships following the second of two qualifying weekends. 

The men’s premier group was played in Loughborough, where Reading won 3 of their 4 games over the weekend.  This proved just enough to take them through to the semi-final stage and a place in the finals day at Wembley arena on Sunday 29th January.  Their only loss was by the odd goal to reigning champions East Grinstead – but they will have their chance at revenge as the two meet again in the semi-final.  For more details of the men’s campaign see Tim Hamilton’s report.

The ladies, playing in Bristol, won 4 out of 4 over the weekend to also qualify for the final 4 and put themselves into a semi-final clash with table topping Bowdon Hightown  – the game will be played in Loughborough next Saturday 14th January – why not go along and lend your support as they look to take their place in the final.  For more details of their successful weekend see Abi Harper’s report.

A win next week would see Reading ladies into the final, also part of the finals day at Wembley – so let’s hope for 2 reading teams competing on the day. 

For those interested in going along to Wembley and lending that famous blue army support watch this space for news on booking tickets…

The Maxifuel Super Sixes second weekend posed quite a challenge for Reading ladies indoor squad from the outset. Having not performed to our full potential in the first weekend before Christmas, we were sitting in seventh place with four games yet to play.  Nevertheless, we remained confident that we could still make the semi-finals having been in similar position the previous year where despite the odds, we made it all the way to Wembley.

Our first opponents were Slough and after some confident passing moves and a hatrick from Sam Quek, we won 6-2. This was followed by a dominant 8-1 victory over Trojans with Emma Thomas scoring an impressive 5 goals from the match. After hearing late on the Saturday night that Canterbury had drawn with Clifton (our final opponents in the pool games) we knew our fate was in our hands.

On the Sunday we battled through a scrappy match against Harleston Magpies to win 5-3 and finished the day off with a superb 6-1 victory over Clifton. This final result gave us the last 3 points we needed to secure a place in the Maxifuel Super Sixes Semi-Final at Loughborough on Saturday at 6pm. We will face current indoor champions Bowdon Hightown who narrowly beat Reading in last years final on sudden death flicks. So get yourself up to Loughborough this Saturday to help the Ding reach Wembley for the second year in a row!

Qualification for the 2012 Maxifuel SuperSixes kicked off before Christmas and was finalised last weekend. After a difficult and frustrating first weekend Reading were left with an uphill challenge to qualify and certainly relied on their fair share of good luck to eventually make it through to the last four and a date at Wembley Indoor Arena on Sunday 29th January.

The opening weekend on the 10^th and 11^th December saw Reading travel to Loughborough with a slightly depleted squad with a number of the Great Britain international training group at the Champions Trophy in New Zealand. However, the addition of South African international star and former Reading midfielder Austin Smith brought a great deal of experience and quality to a young squad. The weekend started with a clash against old foes Beeston, all was going to plan being 4-1 up when disaster struck: Great Britain goalkeeper Nick Brothers pulled a hamstring and without a reserve goalkeeper on the bench Reading were forced to play out the rest of the game with captain Richard Springham filing in at kicking back. This huge disadvantage, especially at penalty corners led to a courageous but ultimately disappointing result, with the boys going down 8-9. With a few panicked phone calls after the game we managed to get reserve goalkeeper Barry Jukes from his cancelled game at St Albans to Loughborough via Reading in under four hours! With Barry Jukes n place the second game of the weekend was against Old Loughtonians, with Reading running out winners 8-5.

Day two proved to be one of great frustration with two tough games against vest wearing teams! First up was Canterbury with the considerable experience of Kwan Browne and Dave Matthews to draw on. Canterbury played a tight game and kept Reading’s chances down to a minimum hitting them on the break and putting away chances at penalty corners. Reading were also very wasteful in front of goal, a theme for the weekend. The score ended up 4-3 to Canterbury. In the final game of the weekend Reading lost a close fought encounter with Bowdon 5-6.

Last weekend saw the return of Great Britain internationals Richard Mantell and Ian Mackay to take on the challenge of trying to qualify having only taken three points from the first weekend. With ten points required to guarantee progression and a tough fixture lined up against defending champions and league leaders East Grinstead, coach Charlie Seccombe laid out his plans and set the squad a challenge to raise the intensity and to take their chances in front of goal. First up was Surbiton, who along with Reading and Canterbury were vying for the one likely remaining qualification space. Reading duly stepped up and delivered with an impressive 7-4 win. Day three of the competition ended with a clinical 11-1 demolition of Harleston Magpies, who eventually ended up at the foot of the table.

Day four, the final day of the qualification stage brought perhaps the biggest challenge with unbeaten league leaders in store first up. With results not quite going as expected on day three, Reading knew that a point would not be enough to leave qualification in their hands, so went out all guns blazing against the favourites. Racing into a 3-1 lead with goals from captain Richard Springham and GB Olympic hopefuls Jonty Clarke and Nick Catlin, Reading were in prime position to take all three points. Injury then struck again, this time GB forward Ian Mackay took a painful blow on the hand as he bravely charged down an Ashley Jackson penalty corner strike. With a suspected broken hand we wish ‘Macca’ a speedy recovery. This, coupled with a slight drop in performance led to an excellent comeback from the unbeaten East Grinstead, who ran out 5-4 winners.

With this result, qualification was out of Reading’s hands and they required a certain amount of luck before playing the final game of the weekend at 5pm on Sunday. Before Reading played again the other challengers for the qualification spots all had to play each other. East Grinstead and Bowdon had booked their place at the finals weekend, so it would be two from Reading, Beeston, Canterbury and Surbiton. Old Loughts had pulled themselves out of the race by unluckily drawing with Bowdon earlier in the day with Bowdon scoring with the last play of the game. The crunch game came at 3pm with Canterbury taking on Surbiton. A Canterbury win would put them three points ahead with an inferior goal difference, a Surbiton win would put them through to the semi-finals. Surbiton were never behind in an end to end encounter that kept the whole Reading squad and management on the edge of their seats. With the clock showing less than 2 minutes on the clock Canterbury pulled their goalkeeper off with the score at 4-5, almost immediately Surbiton then stretched their lead to 4-6. At this points Reading hearts sank and the dreams of qualification were shattered, however, the hockey gods were clearly in a good mood as Canterbury contrived to score two late goals, the leveller being a very scrappy lobbed goal over the keeper seconds before the final buzzer. It required a great deal of strength to hold back the ever-excitable Nick Brothers from a pitch invasion as the buzzer called time on a 6-6 draw leaving Surbiton on 12 points. This result thankfully put the qualification back into the hands of the Reading squad, and any win would mean qualification as Reading’s excellent goal scoring earlier in the weekend had left them with a superior goal difference.

The final game was a comfortable 7-3 win over Sevenoaks and mission accomplished as Reading set a date for a rematch with East Grinstead in the semi-final at Wembley on Sunday 29th January, a day not to be missed by any fans of Reading Hockey.

Reading Indoor Squad: Richard Springham (Capt), Nick Brothers, Barry Jukes, Rhys Joyce, Richard Mantell, Austin Smith, Harry Slater, Chris Newman, Chris Cargo, Jon Codling, Ian Mackay, Jonty Clarke, Nick Catlin, Jack Hardy