Roller Hockey Photos

For a third year in a row England Roller Hockey teams are participating in one the most pretigious tournaments in Portugal,
this year I have decided to take a Minors (players born in 1996 & 1997) and Intermediates (players born in 1994) teams, Minors are players involved on 2011 & 2012 projects and Intermediates are players involved on 2010 project. These projects are part of the Development Plan for our sport to develope players to attend their first European Under 17 Championships.

This tournament will take place in Sesimbra a town half hour away from Lisbon, starting on Thursday and finishing on Saturday. The team will fly out on Thursday morning and will return to England on Sunday morning. This tournament will have 4 teams participating in each level from Under 11 to Juniors giving an opportunity for our players to have a couple of competitive games and watch quality Portuguese teams.

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The prestigious Coupe Des Nations tournament will be held in Montreux Switzerland over the Easter holiday. Eight senior teams some of which are national squads will compete in this bi-annual competition. Coaches of national squads will use this competition to test players and try new tactics in preparation for the forthcoming world championships in Vigo Spain.

Roller Hockey competition at this level has been seen in Switzerland since 1921, England have had success in the past winning competitions on eight occasions ending in1950. Several English clubs have also won titles over the years, Herne Bay won in 1932 and 1938. One other English club, Faversham won in 1930.

England last competed at the Coupe des Nations in 2001.

Our Photographer Gordon Morrison will be at this years competition supplying pictures for the official website again, in the past he was the official photographer for 2005, 2007 Coupe des Nations and Mens World Roller Hockey Championships so look out over easter for his pictures on the Coupe des Nations website.

Herne Bay Utd took on the mighty Reus at the weekend in the Euro Champions League and played to their strengths, the match was end to end entertaining and full of excitement.

In the first half HBU took their chances and it paid off with them going ahead at 2 – 0 fourteen minutes into the match thanks to Brendan Barker and Neil Austin, Reus responded pushing HBU’s defence with plenty of shots on goal but Danny Barton king of the goal cage repeatedly stopped the force of one of Spain’s great clubs. Two goals followed in the first half from Reus taking the half time score 2-2.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the Reus changing room at half time, the language must have been colourful provoking the attitude adjustment which was evident at the beginning of the second half. Reus put in a couple more goals within the first ten minutes but Brendan Barker scored a wonderful goal (see picture) approx 13 mins. into the second half followed by another by Dendy Hudson 6 minutes later.

Final score HBU 4-7 Reus.
GOALS
Reus Pintado Caldu (x2), Matias Platero (x2), Marc Gual, Pedro Gil, Jori Molet
Herne Bay United Neil Austin, Dendy Hudson, Brendan Barker (x2).

NOW SEE THE FOTOS

Herne Bay United took on the mighty Bassano at the Pier Pavilion last weekend in their fifth match in the current European Champions league. HBU are in pool B of the league along with Tenerife (Spain), Reus (Spain) and Bassano (Italy). Our boys in blue struggled against Bassano one of Italy’s top professional teams in a match which exhibited the differences between professional and amateur teams in our sport. The first half our boys struggled to keep possession but after half time HBU pushed hard and with several shots hitting the goal post were unlucky not to pick up a couple of goals. Final score HBU 0 – 21 Bassano.

SEE THE PICTURES

The CERS Cup is a great opportunity for European clubs to square up to each other on an annual basis. At the start, Hockey Breganze (Italy) had SCRA St Omer (France) around to their place for a match and won 2 – 1 but when SCRA St Omer had them back to get even, they did and better than that, last night they whopped them 5 – 2. Joking aside what a match, yellow, blue and red cards, end to end play and a full house of spectators to boot. The pics are quite good too!

In their next round of the CERS Cup SCRA St Omer will take on Oliveirense (Portugal) on 14th of February and March respectively in the quarter finals.

Looking forward to the European Champions League on those dates, HBU have home matches with Bassano (Italy) and the mighty Reus (Spain) after loosing last night 19 – 1 to Tenerife (last years CERS Cup winners).

Now see the photos from the SCRA St Omer v Breganze

Matches in the Spainish Premier league are always worth a visit to see a fiesty style of play. The game on 15th November C.P. Areces Elecinco v C.P. Alcobendas was no exception, Areces are currently fighting to gain points to lift them clear of the relegation zone. Areces who have their home venue in Grado 25km from Oviedo finished in the top six last season and for some time were in the running for promotion to the Division of Honour.

After fast counter attacks Alcobendas exhibited a strong finish with two exceptional goals, a delight to watch and the whole match was end to end and well worth the entrance fee.
Final score C.P. Areces 2 – 5 C.P. Alcobendas

SEE THE PICTURES

Roller Hockey in Switzerland is alive and well. Last Saturday was a treat for me to photograph not only a top level match Geneva v Montreux and two matches of the Swiss Vets tournament in Montreux. Teams from the clubs of Thunerstern, Juventus, Weil, Roller Gordola and Geneva all took part in the two day Vets. event which brought together players of the past to pitch their witts against each other or just exchange stories of past games.

In my evening session in Geneva I was able to feast the camera on some “LNA” (Swiss premier league) roller hockey full of action and skill. Geneva and Montreux provided the food for the lens in an exciting match displaying the talents of the individual players in a team environment. No match report but you can see snippets of roller hockey from Switzerland.

SEE THE PICTURES

 Photo courtesy of Jan Cook

This years England under 19 ladies team has now been selected. They will travel to Cestas, France to compete in the 2nd Under 19 Ladies European Championships from 30th October to 1st November. Four teams (Germany, France, Spain and England) will go head to head in this round robin championships starting on Thursday 30th October at 8pm with England v Spain . The team is:-

1 Rachel Milne -Cambridge RHC
2 Yazmin Magaby – Manchester RHC
3 Anna Russell – Plymouth RHC
4 Beth Cook -Middlesboro RHC (Captain)
5 Emily Rawlinson – Bury RHC
6 Chloe Stevenson – Middlesboro RHC
7 Emily Sheppard -HBU RHC (Vice Captain)
8 Francesca Baker – Bury RHC
9 Rebecca Lawrence – HBU RHC
10 Kasia Parfitt -Kings Lynn RHC

Head Coach – Carlos Amaral
Manager – Dave Fothergill
Physio – Kirsty Ingham

Congratulations to the players for making the final ten and good luck at the Championships.

This weekend had three English teams playing in two European competitions. Herne Bay United took on 2007 CERS Cup winners CP Tenerife in the first round of the European Champions League, Bury RHC took on Baisca (Switzerland) and Middlesbrough RHC played RESG Walsum (Germany) in the preliminary round of the CERS Cup.
Listed below are Saturday nights scores, plus you can see the pictures from Herne Bay United’s match with CP Tenerife.

HBU 0 – 10 CP Tenerife
RESG Walsum 12 – 1 Middlesbrough RHC
Roller Baisca 8 – 1 Bury RHC.

Forthcoming matches on 15th November are:-
Herne Bay United will be away to Bassano Roller,
Middlesbrough will be at home (Eston Sports Academy, Middlesbrough) to RESG Walsum and Bury RHC will meet Roller Baisca at the Pier Pavilion Herne Bay.

Congratulations to SPAIN, the 9th Ladies World Champions

Match Schedule and Results