ENL South Round-up Week 1

LONDON, UK – After weeks of preparation by players and coaches alike, the puck finally dropped as English National League South sparked into action this weekend. First to face-off on Saturday were Bristol Pitbulls taking on Cardiff ENL Devils along with a local derby in Wiltshire as Swindon ENL Wildcats hosted the Oxford City Stars.
 

Bristol looked fantastic as they skated out in their new snazzy jerseys at Frogmore Street in front of a noisy crowd, boosted rather surprisingly by around fifty visiting Cardiff fans. Those that had made the effort to cross the Severn Bridge into enemy territory were well rewarded as the ENL Devils posted an opening day 4-2 victory courtesy of two goals from defenseman Gareth Dixon and one each for skipper David James and Tim Burrows.
 
Bristol were four nil down at one point, however goals from Richie Hargreaves and Mike Smith gave the score line a more respectable feel. The second period allegedly took one and a half hours to complete due to various infractions, so at least the ice rink cafe will have boosted its takings for the night. There is really nothing better than a Rollover hot dog with BBQ sauce to pass the time whilst the ref sorts out penalties, obviously for the spectators not the players. 
 
Whilst Swindon ENL Wildcats may not be the main team at the Link Centre, it’s fair to say that in any sport there is little love lost between these two towns (Ok Oxford is a city but you get the picture). I remember playing in this fixture in 2004 and unfortunately one of our players (Oxford) got injured in the warm up. As he was wheeled on a stretcher into the ambulance, the local kids were shouting “F*** Off Oxford Scum” and banging on the ambulance with their fists, good times indeed.
 
Oddly enough, Andy Cox (the then hospitalised player) is still playing for the Stars and picked up the man of the match award for his role in Oxford’s 7-2 victory – Karma for Cox anyone? Stars new signing Gareth Endicott bagged a brace, as did Cox and Andrew Shurmer, Josh Oliver and Wayne Fiddes all got one each. Swindon’s goals came courtesy of Alastair Barrow and Jamie Newton. Despite the score line, Swindon goalie Jamie Thompson had a good game against his former club and Oxford’s Swedish stopper Robin Lindva was only beaten on the power play.
 
Since Coxy is in the spotlight, this would be a good time to mention his famous incident with former Billingham Bomber and Sheffield Steeler defender Andre Malo, but I think I will save that classic for another week – if you see him, ask him about it as he has been dining out on it for years. One thing that I will divulge is that he once had a hernia that he refused to treat for a number of months and subsequently became known as the man with three balls. Not something that I enjoyed witnessing to be perfectly honest, but this is hockey and naked team mates are an occupational hazard in the locker room.
 
“Every day is like Sunday” whinged Morrissey in the nineties, but clearly the floppy haired suicide inducing rock star had never attended the High Road for a Streatham v Invicta match. At this level of hockey, it doesn’t get much better, atmosphere wise than this fixture. Both sets of fans assemble along the rink wide balcony and the acoustics of the old barn transmit a powerful sound.
 
The build up to the game had focussed on Invicta’s lack of a second import and also the blog published on the Redskins site by Streatham player Joe Johnston a few days before face-off. Not content with stringing a web of lies together regarding the work ethic and football allegiances of yours truly, former Invicta man Johnston’s heart warming appraisal of his former team mates and club hardly stoked the fires of this historically boisterous fixture.
 
Not that he needed to add any extra fire to this game, as we skated out to a packed rink full of support for both teams. It was easily the best atmosphere I have played in the last six or seven years, and definitely the busiest I have seen the High Road. Absolutely fantastic effort from both sets of fans and probably the closest any of us will get to sampling what the Heineken league was all about in the late eighties.
 
The 7-7 scoreline, the goals, the hits, the contrasting styles and imports all made this one hell of a spectacle. End to end hockey, plenty of passion and the wall of noise from the supporters all added to the occasion. I defy anyone who attended the game not to return next week after watching that performance and that includes the contingent of Romford Raiders players who had come in to scout out their future opposition.
 
Invicta came out the traps hitting hard in the first few minutes with Calitri in particular not looking too dissimilar to Raki from the movie Youngblood, both in appearance (sporting the beard), and performance i.e. nailing anything that moved. Despite this, it was the Redskins that raced in to a two goal lead courtesy of our new Slovak Tomas Valko and Michael Ranby.
 
If I try to write a full match report it will probably crash the website due to the number of incidents that could be mentioned so to summarise, the Dynamos pulled goals back through a quick fire double from Callum Fowler, and from there we pretty much traded goals all the way up to the last two minutes, when with the Redskins leading 7-6, Invicta scored a controversial equaliser as Tim Smith scrambled the puck home, following a rather naughty infringement on Kemp. Sanderson replaced the injured keeper for the last two minutes and managed to keep the Mo’s out.
 
Invicta’s other goals came courtesy of a brace from Andy Smith and one each for Liam Chong and Scott Beeson. Streatham’s other goals came from Liam Rasmussen x 2, Peter Molnar, Casimir Madren-Britton and Joe Johnston.
 
Aside from the goals, Tim Smith and Jack Tarczycki dropped the gloves mid way through the first, tempers flared throughout the game plus Liam Chong had a penalty shot saved by Kemp in the third. Invicta will only get stronger as they recruit more players to their squad, but for us this was a great start to the season, only soured by the fact it could, and should have been two points instead of one. We had so many chances to score but in the end we had too many shots off target and I feel we kind of let them off the hook.
 
Bristol headed to Milton Keynes for their second game of the weekend, hoping to gain some confidence following the home defeat the previous night. Sadly for Richie Hargreaves and his team, MK Thunder were in no mood to lie down and the Buckinghamshire side strolled to an 8-3 win.
Ross Bowers got off to a great start in Thunder colours as he scored two, and there were also goals for Paul Jamieson, Lee Featherstone and Aiden Mahmood.
 
I stated in my ENL preview piece last week that the extra ice time offered to the likes of Martyn Snape last season, may pay dividends for the MK coaching team of Darryl Morvan and Lewis Clifford. Lucky for them then that this proved to be a decent theory and Snape stepped up to the plate and rifled home a hat trick. Interestingly, I believe the Thunder promised the Redskins a crate of lager last year after we beat Haringey to keep them out of the relegation play-offs. We are still waiting boys!
 
The result rounded off a bad weekend for the Pitbulls, whose three goals came courtesy of Alan Armour, Shannon Taylor and Steve Osman.
 
Oxford faced their second road trip of the weekend with a short journey to the hottest ice rink in the UK to face Bracknell Hornets. Whilst Hornets coach Ben Pitchley will be delighted to start the season with a win on home ice, the City Stars would have been confident of taking something from this game prior to face-off, and will be disappointed to lose 5-3.
 
Winter Olympic referee and the Anna Kournikova of British Ice Hockey, Joy Tottman was in charge of this affair and it turned out to be an entertaining game. Alan Green, Darren Elliott and Andy Cox got the goals for the Stars, with Alan Lack, Grant Rounding, Radek Simicek and Danny House notching for the Hornets before Dan Hughes slid home the empty netter to seal the win.
 
On a sombre note, the funeral of rising teenage hockey star Jack O’Donnell takes place this week in Oxfordshire. By all accounts, Jack was a real talent who played for Oxford and Swindon Juniors in his short life. An England international and South West Conference player, Jack obviously touched a lot of people’s lives and the outpouring of grief from the hockey community reflected this. I vaguely recall him being a mascot for the Stars when I played there but I cannot be 100% sure. What I can be sure of is that some of his happiest memories will undoubtedly have been whilst looking through his face cage playing on the ice. The fact his Swindon Academy team mates will form a guard of honour at the funeral reflects this.
 
In memoriam of his life, his parents have set up the Jack O’Donnell foundation. All donations will be used to deliver programmes which benefit children in both local and wider geographies. Donations can be made to The Jack O’Donnell Foundation in the following ways: Cash/Cheques – please make payable to ‘The Jack O’Donnell Foundation’ via 80 Youens Drive, Thame, Oxon, OX9 3QZ or via the Foundation website – there is a ‘donate’ option for use of debit / credit cards. The website address is:
 
www.thejackodonnellfoundation.com
 
Contact the author david.carr@prohockeynews.com