Southgate Hockey Centre will be the stage for a big Saturday of top hockey action as we look forward Holcombe HC back to Southgate as our M1/W1 and M2 sides go into action in a unique triple header.
Kicking off with the National League Conference East match up between Southgate M2 and Holcombe M2, this game sees Lee Ible’s Southgate players line up, against Haaris Englefield’s Holcombe team. Englefield’s side, which counts former Southgate coach (and player) Kwan Browne in their line comes to his game looking to bounce back after a thrilling 4-3 loss to Wimbledon last weekend and a huge 10 goal 5-5 draw to Spencer.
For Southgate Ible has brought in Akshay Palaniappan into the Gate goal for Savas Hadjigeorgiou who is away on internationa duty in Cyprus and Todd Lomas has had the call up after his MVP performance for the M3 last week. Meanwhile skipper Andy Fell’s PCD team will need to keep an eye on the PC threat from Jay Randhawa for Holcombe who has already scored 4 goals this season. Expect plenty of spice and a real contest between two strong sides.
Meanwhile Ronan Casella and his Southgate W1’s side will be looking to kick on and build on their 3 points from last weekend as they get ready to take on a top table Holcombe team. After a turbulent season last year, David Mathews has been brought in to steady the ship and he seems to have got off to flying start with 7 points from 3 games and a much changed side. They are captained by former Southgate player Robyn Hodges who will be reunited on the pitch with her old team mates in another huge match up. Last week Holcombe ran out 2-0 winners against Surbiton W2 thanks to goals from Evie Younger and Tilly Tilling. Yet Ellie Robinson and her players come into this game full of confidence and fresh from a strong week of training – make no mistake this is a crunch game in the league between two big sides looking to push for promotion to the Premier Division.
Finally the Men push back at 18:00 in a much looked forward to fixture which comes off the back of a match o remember last year when Southgate took their former coach and his players to the wire in a thrilling contest which began with a Matt Ramshaw goal in the 1st minute and ended with a Robert Field goal in the 61st but which had end to end drama in the middle of a hard fought 2-1 loss. The last time the sides met was in the indoor premier league in January when Southgate returned the compliment and dumped Holcombe out of the competition in a thrilling game to secure a place in the Super 6’s finals in Derby.
Yet make no mistake Holcombe will come to this as hot favourites and keen to avenge a 4-1 loss to Surbiton last weekend. Their new keeper the NZ international Dom Dixon is renowned as one of the best in the world and they have quality in every line not to mention a string of former Gate players known all to well. Southgate meanwhile under coach Huw Stevens are still missing Mo Gandhi recovering from a hamstring injury and come into this contest nursing their own disappointment after a tough weekend of 2 games in 2 days and 700 miles driven- yet John Sterlini and his troops have a few surprises up their sleeves not to mention a keeper in great form in the form of Erdal Demir, a New Zealand international paring of their own in the form of Xavier Guy and James Hickson and Dan West in great form. It’s always a fixture when it’s wise to expect the unexpected. One thing you can certainly expect is end to end drama from first to last. Whatever you do- don’t miss it!