I’ll start with writing this within an hour of the match finishing so my old brain doesn’t forget what happened.

The men’s 5s travelled to Redditch (the closest hockey pitch to my house) to play their 3s

A young team with a few old heads came up against a similarly made up Redditch team (who’s younger ones were a bit older).

3 year 9s were making their men’s league hockey debut, but I felt confident they would shine having watched these 3 (plus Toby Williams who’s currently injured) come up through the age groups and win a lot!

Not to let me down, within 2 minutes one of them, Daniel Tyler had reversed it from the edge of the d into the roof of the net, the Redditch keeper even got a hand to it but the power was too much (Daniel was the smallest player on the pitch!!!).

The second goal came when the two Joshua’s did what they do best, no look, no talk passing between each other (when you’ve played together since you were 4, this is what happens).

This resulted in the shorter better Vas leaving Redditch defenders for dead and playing a lovely ball into Will Dowsett who scuffed at his first shot, but made sure with his second.

As the second half started, Daniel Azmi (another u18) who had been running the show from midfield so far was rewarded with the 3rd goal.

We did get a bit sloppy at 3-0 but still gave Redditch very little (mainly the other u18 Danny Noor), and kept winning Shorts. Not to be outdone, Dal Sokhi rifled a short which was saved by the keeper, but looped up and the post man couldn’t keep it out.

The game continued and Kyle Hammond forgot that you need to be in the D to score and rocketed one into the bottom corner from the right touchline. He was adamant there should’ve been someone on the post, but we all knew he thought he’d scored.

The final goal was scored with a nice passing move finished off by new Edge member John Gould.

A great first game of the league season, and not to my surprise because I’ve watched them develop, our kids were awesome.

MoM went to Daniel Tyler for an incredible first goal which then resulted in him being marked by 4 players

DoD went to Kyle for that “goal”