Can we control our excitement - it's Master Hockey time

The day finally arrived for the Old Ladies Hockey, well not without the usual drama. On weather watch was Fran and Hels, both would be able to tell you the temperature for both North Shields and Coach Lane, Fran even caused concern at a junior competition as she was doing the 'drop ball test'. Both Weather girls checked a range of pitches before 9am – verdict the game was on. This led to Emma setting fire to some parchment paper and finally leaving baking duties to Fi. Nikki forgetting to bake a cake or bring a jacket and best of all Megan forgetting to ensure that someone was there for Lola. Megan don't worry there's always babysitters at Nanas hockey! Sarah who's always so organised and on time apologised for being late due to hoovering, it was decided this was an appropriate warm up. From arriving on the pitch, we were very focussed, in fact our warm up almost looked professional.

We attacked well from the 1st whistle, finding space down both sides, but it soon became clear that their defence was not going to be easy to break down. Even though we had lots of attacking play we looked comfortable passing the ball around the back with Zoe, Megs and Han playing some lovely balls through the middle. It was good to see that Zoe was prepared in case the 'Beast from the East' arrived early, impressively wearing her lovely hat throughout the game, or was she wearing it to protect her ears from Amy's constant shouting!? Driffield did look dangerous down their Right and we found ourselves having the make some crucial tackles to prevent any shots at goal. Driffield did win a short corner and with masks on we were ready to put our plan into action.

The crowd was growing and Mr Hodgson, who feels sorry for all other Hockey husbands, about the excitement that is built around these games arrived with enough tea, coffee and biscuits for all. It is worth noting that a variety pack of biscuits is very useful to allow our spectators who are banned from pitch side, apparently custard creams fit through the gaps but not round biscuits. Newcastle piled on the pressure again before half time, winning several short corners, Bobi ejections were top class throughout the game, but after several failed straight strikes we went for the good old chuckle, boom 1 – nil to Newcastle and half time arrived.

The 2nd half and Newcastle were a little sleepy as the oppositions centre forward ran straight through 3 of our players. Once we gained control again we did play some good hockey. Bazi had 100s of runs down the right, Nikki and Sarah had lots of attempts of breaking into the circle from the top and our forwards did a great job of trying to create room in the circle. The odd senior moment led to us confusing which one was Bobi or Sue! We must give credit where credit is due, and the opposition keeper did a great job at filling the goal and we were unable to find the back of the net again. As always, we like to make things exciting for the crowd so with minutes to go the opposition put pressure on the Newcastle defence, not so exciting hockey was when Helen decided to keep the ball, forgetting that 4 minutes is a long time!

The full-time whistle went and what a lovely game it was, thanks to all who supported, wished us well and humour us Old players. A big thank you to our umpires Suze and Sarah B, it was umpired so well and Kev you're a start as always. Well-done team and Bazi who was player of the match. Newcastle's O35s team may have reached the quarter finals but even more impressive is hearing the news that our U10s won their competition today – the future looks good.