Imperial College Hockey Club 'toyed' by Chandigarh

"UT Hockey Academy teams toy with visitors" said the Hindustan Times, "[...]humble the guests" said the Chandigarh Tribune. The fact of the matter is that these headlines are actually quite accurate.



The touring side left early on Tuesday morning [30.06.2009] from Delhi; thanks to the work of Edward Lacey, the Tour Lord (Luke Reynolds) and the High Chief Wizard of the Fun Police (Jack Cornish) the group got up early to catch the 05:50 train to Chandigarh. To add to the woe of the 40 travelers, it was decided by the higher powers that the visitors should experience the real India and therefore booked the cheapest train possible. The outcome of this trip wa not surprising: one stolen rucksack full of Chris Baker-Brian's passport, wallet, phone and camera and one case of the shits for Jack 'don't buy any food on the train' Cornish!

After a five hour journey, which also included Ewan Quince getting stroked by a little Indian child, the visitors arrived at Chandigarh and made their way to te hotel. With only a few hours before the games started, the players had very little time to recover from the lack of slepp, however, they were not going to let this affect their performance.

Chandigarh Hockey Academy, as the name suggests, is an academy for the up-and-coming hockey stars of the Punjabi region. The Academy provides full room and board for the players as well as a free education; all they have to do in return is train in the morning and evenings. With all the hours these athletes put in, it was inevitable that the standard was going to be high. This was a fact that Chandigarh knew all too well and their arrogance knew no bounds when they decided to put out a side full of 16-18 year olds.

At 18:00, after the formalities of meeting various officials, their boys went out to play our men in the hot and sweaty Chandigarh Hockey Stadium which had roughly 400 spectators ready to watch the match. The Imperial team, running out in their mustard yellow tops, started off well with some solid defense and threatening attacks, however, their attempts were fruitless and the score remained 0-0 for the first ten minutes. It was at this point that the heat and humidity started to affect the Imperial men with substitutes coming on and fast as they were coming off. Unfortunately the heat had no affect on the home side who effortlessly scored four goals in the space of ten minutes, despite the best efforts of Chris Baker-Brian, Chris O'Reilly and Man of the Match Owen Connick (Charles Murdoch was distinctly average!)

Eventually Imperial found the faintest of weaknesses on the right hand side of the Chandigarh defense, with Sachin Jivanji breaking down the right hand side before crossing it in for Captain Ewan Quince to score a diving goal leaving the score at half time 4-1 to the hosts.

The second half didn't see the best of starts for Imperial, with Chandigarh scoring another four goals in the first ten minutes. To add salt to the already gaping wound, Captain Ewan Quince told his team at half time that: "4-1 is not a bad score, we're still in it if we play sensibly for the first ten minutes!" There was no doubt amongst the Imperial squad, the Chandigarh players were clinical in attack.

Despite their best attempts, Imperial were unable to penetrate the Chandigarh defense, something that left striker Daniel Lundy very frustrated after not being able to find the back of the net for the full 60 minutes that he was on the pitch. With the game reaching its conclusion, Chandigarh managed to score three more times leaving the final score 11-1 to the hosts.

The second match of the night saw a swarm of mosquito's, fly's, bats and all manner of bugs replace the sweltering temperatures in the stadium. Despite this, the ladies, led by Captain Teddy Middlebrok, went out fighting (both the bugs and the players) with Emma Beresford popping up all over the pitch, something that caught the attension of a certain 13 year old Indian boy who wanted her phone number.

The attack of the Chandigarh ladies was a vicious as the men's, however, goal keeper and Man of the Match Jess Purcell pulled out some spectacular saves, as did Susie Squire who managed to scrape the ball away from her own goal line from a Chandigarh short corner. Imperial's attack performed admirably with special mention going to Katie Cullen who played her first game in seven months. Despite their best efforts, the Imperial ladies finished the match without scoring a single goal and the final score being 11-0 to the home time.

In the early hours of the following morning, the touring side got up for the mixed match, with the push-back at 07:00. Again Chandigarh displayed some tremendous arrogance by putting out a side full of U13 players, which led to two-time Twat of the Day Nick Jones boldly saying: "Is it OK if I run around all of them and score on my own?"... he did not!

Jones' massive ego took a beating when a 10 year old managed to knock him over on one of his runs, something that was going to be the theme of the day. Phil Kloucek also had a bit of a tommy tumble when he fell over a Chandigarh player whilst Kavit Nathwani had a similar fall after a spectacular swing-and-a-miss. Other notable incidents included Douglas Blackie introducing a small Indian players face to the astro and then blaming him for being too small and also to Charles Murdoch whose first touch on the pitch resulted in a P-Flick to the home side, unfortunately goal keeper Alex Summers was unable to stop it going in. In complete contrast (and I mean complete!), the Chandigarh goal keeper, who was nine years old and four-foot-fuck-all tall managed to save Teddy Middlebrooks P-Flick.

The game itself was actually an eventful one, with Chris Baker-Brian and Luke Reynolds both managing to score for Imperial. Unfortunately, this was not enough and the final score ended at 5-2 to Chandigarh.

As you can see, the headlines that appeared in the Indian newspapers were fairly accurate, but everyone left with their spirits high, especially after seeing their faces on the sports pages. Their next match is against West Bengal in Kolkatha on the 10th July.

Jovan Nedic - Reporting from New Delhi, India
posted by Oliver Johnston on 10/07/09 09:07