On a beautiful October morning, the Crostyx U14 Girls squad set off to Earlsfield, Southwest London (via public transport), to face Spencer U14G Hornets in their first ever England Hockey League match. They expected a battle and the match did not disappoint.

Crostyx started strongly and within minutes were 1-0 up (Lucy Leel). However, Spencer Hornets soon recovered from their initial shock and started to play much more strongly. Styx then spent a 20 minute stint battling in defence to keep the Hornets at bay through the strong defence of Clara Johnson, Ruby James, Florence Unwin, Clemmy Day-Fawcett with Anika Mayor in goal. Each time they attempted to clear the ball it was coming straight back at them. This resulted in two Hornets goals.

Finally with some better connecting play between defence, midfield (Leel, Imogen Murphy, Izzi Zurawska and Phoebe Petyt) and the forwards (Saskia Murphy, Jessie Giles-Brown, Helene Standring and Lara Chick) Crostyx managed to drive the ball up the Hornets half and pulled back another goal (Leel) levelling the game at 2-2 as half time arrived.

The second half was an end to end battle. Hornets showed what a strong team they are with a number of very talented players. Crostyx midfield worked extremely hard getting the ball up the pitch from defence. Spencer Hornets were first to strike, but a wonderful goal in response from Imogen Murphy kept the purple girls level.

Hornets pushed hard again and scored two more goals in quick succession. Crostyx rallied and with their heads up pulled another goal back (Leel).

Final Score: Spencer Hornets 5 - Crostyx 4 in a very tight match.

Special mention goes to Mr Paul Murphy for pulling out all the stops this weekend. He managed the Crostyx U12G side in Chelmsford at 9am then drove to Earlsfield to umpire the U14G match. Many Thanks Paul!