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Senior Nationals 2005

The weekend of 26th and 27th of November 2005, at Torbay Leisure Centre

Your turn soon..

For the first time in the club's history, we had a senior team in the Nationals. Not only that, but they got here by coming top in the SASH league! The great strength of Fong Pei is its stamina. When older senior teams are dying for a fag break, Fong pei are playing like it was their first shift. Unfortunately, the games at the Nationals are only 15 minutes each way. This was not to our advantage.

Last minute mental fine tuning

Saturday 10:30. Oxford Vs London Street Warriors.
No one said this was going to be easy. The street Warriors to start with - Gulp.

The warriors have won these Nationals for the last three years, and we got them in our group. We couldn't get any space to make our plays, and could hardly get a sniff of their goal. They were up 4:0 in the first period. We managed to win the second 3:2. But the final score was 6:3. We retired back to the Hotel knowing that we had been given a wakeup call by one of the 'old-school' senior teams.

Saturday 1:30 Oxford Vs Srilankan Staring Frogs
And I thought we had a silly name...

We would have to win this game to stand any further chance for a decent placing. The game started looking like we where in control, but the goals wouldn't come. They put one away, then another and we didn't seem to have a reply. We started to spend too much time in the sin-bin. We seemed to be playing the penalty kills better than the even-handed play. But they still kept putting goals past us. Coxie was frustrated that what is legal in Ice was being called every time in this game. But, he managed to put away one of our two goals with a sharp shot top right. The staring Frogs managed another couple of goals before full time and we where down 6:2. This was not the result we needed.

Sunday 10:30. Oxford vs Chelmsford Checkers.
We where now down in the bottom third and just playing for a placing. So, this game we split the lines Junior/Senior and went out to have fun. Of course, with the pressure off, the Fong-pei spirit started to show through. The senior line got first blood with a goal from Oscar. Another goal was disallowed although the ball went over the line before a whistle went. We got another goal and we where smiling again. The Junior line looked the prettiest, but the senior line was putting away the goals. Another goal of ours was disallowed (slight deflection apparently). The refing got a bit bizarre with the slightest contact being called. We had 4 on twos each way, and lots of power plays. Still we ended the game 3:0 so the lads where more than satisfied.

The massed ranks of Oxford supporters reach feavor pitch as they cheer on their valiant team.

Aldie looks on

The fire alarm went off and we all had to go out side to admire the fire engine

Next game 3:00 against Borehamwood.
How come the great Borehamwood are fighting us for 9t/10th place? That shows the strength of the competition, But this gives us a great opportunity to see what we can do against them. We started well, getting shots on goal, but not in the net. In a scramble in front of the net - we scored, but it was disallowed. The game started to roughen up and we seemed to have someone sitting in the bin for most of the time - yes it was Tom, yellow carded for politely explaining sexual reproductive etiquette to the highly respected referee. Borehamwood put some shots past Will and Jason, while we struggled to get any balls past their goalie. One beautiful goal was disallowed AGAIN. So we ended the weekend with a 6:2 score against us.

We had London street warriors - winners and the Staring Frogs, third, in our group to start with, yet we had came top in the SASH league. How is it that we come top in one of the larger leagues, yet get given a grouping of such strength to battle with? Anyway, our first Nationals and a very valuable experience. A taste of a higher level of play than we had experienced before. Next season we need more tournaments at this level to sharpen our skills.