Valley-A ladies played the game of the season to produce a stunning 1-3 win over league leaders HKFC-A last Saturday March 16 to set them up for a good chance of winning the league title.
At just two points behind HKFC, who have finished their matches for the season, Valley-A have one match left to play on March 20 against KCC-A. But they must win against KCC-A (currently in third place and only two points behind Valley) to secure the league title.
Tina Bell-Kake, coach of the Valley-A team, was delighted with the win against HKFC.
“We were ready for it. Seeing how we played the last game [against Club-A] and could not quite finish off opportunities, today we knew we had to put them in the net when we had a chance.
“The girls have been ready for this game for a long time. So we are thrilled—thrilled with the win. It is the first time we have beaten Football Cub in … I don’t know how many years. We have drawn with them, but never beaten them, so this is very exciting.
“We have one game still to play against KCC-A, but they are not always easy. We are confident that if we play how we have been playing for the last few weeks, we should make it.
“We have been working hard at it. We have had a squad of 21 players and we have had real commitment from them. They have all worked hard for it and everyone is keen to be on the pitch. That has been the difference this year—real commitment from the players.”
The score was 1-1 after 15 minutes of play, but Valley-A were fully fired up for this encounter and the team was working like a dream. Crisp, sharp, accurate passes were picked up and moved goal-wards putting immense pressure on the Club-A players.
Valley kept their shape and always seemed to have spare players in exactly the right positions.
When Club got the ball, Valley players were fast and effective in the tackle. Club were constantly under pressure, passes went astray, errors were frequent. The team lost its shape and stature. The score was already 1-3 at half time and although Club kept the ball out of the net in the second half it required a mammoth effort on many occasions.
After the match, Lara McKee, HKFC-A captain agreed that they were outplayed.
“They [Valley-A] were very strong today and we were outplayed. We were rushed all the time. We tried to confuse them, it worked in patches, but today they were the better team.
“But we have had a great season and we still have the Cup [to come] so bring it on,” she concluded.
In other Women’s matches, HKFC-B achieved a 1-0 win over Club de Recreio-A and KCC-A beat Shaheen-A 0-3.
Men
The last round of matches of the men’s league season were held on Sunday March 17, and although Khlasa had already clinched the league title, there was plenty of excitement.
In the top goal scorer tally, Ahmed Ewis of Khalsa had 45 goals before this week’s match and Istiaq Ahmed, the Pakistan goal scoring machine, was 4 goals behind, but they had a somewhat easier match against KCC-A.
The KCC Pak-A match was played first. Pak-A were winning 0-5 at half time with Istiaq having scored four goals. But in the second half, goals were more illusive. It was not until the final minutes of the game that Istiaq whipped in another reverse stick shot to claim his fifth goal of the match to take him to what he thought was one clear of Ahmed Ewis.
The last game of the day was Khalsa against HKFC-A who, with Will Glover suspended for two matches and several players away, could only field 10 men. Under such circumstances one would have been forgiven for thinking that it would be a formality for Ewis to score a number of goals. But not so. Although he scored with a drag flick from Khalsa’s first penalty corner only five minutes from the start, Club played out of their socks, defending well and attacking at appropriate times. Club-A equalised six minutes from half-time and that is how the score of the match finished. There was some sensational hockey played by both teams, but Club-A played particularly well in the second half and even had a number of opportunities to win the match.
This seemed to put both Ahmed Ewis and Ishtiaq Ahmed on the same goal total. But there is still no decision on the final goal count as the goals tally for one match is still being re-checked.
Other matches
Valley-A secured a 4-2 victory over HKFC-B on Friday March 15 and in the matches on Saturday March 16 Elite-A were beaten 0-7 by SSSC-A, and Punjab-A beat HKFC-B 8-1
The score for the Valley A against Shaheen-A match, which was played on March 19, was not available for this report.
Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 21 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
