The men’s 1st XI made a promising start to their preseason this weekend with wins over Northampton Saints and Loughborough Town. They travelled to Beeston on Saturday and made good use of retired England international Matt Taylor with a 2 hour training session. They followed this up with a game against Tom Hewitts Northampton Saints and came over 9-3 victors. After a slow start to the game in the first third, the team built upon everything they had been doing in training and began to play a much better style of hockey, improving in both the second and third thirds of the game. Sunday was always going to be a much tougher, higher tempo game as they played LTHC from East Midlands Prem. There was a great hype around this game which lead to what was the biggest crowd I’ve seen at Glen Park. The crowd made a great atmosphere which was great to see and one which the boys are very thankful for!! Loughborough gave Spalding very little time on the ball which meant their first touch had to be good and they had to be a bit more composed on the ball and not try and force the play. Something which they had been guilty of on the Saturday. Spalding were much more organised than they had been previously and as a result the attacking press proved more effective. At the end of this exciting, fast paced game, Spalding came out 4-2 victors, an excellent achievement against quality opposition. Loughborough also thoroughly enjoyed the fixture and are looking forward to the return fixture at Loughborough on the 8th of September. A club member has said “it was nice to play such a good game against such friendly opposition”, which is something the club should be proud of. Both team also hope that this will now become an annual event. The 1st XI will be straight back to training on both Wednesday and Thursday this week to keep developing and working on aspects of their game. Although a promising start, there is still work to be done!!
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