Three of Bishop’s Stortford HC’s women’s masters represented the East region at England Over 45s Masters Championships earlier this month (11/12 June 2022). 1st XI players Charlie Leonard and Sally Powell and 2nd XI goalkeeper Lianne Warnell. The tournament was brilliantly organised by West Hockey at the the University of Bristol Sports Ground, West stepping in at late notice to organise after the original venue in Worcesterw asn’t ready in time. The eight regions of England competed in two pools with the East team made up of players from clubs in Hertfordshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Suffolk.
Pool A
London
South Central
South East
West
Pool B
East
Midlands
North West
Yorkshire and the North East
East finished second in their pool, with two wins (over North West and Yorkshire and the North East), and a last minute one-nil loss to Midlands.
In the semi-final they faced the winners of Pool A, South Central, with the winners guaranteed a medal. Having gone one-nil down in the first half, East came back to equalise in the second and take the match to a nail-biting penalty shoot-out that East won 3-2, with Lianne making three crucial saves to help take the team to the final.
There they took on South East, in what turned out to be a fairly one sided match, East dominating the game with South East finding their chances limited by the well organised defence. With two goals in the first half and one in the second, East won the game 3-0 and were crowned Area champions.
Congratulations to Moj, Sally and Lianne on their success.
