With both the L1 and M1 sides enjoying a well-earned break this weekend after their opening national league campaigns, the focus last weekend (Sat 30th Sept/Sun 1st Oct) was on the local Districts leagues.

L2 v Ellon
Merlins had a squad of 16 for their first league game of the season, which included a lot of new comers and some youngsters stepping up.

The strength of the squad came from Jocelyn Roberts in centre midfield controlling the game and scoring a fantastic strike in the first ten minutes of the game. Merlins had a few more chances to score in the first half but were often met with strong tackles from the Ellon defence and some incredible saves from their goalkeeper. Likewise, Ellon had a couple of chances to equalise in the first half when they broke past Merlins on the counter attack, but they were met with strong saves from goalkeeper, Colette Cowie. However, a one woman break by Ellon in the second half and a well placed strike from a wide angle put the score to 1 -1.

Merlins won a number of corners in the second half but the agility of the Ellon keeper was making it difficult to net any of them, eventually Jocelyn Roberts managed to score her second goal with a deflection. A few minutes to go to the final whistle, the game became frantic, with Merlins requiring to just hold on to the ball. Unfortunately, Ellon caught Merlins on the break again and managed to score from a wide angle, 10 seconds later the final whistle went.

A disappointing result in the end but the whole squad worked hard and played some excellent hockey throughout the game.

Final score: 2-all

Player of the Match: Ellon’s goalkeeper

M2 v Aberdeen University 2

With a number of the senior regular players unavailable due to injury & family commitments, the M2 travelled to ASV to take on the Students in the opening game of their title defence campaign.

After establishing a 2-nil lead into the 1st half through goals from William Serle and James Morrison, the 2nds soon found themselves reeling from a double counter from the Students just before half time as they were caught out whilst trying to extend the lead.

Gordonians struggled to get into their usual passing patterns and the game turned into a frantic display of high possession turnover, poor passing quality, static movement and missed opportunities for the Pelicans in front of goal (who found the Uni goalkeeper in fine shot-stopping form). Paco would have described it as ‘harum scarum’ hockey.

The Students, growing in confidence and keeping possession well were cheered on by a large home crowd, and found a third goal mid-way into the 2nd half as they yet again hit the 2nds on a direct counter exposing an overload as Gordonians pushed higher up the field looking to turn the game around. We ran out of time in chasing the game but the damage was done already in the manner of our overall performance.

Final score: 3-2 defeat for the M2

Lessons learned: Many……but plenty opportunity to address at training and next weekend's fixture

Highlights: very few; we had a few new players making their debut for the 2nds so great to welcome them; and it was a nice sunny day out down at the beach hearing the crowd at Pittodrie cheering on the Dons....was good to see some of our ultra supporters from last few years return to watch us after having them switch their loyalties to the M1 over the summer!

Man of the Match: Aberdeen Uni’s goalkeeper (hope he was bought many pints of diesel to celebrate on Saturday night as he earned them)

Gordonians 3's 10 Aberdeen Uni 3's 1

The 3's kicked off their season with a comprehensive defeat of Uni 3's on a fine Saturday afternoon at Countesswells.

The team contained some new faces and playing together for the first time, the 3's produced some excellent spells of controlled, attacking hockey.

Goals came regularly through the first half from both set pieces and open play with the 3's being 4-0 up at HT.

Following our half time chat, we produced a more structured second half with 6 more goals added to the scoreline.

Our GK, George Batchelor, made one spectacular "for the cameras" diving save but had little to do behind a resolute defence so it was disappointing to concede our goal.
However, for a first game together, there were huge amounts of positives and it was great to see newbie, James Bromley, put in a Man of the Match performance on his first game for the Club.

Scorers were Rod Anderson (2), John Hannah (2), Stuart Allan (2), Peter Serle (2) and one each for Jamie King and Neil Paterson.

Our next game is a Cup tie in Glasgow in 3 weeks time and let's hope our shooting boots travel well!!

Sunday 1st Oct:

Ellon 1 Gordonians 4ths 2

Scorers: Rob Jansen & Jamie King

Man of the Match: Sean Lewis.

Summary:
Gordonians had the majority of the possession in the first half without creating many clear cut chances. However a short corner led to us to open the scoring through Rob Jansen. Jamie King then added a second from open play on the stroke of half-time to give us a comfortable 2-0 lead.

The second half began in a similar vein , but gradually Ellon found their way back into the game and reduced the deficit scoring from a short corner.

Gordonians made some tactical changes after the Ellon goal and controlled the game for long spells, but the final pass was often missing and very few further chances were created.

The game ended 2-1 to Gordonians who have now won their first two league fixtures.

Our next game is on Sunday 8th October away to Aberdeenshire South

Aberdeen Tigers 2. Gord 5ths 1

Scorer - Derek Johnstone

MotM- George Roddy

9 schoolboys in squad of 14, 5 of those playing first adult game - Jamie Hutchison, Tommaso Gambro, Chris Rose, James Dick and Craig Dickson. Other boys were Ollie Serle, George Roddy, John Summers and Sami Brown so a very young group overall.

Martin, Peter, Derek J, Jerome and Bernie were the adults.

We controlled the game and had quite a few chances including corners. All the new youngsters managed to get a bit of time on the ball and Craig almost scored taking up a good position at the back (right) post.
Their goals were two breakaways.

A good starting performance for the youngsters to build from. Only a couple of schoolboys in the Tigers team.

Thanks to Jerome for playing and William Serle senior for running the bench. Also thanks to AJ for umpiring.