News

We are delighted that the TWGGS Under 14 Hockey team are through to National Finals, following their winning performance at the regional hockey tournament on 27th November. Here, members of the team report on the day:

"On the 27th November, the TWGGS hockey team of combined years 8 and 9 won the regional hockey tournament in Surrey. The tournament took place at the city of London Freeman’s school, where the two best schools at hockey from the counties of Surrey, Kent and Sussex compete. All six teams were split into two pools, and in our pool TWGGS would play Priorsfield and Seaford in two 25 minute matches.

In the first group match against Priorsfield, TWGGS got off to a strong start with a 2-0 win- one of the goals coming from a well practiced short corner. Next, TWGGS came up against Seaford, where a strong contest resulted in a 0-0 draw.

TWGGS finished top of their group, so continued to the semi finals to play Lancing,with a convincing win of 3-0 in the pouring rain. Due to this win, they then immediately played in the regionals final against local rival- Kent college Pembury.

The match was intense and tiring, causing both sides to have to endure defending multiple short corners in a row, but by the end of the 25 minutes there was still no goal to be scored from either side.

Because this was the final, and the stakes were so high, we then had to do penalty shuffles. This is where five players from both teams take it in turns going one on one with the goal keeper, and have just 8 seconds to score. Five brave players from TWGGS stepped up to take these, and three succeeded and scored. Furthermore, our outstanding goalie saved two of the opposing sides shuffles, but this meant that we were still even. Because of this rare circumstance, they then had to face a sudden death round. After the second go at these, our player scored and the goal keeper made an outstanding save, making TWGGS U14 hockey team the regional champions!

All players contributed greatly to this monumental win, and will all be tired after this exciting day. Now that TWGGS have become county and regional champions, we will continue to the national finals later on this academic year.

Finally, we wanted to say a massive thank you to our PE teachers for providing us with extra training, confidence and support throughout this experience. Also many thanks to Martin Rohan for coming along and umpiring all of our matches. Overall, it was a very successful and memorable day for hockey for the TWGGS team."
 

Written by the TWGGS hockey team