There was disappointment for both of Carlisle men’s hockey teams at the weekend when both their scheduled opponents were unable to raise enough players.
The first team were due to host Richmond (Yorkshire) and had to settle for a 5-0 walk over victory while the seconds were prevented from travelling to play Sunderland Broom so also collected a 5-0 walk-over win.
Carlisle had, themselves, been hit by injuries, illness and family commitments but had scratched around – even bringing in former players out of retirement – to get themselves up to 11.
Skipper Gary Tupper said: “However, by this time it appeared all was not well within the Sunderland camp, as they were suffering from the new standardisation of hockey rules and had found themselves unable to field female players. This resulted in Sunderland Broom having an urgent recall of their team sheet and unable to fulfil the fixture.
“In reality the standardisation of the rules had stopped play and hockey was not the real winner this week. We will gladly however take a 0-5 walk over and joint top of the league when we ourselves were at one point struggling for numbers.”
Carlisle women’s teams both saw some action, with mixed results – a defeat for the first team and victory for the seconds.
There was much excitement across the for the first team for the long awaited return to competitive league hockey and a trip to Timperley 2.
With a number of new faces and some old ones making a return, Carlisle quickly settled into the game with some good attacking runs. An early penalty corner awarded for a ‘strong tackle’ by a Carlisle player set the scene for what to expect from the umpires.
However, Carlisle’s defensive line-up kept their heads under the pressure and continued to defend numerous penalty corners. Quick clearances created some end to end, fast flowing hockey but it remained 0-0 at half time.
Timperley upped the pressure from the off in the second-half but the Carlisle defence continued to soak up the attacks.
However, with ten minutes to go Timperley broke the deadlock with their first goal, coming eventually from one of the numerous penalty corners.
With tiredness starting to creep in on a hot and humid day Timperley broke quickly to get their second goal from a hard strike on the edge of the circle that got a deflection from a defenders stick.
Carlisle didn’t give up but the third goal came from a lucky touch with minutes to go.
It was also the start of the season for Carlisle’s second team and they were 2-1 winners at hometo Ambleside.
Lots of short corners gave Carlisle plenty of opportunities to score but Ambleside defended well up to half time.
Carlisle came out stronger in the second half and two goals were quickly scored before Ambleside got through on a break to reduce the arrears.
