Bringing Home the (sustainable) Gold Medal - England MO45s

Having finished second at the Home Nations in Cork just 12 days prior, England were determined to go one better at the Euros.  Heading out to a sunny and very hot Valencia, England were grouped with Scotland, The Alliance (a Spirit of Masters team), Wales and France. The other pool would see England's Spirit of Masters team play Germany, Netherlands, Ireland and hosts Spain.

A solid, if not thrilling, 4-1 win in the opening game against Scotland, lead the Captain to call of an extra 20-30% more in the following game. The team delivered with a 15-0 dubbing of a The Alliance - most of whom had only just met in Valencia.   Titch Hanspal (stand-in Captain for the injured Marko Lamb) bagging seven goals on his way to being the competitions top scorer with 11 goals (five clear of the chasing pack; Tim Johnson of England and Carlos Escribe of Spain with 6 goals).  Next up was a stronger Wales and the improvements continued with a 9-0 win.  England's final pool game was a turgid affair with a 2-0 win over France, but another clean sheet.

The Semi-final presented a chance to face the Dutch.  The match generated great support from both English and Dutch teams not playing at that time, the atmosphere was electric.  Honours remained even until the final quarter when Vinny (Richard Kitchen) - much to his own surprise - was presented with an open goal at close range.  Mid-way through the final quarter the Dutch pulled their keep and threw everything at England - whose defence again remained resolute.  With seconds to go Simon Thompson was put through for a breakaway goal into the vacant net - 2-0 in a tightly contested match.

The Final presented a recent and familiar foe - Ireland.  Determined to reverse the result from the Home Nations this would be a battle of endurance and structure.  The well-organised and hard pressing Irish team made controlling the territory and tempo challenging for England, then for the first time in the entire competition in the 36min, England found themselves a goal down.  Just 3 minutes later, the Tim Johnson found himself slotting home from close range after a penalty corner routine.  England capitalised on their period of dominance when Titch Hanspal (who else!) found himself calmly slotting the ball past the keeper from close range.  Ireland had a chance to level the proceeding in the fourth quarter with a penalty stroke but as keeper John Short feinted to his right then went high to his left he watched the ball onto the cross-bar and safely away.  This was to be Englands day!  With time ebbing away for the Irish, England managed the tempo of the last ten minutes - which felt like hours - against an excellent Ireland side - who were gracious in defeat.

Despite 2 man-of-the-match awards for Damon Garwood, it was the ever-present David Hans was unanimously voted England's Player of the Tournament.

In the post match debrief, the victory was dedicate to a coach & mentor of many of the players (who shall remain nameless) who is currently experiencing health challenges.

Played 6 - won 6, 

Goals for 34 / against 2

Goal Scorers: 9

Big thanks go to Head Coach Alex Davies, Assistant Coach Gus McVey, Team Manager Mark Lamb and Physio (and arguable the busiest man at the tournament) Mike Harvey