All Surrey League Results
Teddington Bears
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Teddington Bears on Tour
Bournemouth 7s - May 27th - 29th 2016
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No Bears event would be complete without a full and frank match report, so here goes.
A few weeks ago, some of Janet’s Angels set off to enjoy a Bank Holiday weekend, play some netball, enjoy some alcohol and for some of us, experience camping for the first time.
The first contingent to arrive at the campsite was Vicky, Kat and Emily, shortly followed by me just in time to save the day as NO ONE had remembered ID and we evidently looked so youthful laden down like packhorses! After attempting a perfect 3 man weave we managed to jump a lot of the queue for bag searches and even smuggle in some contraband in the form of Emily’s vodka.
Having picked a spot we liked the look of, it was time to play to our strengths, Emily, Vicky and Kat got straight on with unpacking our tent, whilst I went in search of alcohol, a fairly lengthy walk led me to a prosecco van where after some practice, I decided I could definitely carry 6 Proseccos. Proseccos drunk it was time to deal with the small matter of 7 more bags still being in the car. Kat and I made herculean efforts to carry all 7 bags in one sitting across rough terrain, with the only casualty being Kat’s coat. I blame Vicky, the only person to ever take a smart hard shell suitcase to a festival!
Soon afterwards came the arrival of the ThunderBears contingent, bringing more contraband. A quick change and glow sticks activated and the Bears Army was ready to take on the festival. Some of that night is a blur, but we definitely made full use of the prosecco van and broke a few Weybridge Vandals hearts by informing the rugby team that their netball team was not, in fact, undefeated for 100 plus games as we had definitely beaten them twice this season. We then decided to visit the Big Tent, where Cat was subjected to the first indecent exposure of the weekend, not by a ThunderBear I hasten to add, a man dressed as a cheerleader. K/Cat’s squared decided that full of alcohol, Cat R should definitely climb on Kat J’s shoulders for a dance, thank god for the supportive play of Alice who definitely provided ground support for K/Cat’s squared adventures. Having stayed out until the bitter end, we had our first of the world’s most amazing pizzas and wandered back to the tent to carry on the fun.
By carry on the fun, I mean everyone else to sit outside and drink whilst I took myself off for a nap. Some solid handling skills from Vicky and Kat got me into my sleeping bag and 8 tired Teddie Bears drifted off to sleep amongst the shouts and hollers of what felt like the entire Welsh population.
The next day, we were up nice and early in anticipation of a full morning’s netball. Entered into the Mojito Cup, the party hard, play hard cup, we started our first match against Bournemouth University with a win, after that we lost to some very very good teams, who played to a very high standard. We were not helped by Alice’s ankle injury, particularly as she had been on fire in the circle all morning, nor were we helped by Katface’s knee injury, 2 visits to the St John Ambulance tent later, Alice ended up on crutches, her tournament over, and Kat ended up with some epic strapping that would eventually lead to an obscene tanline on her upper thigh.
Morning matches over with, we all decided to take advantage of one of the 9 showers available for the 3000 people camping, Cleaned up, we went out to see what the festival had to offer, with the sun shining, we parked our bums in the cocktail garden and started working our way through the menu and round most of the food tents, some of us enjoyed our second pizza of the tournament, some of us enjoyed EVERYTHING on offer (Vix Mayhew – you can’t do the amount of running she does on an empty tank!), Alice may have a second career as a stripper given how quickly she was able to remove her clothes at the table, the only factor against her was her being able to put a whole new set of clothes on without anyone realising – epic skills!
Having overdone the exercise, the sun and the cocktails, we took ourselves back to our tents for an early evening rest and chatter. We found lots of things out on this evening, firstly, Emily only needs a primark headband and to release her beautiful hair to look like a pageant queen, the rest of us did not fare nearly so well 24 hours into tent life. Victoria really likes boobies and Cat Rigby is the provider of the most epic cheeseboard EVER enjoyed on a camping trip. You have to salute a woman who is able to produce 7 different cheeses, posh crackers, a cheese knife, plates and indeed a cheese board itself from a tent. We were also treated to our second indecent exposure of the weekend, once again from a cross dressing rugby player (MY EYES!). Several more booze runs later, we decided we should probably go and enjoy the festival. With Alice on crutches and a limping Katface, as well as touch of rain, we had to be really careful in choosing our spot. We found a table in the cider garden but unfortunately the location was not to our liking, that didn’t matter, a bit of team work and a few strange looks and before we knew it, we had moved a 10 person table under cover and right next to the make shift dance floor and within spitting distance of the bar.
A game of Ring of Fire was set up and 8 very drunk ThunderBears did their best attempt to hold it together amongst several renditions of the National Anthem, some amazing dance routines and of course GECKO! Amongst lots of laughter Emily wanted us all to know that “I’m not drunk, I am just having a really good time”. Drinking game over, Vicky demonstrated some impeccable Irish dancing skills, Katface commandeered a crutch to take the weight off her injured knee and ensure she could still continue dancing, whilst Victoria impressed an entire rugby team with her leap frog skills (“too easy, you can go higher than that mate”) and impressed all of us with her wonderful ballet skills. Later that night, Emily and I returned home to interrupt a very sweet date between Vicky and Kat, lit up by army issue light sticks sitting face to face enjoying a pizza and what smelt like an entire bottle of garlic mayo!
After approximately an hours sleep on account of being surrounding by the worlds noisiest boys, we all got up to enjoy a breakfast of champions (soggy croissants and bananas!) and get ready for the day ahead. Alice’s ankle was still huge and so the 7 of us soldiered on in the glorious sunshine. Having suffered some heavy losses the previous day, we decided that should we be losing by 10 goals or more, the call of GECKO would go up during the game and we would all react accordingly. Lots of the teams in the tournament were nursing heavy hangovers but as #BearsAreHarderThanYou we were able to take full advantage and picked up some great wins. In the last match of the day we were playing an excellent team of ex Oxford University players, 10 goals down, Victoria yells GECKO and the entire Bears team (minus Emily who played on and poor immobile Alice!) we all ran off court to the fence and did our best Gecko impression, we gave away another goal, but totally worth it.
Having treated ourselves to ice cream, our tournament was now over. Sad feelings of it being finished were quickly turned to thoughts of warm showers and a good nights sleep and looking back on our weekend of immense fun, we all decided same time next year.
I hope you can see how much fun we had, I don’t have the skills to capture just how brilliant every minute of it was and how lucky we are to have such close ties with Thunder whose presence made the whole thing possible. Next year, Victoria, Vicky and Charlotte are all getting married and we think that 7s should be a celebration of their impending marriages. If you would like to come next year I am going to book it much much earlier so we get the cheapest possible price, it will be the last bank holiday weekend in May and I would hope we can book it this side of Christmas. It really was the most fun you can have at a festival, with the added bonus of some netball thrown in.
Thank you to all of you for showing me such a good time, for making me laugh until my ribs split and for always making me incredibly grateful to call this club mine. LETS GO BEARS! X
P.S. I still have a pair of pants that are not mine, size 10, M & S black briefs with a pink bow.
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Teddington Bears v. Weybridge Vandals
Saturday 16th April 2016
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Surrey Jets B v. Teddington Bears
Saturday 2nd April 2016
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Teddington Bears v. Fairlands
Saturday 12th March 2016
As you all know, we started out this season glad to still have a club, as we approach the close, promotion is now a very real possibility and so we have had to really take the fight to our opposition. In the last game, we looked lacklustre at times, this time around, we looked anything but.
The opening team was as follows:
GK – Kate B
GD - Vicky
WD – Katie P
C – Kat
WA – Cat
GA – (the ever disappearing bride to be) Sophie
GS – Katie
Sub - Carly
Fairlands have always been an odd team for us, the match always capable of going either way and for about 15 seconds in this game, you might have thought that was going to be the case. 5 minutes in, it was anything but as Bears took no time at all to settle in to this quarter. Vicky and Kate were solid as ever in defence, but mid-court were very much taking care of business and with Katie P, Kat and Cat intercepting and hassling all over, we gave Fairlands few opportunities to score and after this quarter, Fairlands had scored just 1 goal. Bears had scored 21.
With us being equal on points with Tiffin, but them ahead of us in the league with 39 more goals scored, we were third in the league. In order to keep promotion in our hands, we knew that we had to overturn that goal deficit and we also knew that we had been given a gift from the gods, Fairlands had no subs and therefore no options. We decided we had to go all out to overturn that deficit. I don’t think we gave it our all in this quarter and I think Sophie and I could have been better on our rebounds, Fairlands started to give us a bit more of a fight but ultimately, had left themselves unable to catch us.
We decided in light of how we were all working together not to make any changes for the second half but to up our game, we probably could have done more in the second quarter but perhaps we had got complacent. Vicki demanded 60 goals of us by the end of the game. In the absence of our Emily, Kat still remembered the Pink Lucozade and with beast mode activated out came Miss Joyce’s traditional third quarter intercepts, coupled with Vicki and Kate constantly being in the way of any balls Fairlands were throwing into the circle, Katie P’s intercepts and Cat’s tireless work rate, it was all made very easy for Sophie to bang in goal after goal despite being very tightly marked once in the circle. As this quarter ended we were winning 54-9 and had now overtaken our deficit.
Despite overtaking our deficit, we all knew that this gift that we had been handed really needed to be capitalised on and everyone went out and played the last quarter like it was the first quarter. Considering we had made no changes, the work rate of every player was phenomenal but Mrs Battle really had an extra gear on Saturday, no doubt acutely aware that in deficit terms what we do in defence is as important as what we do in attack. Vicki was coming around her player for almost every ball and although we perhaps went a bit crazy and gave away a few balls we didn’t need to, such a scoreline meant our mistakes were not the end of the world.
At half time Vicki demanded 60 goals from us, we gave her 70 and put ourselves 18 clear goals ahead of Tiffin, notwithstanding anything they might have scored in their own match that day.
Which brings me on to my next point…..TIFFIN LOST TO SAINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!! And not just a little loss, a 42-27 loss which meant Tiffin only took one point this weekend, putting us a full 4 points and 33 goals ahead of them. Promotion is back in our hands girls, but we are going to have to give it EVERYTHING for the last 2 games.
MAN OF THE MATCH: Sophie
PLAYERS PLAYER: Kate B
THINGS TO WORK ON IN TRAINING: Nothing, we were amazing this Saturday!
The last point I want to make was how amazing it was to have support on the sidelines in the form of Anne and Carly, it makes all the difference in the world and since the last 2 games matter so much, if you can come and support please do.
Teddington Bears v. OCs
Saturday 27th February 2016
So after several months at away matches it was a real treat not to be playing at Nonsuch this week. More importantly after the last match against OC’s and some fantastic in match commentary from Tash which we are still laughing at now, none of us could wait for the return of the legend.
The opening team looked like this:
GS – Katie
GA – Victoria
WA – Ali
C – Kat
WD – Katie P
GD – Vicky
GK – Kate
OC’s are an aging but physical team and from the off, Kat was in real danger of being the cause of an argument. I don’t think we started at our usual tempo and the scoring in the first quarter was goal for goal, despite endless cheeky interceptions from Vicki in the circle and some solid defending from Mrs B. Victoria and I were in each other’s space a lot and going off at the first quarter, we were only up by one goal, but I think we all knew we were not playing our best game.
In the second quarter, we upped the tempo, but a few silly mistakes, once again not settling on our turnovers and at times still playing to OC’s pace, we made it difficult for ourselves. OC’s also have a very good holding GA who does not miss. Kat started to anger her player (standard Surrey match) and a few umpiring decisions did not go our way. Victoria and I were both tightly marked in the circle by very physical players and at one point in this quarter I ended up with my face pinned up against the post. Thankfully, Victoria’s shooting was on point and with solid support around the circle from Kat and Ali, and excellent interceptions and support from Katie P further up the court we managed to hold fast. Going off at the end of the second quarter we were drawing, which did not reflect how I viewed the game was going.
We realised we need to make changes, we bought Cat on and gave some thought to how we were organising our centre passes, allowing Victoria to drop closer to the circle and have defence bring the ball up through mid-court. Cat’s support on the centre line meant we could work the ball around our attacking third. Kat’s centre had decided she could take no more of the whirlwind that is Miss Joyce in full flow and moved elsewhere on court and more importantly, JANET made her appearance. Straight away I ended up with an attack of the giggles as the memories of the last game came flooding back and OC’s GK went for the world record of how many times the name “Janet” can be shouted during a game. OC’s had changed their tactics and had decided to double mark me which only served to give Victoria room. Ali’s timing and spacing was impeccable in this quarter and allowed us to work the ball into the circle. In defence, we were now flying, and Vicki and Kate were picking up every loose ball. Kat’s desire to always chase a loose ball resulted in a warning from the umpire to calm down having been pulled up for more contact and Cat was her usual end to end self. For some reason, despite all of this, we had only pulled away by one goal and the score was now 26-25 to us.
Going into the last quarter, we had to ask ourselves two important questions 1. Who wants it more? and 2. Who is going to volunteer to tell Tash if we lose this game? Those thoughts in mind, we all went back on court fired up and ready to really really fight for it. OC’s were obviously tired by this point, evidenced by the fact that I was able to make interceptions(!), our commitment to training meant we all still had energy in the tank and the fire in us to fight for every ball. Marking was so tight in the centre third that OC’s either did not receive their centre passes or were blown for held balls. Centre court work in this quarter was faultless. Vicki and Kate found another level of bounce and somehow managed to be on the receiving end of quite a few of OC’s passes into the circle. With some silly mistakes made by OC’s we were very much back in the game and even my second pinning to the post (by Janet this time) could not stop our momentum. Final score was 35-31.
MAN OF THE MATCH: Sorry I can’t remember if it was Victoria or Vicki (someone help me out!)
PLAYERS PLAYER: Nominations across the board for Ali, Vicki, Kat and Victoria
THINGS TO WORK ON: Our desire to win. I don’t think we had the killer instinct in the first half of this game, nor in our last match. Our next few games are tough ones and after our loss against MPs, we can only keep our promotion hopes alive if we win them and win them all big. The goals we stop and the goals we score are really going to matter, so we cannot afford to relax and everyone has a responsibility whatever your position on court is. Promotion is not entirely in our hands now and I can only imagine how we are all going to feel in mid-April if we don’t get promoted and we haven’t given it our all. When you come off, you need to have left everything you have on court. We did this at Tiffin and Saints, we need to get that feeling back. There are 4 more games to go Bears, lets give it EVERYTHING
MPs v. Teddington Bears
Saturday 13th February 2016
An uphill battle, literally. Bears lose 43-37 in horrible weather conditions.
Saints v. Teddington Bears
Saturday 22nd January 2016
Well Ladies, what can I say Teddie Bears are on a roll……….
Our 5th trip to Nonsuch this season saw a ridiculously late starting game, however Coach Kat had thought about the early afternoon slump and came prepared with two fridge packs of pink Lucozade (can’t activate #beastmode without it). Emily, Gill, Kate and I arrived ridiculously early and Emily and I were in happy happy moods having thoroughly enjoyed the only perk of such a late start – a Kisstory soundtrack on the radio en route – the old ones are the best!
As Sophie and I put some shots up before the game, we realised it was going to be tough, the posts keep swinging around every time a ball hit the net, a complaint to Saints along with a request for a post change was futile and we decided we would just have to manage. After a good warm up we were ready to play, the opening line up was as follows:
GS – Katie
GA – Sophie
WA – Amanda
C – Kat
WD – Ali
GD – Emily
GK – Vicky
Sub – Kate B
Saints pushed us from the first whistle and had an excellent holding shooter who didn’t really miss from anywhere, thankfully we were all digging in from the off. In the first quarter, it was obvious we needed to make tweaks to our game, we weren’t quite getting it right on the second pass from centre pass and we needed defensive support to get the ball into attack. We held on for this quarter and thanks to some unbelievable shooting from Miss Beal we went off winning 13-12. In truth, it felt like we were the ones who were behind, there were lots of moments during this quarter where no one took responsibility to be the receiver of the next pass, watching from the circle was incredibly frustrating as we either ran away from the ball or didn’t call for the ball when we were in a space.
We made no changes in the second quarter other than to allow Amanda to let herself be double marked out of the centre pass, with Emily now coming up for that ball, calls of “here” in mid-court and Kat having the space to come around Sophie’s left side, it felt like we were now making it much easier on ourselves. We were so tightly marked on the line between centre court and our attacking third, Sophie and I had to play this odd switch between GS and GA with both of us clearing the circle to offer support to Kat and Amanda in getting the ball to the circle. It is testament to the trust we all now have in each other and where we will be that we really did play the ball around, with Ali up at the line giving us another option to open up space, we kept it calm and didn’t force it into the circle. With a tireless work rate from Kat and Ali, Vicki and Emily were in a positon to make some unbelievable interceptions and rather than having our usual panic we kept it calm and got the turnover – going off for half time, we now had 3 goals in it at 24-21 to us.
I don’t think anyone felt that we had enough of a lead to be comfortable and knowing how much Bears suffer from the curse of the third quarter, I think we were all rightly nervous. But knowing if we could win this game, we would be so much closer to promotion we were all fired up. Kat had distributed the pink Lucozade and with Amanda now more than settled in to the constant clatterings she was getting (standard week at Nonsuch for her), #beastmode was activated, and everyone found an extra gear. Sophie’s shooting was on point and even being double marked by two large and physical defenders did not give her any trouble. Special mention to Kat who was utterly tireless in her work rate against a centre that did not keep still and to the ever tremendous Ali who offered unfailing support all over court and was pivotal in us getting that ball out of centre court. Knowing who wanted it more, we dug in and dug in some more against a Saints who were not prepared to roll over. Just this once, there was no curse of the third quarter, we had opened up our lead by 8 goals to 35-27.
WHO WANTS IT MORE?? Feeling much more comfortable going into the last quarter, we didn’t let ourselves forget who wanted it more, I could hears words of encouragement for each other all over court and Vicki in particular was not prepared to let the ball anywhere near the circle, swiping the ball and picking up interceptions all over the place. With Emily demonstrating mad energy by moving on Vicki’s interceptions and constantly switching from attack to defence, we really did fight for it. However so did Saints and there was a moment when they got 3 goals in a row and I really started to panic, I couldn’t have told you what the score was at any point in this game because it felt so close. But the whistle went and once again, we had done it, Bears win 43-37, once again having that one goal to deny the opposition an extra point. Saints have been top of the league all season having not lost a game, all it took to change that was for this little club of scrappers to want it more.
So much of what this club is about makes me proud, but these big victories are special. There is not a single team in our league that we haven’t beaten this season, now all we need to do is keep believing in ourselves, supporting each other and committing and promotion will be ours. We can do this girls because we want it more!
PLAYERS PLAYER: Katie, Ali and Vicki
MAN OF THE MATCH: Vicki
THINGS TO WORK ON IN TRAINING: Offloading the ball and then taking responsibility/reoffering for the next pass
Tiffin v. Teddington Bears
Saturday 8th January 2016
WHO WANTS IT MORE?
With lots of new players, we inevitably took some time to settle into our groove in Surrey League this season and we lost our first two games against Tiffin and Saints. Without last weekend’s results being in yet Saints are unbeaten at the top of the league with Tiffin sitting just one point in front of us in second place.
So on Saturday we had the luxury of a record number of players with availability and the return of a Teddington Bears Legend in the form of Miss Sophie Beal, as you all know, we are not exactly overwhelmed with shooters and with losing Tash to marathon training, the return of her sister could not have been more timely.
As the game opened the teamsheet looked like this:
GK – Kate B
GD – Emily
WD – Cat
C – Kat
WA – Ali
GA – Vicky
GS – Sophie
This was a game which both clubs really really wanted to win and 2 minutes in, my nerves were shredded as the ball went end to end with us matching each other evenly goal for goal. Tiffin were very physical and at times dangerous in their play but no one allowed themselves to be put off by this. Ali did extremely well to hold off a very very physical and quick WD and even managed to get in a few digs of her own. The whistle at the end of the first quarter blew in our favour and the score was 11-10.
At the opening of the second quarter, Amanda came on for Ali and the game continued to be end to end, with us going 2 goals up, Tiffin catching us and going 2 goals up and so and so forth. My heart was in my mouth the entire time. We really didn’t make it easy for ourselves in this quarter, Cat and Emily were on absolute fire in respect of interceptions but we wasted them time and time again by not giving ourselves that half second to settle and reset for attacking play. I lost count of the amount times that Amanda was on the end of unkind passes and it is testament to how good a player Amanda is that not all of these passes went awry. At half time the score was 22-22.
With things so evenly matched there was no way we could make any changes, we also knew that when it came to winning this game, it was a question of “Who Wants it More?”. With Emily and Kat now full of pink lucozade, beast mode was activated and everyone went out and played the best third quarter I have ever seen us play. Cat seemed to throw her body in front of every ball and Emily and Kat spent more time in the air than they did on the ground and Vicky, Amanda and Sophie really fought hard in attack. At one point in this quarter, we went 4 goals ahead, only to have Tiffin fight every bit as hard as we did and catch us up. We ended this quarter 36-26.
As we went into the last quarter, I may not have played but I had worked my heart so hard I thought it was going to rip out of my chest. Everyone had given so much in this game, we could not leave without the victory. Despite being tired, everyone found a little something extra. Being able to taste the win, Kate was adamant she was to play on even though she had picked up a niggle in her back, but with such steadfast support from Emily, Cat and Kat, we finally, finally managed to break the stalemate and somehow, against all experience and odds, we beat Tiffin 53-46, only allowing Tiffin to take one point from the game. We wanted it more.
Player’s Player – Emily (with almost as many nominations for Cat)
Man of the Match – Sophie
THINGS TO WORK ON: Resetting play after turnovers.
At the halfway point of the season, now is a good time to say thank you for all of your contributions and to acknowledge how bloody wonderful this club and all the women who belong to it are. Last summer we almost folded this club, the enthusiasm of players old and new, the time and support people like Ali, Vicky, Jen, Kat, Jess T, Karen and Gill give to this club and the love you all have for our little club of scrappers has turned us into something great again and I am so very very proud of how hard all of you work and to call Teddington Bears my club. There may only ever be 7 girls on a court on a Saturday, but those of you who train, or coach, or sub, or keep in touch all make a contribution to the magic of this club and Saturday’s victory was every bit as much yours as it was ours. I hope you will all come along to the Christmas Social on 29th Jan to celebrate just how fabulous you all are. This club is very, very special. On that note:
BEARS ARE NOW PLAYING FOR PROMOTION – WHO WANTS IT MORE???!!!!!????
Weybridge Vandals v. Teddington Bears
Saturday 5th December
This Saturday we had our final game of the year against Weybridge Vandals. The start time of the match was 10am, at 9.59am I appeared with no sense of urgency thinking the meeting time was 10am, with no time to warm up, it was straight into the match where I instantly regretted going out to lunch and then staying out some more until the last train – this old girl can’t cope anymore!
The starting line-up looked like this:
GS – Katie
GA – Tash
WA – Vicky
C – Kat
WD – Sam
GD – Emily
GK – Kate B
Sub - Sue
With a slight change in attack and my alcohol-induced issues, it wasn’t the best first quarter we have ever had. The wind made it difficult for Tash and I to take any shots from far out and I don’t think either of us were firing on all cylinders, we threw a few loopy balls and we were struggling on our centre passes. At the end of the first quarter, we were losing 7-4.
Having spent the break in play practising my shooting and with the wind easing off, both Tash and I got our eye in, with great defence from Emily, Sam and Kate and with Kat putting her body on the line constantly we started to feel like we were making progress, as the second quarter closed, we went off for half time having shortened the lead by 1 goal to 18-16. Particular mention should go to Em in this quarter who subdued Vandal’s GA who was by far their best player – Em you are a great GD and you must start believing it more often.
Having had a much more positive quarter, confidence was improved, with Sue and Vicky deciding that we should not change the line-up we carried on as we were, having picked up 4 more fairly vocal supporters in the form of my nieces and nephew. Early in this quarter, Kat injured her neck. Not for the first time, we were incredibly grateful to have our resident physio Em to come to the rescue. With a few strategic cracks, Kat was back in the game. Vandals were very good at frustrating our centre passes, Sam was vital in this quarter in coming up for the centre pass allowing attack to get forward. This quarter was very much goal for goal but as the quarter ended, we were up 23-22.
Everyone went out for the final quarter having turned themselves up a gear, Emily, Sam and Kate made some amazing interceptions and Sam more her less kept her WA entirely out of the game. With Tash and I playing a bit further up, we managed to keep possession and work the ball into the circle. Despite the whiplash and spitting blood after a ball in the face, Kat worked tirelessly against a very physical centre controlling play which was at times very much end to end. This is also the first time in quite some time Kat has not angered her opposing player – congrats on that! With everyone now desperate for the win, we all gave it 110% and finished the game 34-28, stopping Vandals from getting an extra point for coming within 5 goals of our score. All in all an excellent win.
MAN OF THE MATCH: Tash
PLAYERS PLAYER: Kat (with two well deserved nominations for Sam)
THINGS TO WORK ON: Timekeeping, match-eve alcohol consumption….
Teddington Bears v. Surrey Jets
Saturday 24th November
We won 33-11. No match report.
Fairlands v. Teddington Bears
Saturday 7th November
This Saturday we were back at Nonsuch, my least favourite away ground. The rain was torrential, the wind felt gale force and as the game started, there were 7 very drenched Teddie Bears. Sue got held up in traffic and had a nightmare finding somewhere to park, with all of us soaked, we decided that as we had 7 we must start the game.
The opening team looked like this:
GK – Katie P
GD – Emily
WD – Cat R
C – Kat J
WA – Ali
GA – Vicky
GS – Katie
Fairlands are a very very young team, 6 of their players were under 19, with their only veteran being their GK. Our experience counted for us against the whippersnappers who found it very difficult to adjust their play in accordance with the conditions. Vicky made sure we all knew we had to get nearer to the ball and it wasn’t worth wasting an overhead long ball, we struggled to settle in to this quarter and I was definitely guilty of losing concentration. Thankfully, Katie P and Emily were on absolute fire in the circle and Katie playing well out of position made it very very difficult for Fairlands to get balls to their shooters. The first quarter ended 9-5.
By the start of the second quarter, Sue had arrived and we very much settled into the game, the weather worsened but Vicky and I got our movement sorted and with excellent support from Kat and Ali, we managed to get some good shots in, even with the wind against us. Sue’s height and Emily’s bounce meant Fairlands were struggling to get the ball to any of their shooters anywhere near the net. We ended this quarter winning 17-9.
Given how close the game felt and how long it had taken all of us to adjust to the wind and rain, Vicky decided we should stay as we were at the beginning of the second quarter. Fairlands had been given a good team talk at half time and made some changes, they were now playing shorter passes and getting in front of us and in true Bears tradition, this quarter was our worst. Notwithstanding that, Kat and Cat continued to dominate mid-court with terrific work rates and Kat in particular got some excellent interceptions throughout the game. We ended this quarter 27-19. A draw of 10 all.
In the last quarter, I don’t think Fairlands hearts were really in it, with a 9 goal lead, they were never going to be able to catch us, everyone was soaked to the skin, a few people had taken tumbles (Cat and Vicky included) and tempers were starting to fray in frustration at one or two umpiring decisions we didn’t feel had gone our way. Thankfully, we turned the frustration into positive aggression and ended the game with our second away win of the season. Well done girls.
FINAL SCORE: 38-25
PLAYER’S PLAYER: Cat R, Kat J and Vicky
MAN OF THE MATCH: Cat R
SPECIAL MENTION: Ali really was a pivotal player for us on Saturday, the Bears game has got much faster this season and Ali’s cool head and experience helped control the game at a pace that worked in the conditions. Great movement, great feeds into the circle and exactly the calm in the storm we needed.
OC's v. Teddington Bears
Saturday 24th October.
The starting line up was as follows:
GK – Kate
GD – Vicky
WD – Emily
C – Kat
WA – Amanda
GA – Tash
GS – Katie
At the end of the first quarter we were leading 13-7 (Tash and I having struggled to get our eye in). By half time, we had increased the score to 25-16.
After the first half we made the following changes and the team looked like this:
GK – Vicky
GD – Emily
WD – Fiona
C- Kat
WA – Amanda
GA – Tash
GS – Katie
By the time we went into the second half we were doing really well, some great interceptions and turnovers and solid defending.
FINAL SCORE: Bears 52-33 OC’s
MAN OF THE MATCH: Vicky
PLAYER’S PLAYER: Emily and Amanda
A special mention to Fiona who travelled halfway across Surrey with two very small children and then came on at half time to play a blinder – a true Teddie Bear!
Teddington Bears v. MPs A
Saturday 10th October 2015
This weekend’s match was v. MP’s. After two tough defeats and with it being Jen’s birthday, losing was not an option.
The starting line-up looked like this:
GK – Kate B
GD – Vicky
WD – Emily
C – Kat
WA – Cat
GA – Tash
GS – Katie
(Subs - Amanda and Katie P)
With the weather starting to turn, we thankfully were not at the mercy of the blinding sun for the first time this season and I think this certainly helped us to settle into the game. We went two goals up from the off, MPs shooters struggled to get their eye in at first and with the brick wall combination of Vicky, Emily and Kate B, MPs were not given very many opportunities to correct this. We did get some great interceptions in this quarter, but a few passes were lost on account of either too much height, or not enough height. These are basic mistakes and come back to the problem we have never managed to solve – namely getting an interception and then looking after it. As the quarter ended, we had given ourselves a little bit of breathing space with a score of 8-4.
Going into the second quarter, we kept the team the same, as did MPs, we kept on working hard in this quarter, but the game was slightly frustrated by advantage not being played. It was also very much an end to end game, with both sides having strong defences, a lot of work was having to be done to get the ball out of mid-court, and I think this is reflected in the scoreline. MPs were having to make numerous passes to get the ball into their circle, at one point I was frequently counting 6-8 passes to get the ball into their attacking circle. This is testament to how well marked Vicky and Kate had MP’s shooters marked. Kat J bore the brunt of this end to end running, albeit with excellent support from Emily and Cat. Cat in particular had to contend with probably one of the best WDs I have come across in our league, notwithstanding this, there were still some excellent feeds into the circle and some great positioning and support from the ever-reliable Cat and some fab long range shooting from Tash. Going off for this quarter, we had increased our lead to 19-13.
To ensure everyone had a game, at this point, we decided to make some changes to our line up, going out into the second half, the team looked like this:
GK – Vicky
GD – Emily
WD – Katie P
C – Kat
WA – Amanda
GA – Tash
GS – Katie C
Once again, the curse of the third quarter struck! MP’s made some changes, moving their solid WD to GD and generally mixing up their defence. We made things difficult ourselves, our defensive back line passes were crowded, we threw away our interceptions and perhaps Tash and I took shots when we perhaps should have worked the ball around the circle a bit more, particularly as Kat and Amanda had great positioning. We were much more tightly marked in the circle in this quarter and there were a few times when I could see sheer panic on Amanda and Kat’s faces as the count to 3 seconds began! At the defensive end, Katie P, Emily and Vicky were all working very hard, but I felt we were bore the brunt of some contested decisions and with Kat getting a whack in the face and Katie P being very tightly marked by an unusually defensive WA, we struggled to make the most of our interceptions. On top of this, the marking had been increasingly tightened by both teams, in our case, we were struggling to get free for Kat, in MP's case, they were very tightly marked by us and were pulled up quite a few times for breaking. The weather was quite warm and with such an end to end game, you could see that we at times were forcing ourselves to go on. MP’s actually won this quarter (10-8) and had shortened the score to 27-23.
Given what had happened in the previous quarter, we decided to make some more changes. Vicky was by now very irritated and decided to run off her frustration at GD, Emily dropped back to GK and we brought Cat back on at WD so we could benefit from her pace here. The changes paid off. An angry Vicky was all over the court making interception after interception, Emily’s height kept MP’s GS out of the game and Cat kept up with MP’s WA and also helped pick up MP’s GA. Tash played further up the court to hassle any ball MP's tried to send out of the attacking third but MPs did not back down and pushed us all the way to the last minute. They got to within 3 goals of us at one point but not a single Bear was prepared to lose and so we threw everything at it. Excellent feeds into the circle from Kat and Amanda couple with Tash and I managing to pick up each other’s rebounds meant that in this quarter we wasted very few opportunities for goal. Everyone gave it that extra 10% and as the final whistle went, we had finally done it – our first Bears victory of the season – 38-30.
MAN OF THE MATCH: Vicky
PLAYERS’ PLAYER: Cat and Kat
Special mention should also go to Emily who played 3 positions in one game with no fuss and was solid in all of them – a great example of what we have to do to get by as Bears.
Teddington Bears v. Saints
Saturday 26th September 2015
This Saturday we played Saints. Saints are new to our division and have a similar team to us in that they have a wide spread of ages.
The starting line-up looked like this:
GS Katie C
GA Sarah
WA Ali
C Kat
WD Fiona
GD Vicky
GK Kate B
(Subs – Kasia and Katie P)
The weather was beautiful on Saturday and as the game started we were all relieved not to be drenched to the skin as in the previous match. However, the low winter sun was a problem for us in the circle and a few long balls intended for Sarah and I went awry as we were temporarily blinded by the sun. We got some shots in early on and the scoring was fairly even. Saints had a very experienced GA who was able to score from anywhere, they were also able to take advantage of their attacking third being in the shade and utilise the long ball into the circle, which was very difficult to defend. Fiona did a great job at hassling the WA to keep her out of the game, but Saints were able to score off almost every ball that made it into the circle. Towards the end of this quarter, Sarah injured her groin and whilst we at that point had been goal for goal with Saints, they managed to run away at the end of the quarter and we ended up 3 goals behind.
Given Sarah’s injury, we had to make some changes. Kasia came on as GA but the starting line-up remained otherwise unchanged. In this quarter, we fell apart, we did not make the most of opportunities in mid-court and with a very effective GD and GK, Kasia and I had real difficulties creating space, particularly as we had not played together before. Defence, plus Ali and Kat worked very hard to get the ball down to us, but as struggles with fitness became evident and with players not getting back onside quickly, we gave the ball and the game to Saints and their 3 goal lead had now increased to 8 goals, in this quarter, we got 4 goals to Saints’ 10. Had it not been for Ali and Kat’s work rates, experience and cool heads in our attacking third, and some solid interceptions from Mrs Battle the numbers could have been a lot worse.
At half time, we had to make drastic changes if we were hoping to see any improvement, the line-up for the second half looked like this:
GS Katie
GA Vicky
WA Ali
C Katie P
WD Fiona
GD Kat
GK Kate B
Kat valiantly volunteered for GD so we could have Vicky shoot, Kat volunteering for this demonstrates everything that Bears are about, recognising that there is a space to fill and taking one for the team even when the position is not your first choice and your height does not make you a natural defensive circle player. Thankfully, Kat is not just a brilliant centre, but a great GD and with continued assistance from Fiona (whose work rate and hassle were spot on) and Kate (who not only played a solid game herself, but was able to direct Kat in the circle too), it felt like we were back in the game, albeit with a mountain to climb. For some entirely unfathomable reason, Saints decided that I was more of a threat to them than Vicky (hahahahahahhaha) and so I spent the rest of the game double marked leaving Vicky the space to run around. I pulled the defence back to the post and gave Vicky the space to run in. Saints did not make it easy for us and it is testament to how good a game that Ali had that she managed to handle what was a very effective WD. Katie P gave us some excellent feeds into the circle, a difficult task when this is only her second game with us and both Vicky and I don’t normally play together, it is not easy to play centre from a half time start, thankfully, Katie’s has a great pace and a good eye for a quick pass into the circle. Unfortunately, we gave away a few held balls on the edge of the circle as we were not getting free in time, this is not a criticism of anyone, merely an observation of an inevitable situation given that there have been big changes to the team this season. We can work on this in training and I am confident that by the time the next match comes along we will all have a much better idea of each other’s movement. We still lost this quarter, but had done enough to position ourselves into at least taking a point from this game.
Having settled into our positions, our last quarter was in fact our best, and we won this 10 goals to 9. To win the last quarter was bittersweet because it only demonstrated that had the first half of the game gone differently, we could probably have won this game. Final score 43-30. We have taken a point from the game, but we had the potential to have done so much more.
With so many changes to our team, we knew the early part of the season was going to be a transitional time for us, with weekly training now back in place, I am certain that we are all going to improve very quickly and Jen, Vicky and I are very excited about the future of Bears now feeling more secure than it has in a long time.
MAN OF THE MATCH: Vicky
Players Player: Nominations for Katie C, Ali, Katie P, Kat, Fiona (as you will see a team effort!)
Teddington Bears v. Tiffin
Saturday 12th September 2015
Welcome to the first match report of the season.
We all reported to Surbiton High nice and early, as we warmed up the heavens opened and drenched us and the court, making conditions very slippery. The starting team looked like this:
GS – Katie
GA – Tash
WA – Cat R
C – Kat J
WD – Emily
GD – Vicky
GK – Kate B
Tash got her eye in nice and early and the game opened fairly evenly, Tiffin had lots of support on the sideline and a good mix of experienced players and youth. Tiffin also had a very tall and effective GS, she played an excellent holding game and rarely missed a shot, despite the hard work of Kate B, Vicky and Emily in trying to stop this, Tash and I couldn’t get our eye in and we ended the first quarter down 11-8.
All of us on court could feel that we needed to make urgent changes, on that basis we switched the defence as follows:
WD – Katie P
GD – Emily
GK – Vicky
Tiffin’s GA was not really troubling play and so we decided that Vicky’s height would be put to better use in the circle. It showed in the score line and although we did not close the 3 goal gap, we did have a much closer quarter scoring 13 goals to Tiffin’s 14. Tiffin defenders played a very physical game and Tash bore the brunt of this, not much contact was pulled up in the circle and so we just had to play our game. The sun came out making shooting difficult and both Tash and I were very tightly marked by very physical players. Cat and Kat played the ball around the circle beautifully and Tash and I were very lucky to receive some perfect feeds into the circle from Cat (who definitely deserved her players player) and Kat. Tiffin got a bit sloppy with fees into their circle and Vicky and Emily were able to make some great interceptions, with Emily and Katie P offering excellent support in mid-court on the attack. Unfortunately despite our efforts, we ended the second quarter still trailing 21 goals to 25.
As we went into the 3rd quarter, we decided to make no further changes. Traditionally our third quarter is our worst, on Saturday, we bucked that trend. Kat was making interceptions all over court and her work rate was impressive, frequently switching from attack to defence with ease. Tiffin continued to feed balls to their shooter that Vicky had no problem intercepting and Katie P and Emily delayed the GA’s route back to the circle after centre passes which worked very well. With Tash’s eye now well and truly in and the constant presence of the two defenders bringing out her competitive side, she converted shot after shot. At one point during this quarter, we had fought back to have just one goal in it. Although we won the quarter 15-13, we still went off after this quarter two goals down.
Tiffin now knew we could beat them and came out guns blazing. We gave it our best, but I think our fitness let us down in this quarter, everyone was quite tired, Cat had picked up a niggle from slipping on the courts and Tiffin had fresh legs to bring on that we didn’t. We panicked on turnovers and generally made things difficult for ourselves. With the Tiffin GS getting a good run of shots in, in the last quarter the score just ran away. We ended the match losing 42 goals to Tiffin’s 51. We will still take a point from the match but we really should have taken more than that.
Not our worst performance, and plenty of moments of magic.
MAN OF THE MATCH: Tash
PLAYERS’ PLAYER: Cat