The University of Gloucestershire men’s hockey team recorded their first league points in three years after a home draw against Southampton on Wednesday 6 December.
The team came back from 1-0 down in the early minutes of the game to finish the game 2-2, leading the match in the later stages.
UoG now sit 0-1-4 with one point on the season and are only looking to further their points tally. Player Owen Parker had this to say.
“We showed this momentum going into the new year. We’ve got good games coming against teams we know we can beat, so that should be good.”
Early in the match, UoG were not performing well, but they ended up earning a penalty, which changed the game, “As soon as we got the penalty, BAM, your striker goes down injured, he had to leave the game with a broken collarbone.
“From there, the team dynamic changed. We became more and more confident in attacking. We realised we were in this game.”
The Southampton team did strike first, which was very much against the run of play. But that did not deter the Glos lads.
“We did concede first, but we kept pilling on the pressure didn’t slow down, they knew we were going to score.”
Glos were not down for long. They came right back and equalised with some what of a poor goal. “Sammy scored his first goal of the season. It was a terrible goal, but it made it 1-1, and that’s all that matters.” The first half ended with the scores level.
The second half started in favour of the home side. Gloucestershire came out with early pressure just as they had finished the first half. And they were awarded with a goal in the early moments of the half. But once they took the lead, they took their foot off the accelerator.
“After we scored, we seemed to drop our game. We got too comfortable when we shouldn’t have done. Southampton were still in this game, as this was shown when they kept coming at us with attack after attack.
“Finally, they broke through our defence, who held on for so long, and got the equalising goal in the final 10 minutes.”
The match finished 2-2. With a lot of positives for the Glos team, they were proud of the performance which brought an end to their league point drought, and now they look towards expanding on their team performance,
“It was a very aggressive game from both teams, and it gives us high hopes for the future. Hopefully, we can continue this into the new year and use this new tactic and playing style to grow our points tally.”
