Herne Bay Roller Hockey Club enjoyed a hugely successful day at the National Cup Qualifiers held in Soham.

 

The club’s junior teams are all performing strongly in their respective leagues this season and so travelled north with high hopes of making ‘finals day’ which will be held at Herne Bay Arena this summer.

First onto the rink were the U11s who were competing against Middlesbrough, the top club in the Northern section.  The young Bay team took a while to find their game but eventually began to play great pass and move hockey to take a 4-0 lead into the half-time break.  With such a significant lead, Boro might have expected Bay to sit back in the second period, but there was to be no let up for the northerners with Bay adding three further goals to finish with a very impressive 7-0 scoreline. Bay’s U11s will now play local rivals, Maidstone, in the final and will take great confidence from this fine performance.

Bay’s more experienced U15s team also competed against a Middlesbrough outfit that have dominated their local league this season and a similar pattern of game was established with Bay taking early control but initially unable to locate the back to the net.  Again, Bay did not panic and eventually found their touch, scoring at will as the game wore on and ending up with a very comfortable 9-1 victory.  Bay’s U15s now look forward to a tough contest against Eastern Counties rivals, Cottenham, who won through to the final with a hard-fought victory over Maidstone.

With two relatively comfortable wins secured, the pressure was now well and truly on Bay’s U13s team who needed to get through two rounds of games to ensure triple glory for the club. The first game was an extremely tight affair with the teams locked at 1-1 when Sudbury, Bay’s main opponents so far this year, were awarded an indirect ‘free hit’.  However, a fine save from Bay’s keeper seemed to inspire the team who eventually ran out 4-1 winners, to the relief of Bay’s vocal travelling support. A great victory but Bay now had to finish things off against Peterborough, another tough opponent. This time Bay were able to play a more expansive style resulting in a fine 7-1 victory and the U13s can now also look forward to finals day when they will play Letchworth.

These superb results for all three teams mean that Herne Bay will compete in the Cup Final in all four age groups from U11s through to U17s – with the older team benefitting from a bye into the final where they will play local rivals HBU.