Chester Men’s 1s Team at the inaugural Oakley Hockey Tournament

Chester Men’s 1s Team at the inaugural Oakley Hockey Tournament

Chester Men's 1st Team made the short trip to Bedford HC for the inaugural Oakley Hockey Tournament to continue pre-season preparations.
Chester's first game was against the hosts and it took the first half for the visitors to overcome the lengthy car journey and they trailed 2-0 at half time. Chester rallied in the second half and showed a marked improvement. Despite goals from short corner specialist Jim Challenor. Bedford came out on top as 3-2 winners.

The second game saw a strong performance from Chester against Birmingham based Harborne with another Jim Challenor drag flick and a goal in either end from Chris Myles.

The final game saw Chester face Milton Keynes with both teams suffering from tired legs, not helped by the loss of long distance running enthusiast Myles missing due to the aggravation of a hip flexor injury. Despite creating far more chances than MK Chester trailed 1-0 with ten minutes to go before inside forward Andrew King completed a well worked move with a simple finish following an assist from the evergreen club chairman Simon Jones.

Goalkeeper Matt Francis made a last gasp wonder save to secure the draw and with it joint 3rd place in the 6-team tournament. The day was another step towards the start of the season, which begins with a trip to Brooklands on the 23rd of September, with particularly impressive performance from U18 contingent Max and Alex Jones, Aled Bennett and James Maudsley.