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Oxford tournament, May 20th

Reports by a damp Katie

Despite weather forecasts of high winds and showers, both of which came true, we made our way to Oxford with three of our team having never played outdoor korfball in their lives! How would we fare...?

Milton Keynes 4-0 Oxford City 2 (Pete 2, Simon, Suzanne)

Although this was Oxford City "2", they in fact had two mixed-ability teams, so there were a couple of first teamers there. However, we got off to a storming start, scoring four goals and not letting any in!

Milton Keynes 4-1 Taunton (Suzanne 2, Katie 2)

We remember from the Bucks vs Somerset match at last year's Counties that Taunton are tough cookies, and so it proved, with this match level for a long time. Both sides missed a penalty with the scores at 1-1, but then we pressed home our advantage with three late goals.

Milton Keynes 1-2 Horfield (Suzanne)

Horfield seemed to have a stronger team than in the past, with two particularly strong boys (although I'm sure one of them normally plays for Exeter). We let in the first two goals quite early on, which, as you'll see by the score, put one division into defence for the rest of the game! We then proceeded to create enough chances, that with less wind, would have probably (hopefully!) seen more than one actually go into the basket. In the end, only one of them did, so we never quite managed that equaliser.

Milton Keynes 1-2 Basingstoke (Paul)

The "defending" division was defending again this time! Basingstoke, a brand new club with a mixture of experienced players and beginners who will be competing in the OKA league next season, were an unknown quantity, and they scored first with a long-shot (very unusual in this wind!), then we spent about 15 minutes creating a lot of chances just like in the last game, none of which went in until Paul scored with less than two minutes left. Unfortunately, Basingstoke earned a penalty on their next attack and restored their lead, leaving our other division with only time for one attack to try and equalise, and we just ran out of time.

Milton Keynes 5-2 Abingdon (Laurie, Carla, Katie, Suzanne, Simon)

From our results so far, it looked like we would end up in the middle pool in the next stage (the 12 teams splitting into top 4, middle 4, bottom 4), however we always like to do well against Abingdon! We turned up on court to find that it looked like they were scared to face us after the cup final triumph, because Abingdon were doing a good impression of the Estonia football team against Scotland in 1996 and were no-where to be seen. By the time they showed up, having mistimed the lunch-break, Carla and Laurie had already put us 2-0 up*, and then we continued the winning habit, letting in a goal but then scoring the next three to build an uncatchable lead! And it rained a lot in this game - nice!

*OK, we were actually awarded one goal for every extra minute they were late, due to a bizarre rule, so we have suitably awarded those goals!

We then found out that the three wins were enough to secure second place in the pool, on goal difference from Taunton, and put us into the semi-finals! Hooray!

Semi-final: Milton Keynes 1-2 Littleport (Mandy)

Littleport Lions looked the strongest team there, having even beaten the "scratch" team 8-0 in a match in the other pool, but we played our best korfball of the tournament in this match, passing the ball around very nicely indeed in attack, and showing some very strong defence, with Pete doing a sterling job marking a Great Britain international and Paul and Laurie grabbing lots of loose balls. Mandy opened the scoring, but Littleport equalised quickly, then it was a very tight match from then onwards, with Simon, Suzanne and Carla seeing shots going agonisingly close. Littleport scored a second through a medium -distance shot after a switch, we kepy pushing forwards but were unlucky to just miss out on the final, which Littleport went on to win.

3rd/4th place playoff: Milton Keynes 5-1 Horfield (Pete, Katie, Paul, Simon, Mandy)

We faced a tiring Horfield team for the second time in our final match of the day, and got revenge(!) for the earlier defeat in style, with five different players getting on the scoresheet! All this despite having to play downhill rather than uphill, for the very first time in the day depite this being our seventh match! There was lots of good passing again in this match - the final two games were our best performances and all the newer players really improved throughout the day.

So we finished 3rd of 12, which is our best ever tourmament performance! (the previous best being 4th of 12 in beach korfball last year). Not bad eh?

Team: Pete, Simon, Laurie, Paul, Suzanne, Katie, Carla, Mandy

Added 21/05/06