Men's 1's retain East Indoor Premier League Title

Havering travelled to Cambridge for the East Indoor Premier league hoping to gain a place in the National Indoor league for the fifth consecutive season. Although the team had won the East title at the last three attempts this year was set to be a much more difficult affair with Chelmsford and St Albans both being relegated back into the East as well as Paul Dover and Nick Lampkin two of Havering’s key players over the past few years being unavailable because of family commitments and Injury.

Luke Mepham and Marc Lloyd returned to play for Havering once again as did former player Joe Wright, currently plying his trade with National league Deeside Ramblers outfield for his first bow in the indoor form of the game. Alastair lewis took over the coaching of the side and Lampkin stepped in as manager.

First up on Saturday was Ipswich & East Suffolk and Havering made the best possible start opening the scoring within the first thirty seconds of the match. This however proved to be a force dawn as they found themselves 3-1 down just after half time. Eventually Havering found the composure they had been lacking and began to find their rhythm eventually running out 4-3 winners thanks to a brace of penalty corners from Wright in the closing stages.

A youthful Spalding side who had impressed in their opening game against Chelmsford were the lunchtime opposition and once again Havering started strongly taking an early lead but a defensive error brought the scores back level. Undeterred Havering continued to push and when Paul Johnson scored from a tight angle after being pushed wide by the goalkeeper they never looked back, Chris Dunn and Glen Noller both bagged hat-tricks to round off an impressive 9-1 rout.

After a somewhat surprise victory for IES over Chelmsford Havering knew a draw would be enough to send them through as group winners in their final match and led all the way through the match but never managed to put Chelmsford away. Mepham scored some vital goals from corners as Havering made it through with a 6-5 score line. All in all this meant that Havering had topped the group and took three valuable points through to Sunday’s promotion pool where they would face St Albans and City of Peterborough.

A later than usual 12.30 start on the Sunday allowed Havering a bit of a lay in after a good team building night out the previous evening, focus was quickly switched to St Albans a club with a very proud history in the indoor game. As expected the game started at a frantic pace with both sides keeping good possession of the ball but in the early stages Havering struggled to cope with Albans movement and structure and went a goal behind from a penalty corner. Havering responded well and equalised with a corner of their own with both sides adding a further goal before half time to go in at 2-2.

In the second half Havering were negating much of St Albans threats but went a man down after receiving a green card and had to work hard to hold on in the power play period. Albans were next to get a card this time yellow and Havering took full advantage to take a 3-2 lead, back to full strength the opposition continued to push but when a penalty corner was won havering made no mistake and extended their lead to 4-2. A nervous last few minutes remained but another heavy tackle from the same Albans player resulted in a red card allowing Havering to keep possession and run down the clock for a fine victory.

The final game against Peterborough was simple, don’t lose and havering would return to National League. It started well as Havering raced into a 5-2 lead with Lloyd also saving a penalty flick but never liking to make a task easy Peterborough pulled the game back to 5-4 with some neat individual play from their forwards. The game was in the balance and with tiring legs and minds the game could have gone either way at this point. Mepham took centre stage and two moments of individual brilliance put Havering back in a commanding position although more drama was to follow. Peterborough were awarded two penalty flicks in quick succession but one flew wide and Joe Cole saved the second to give Havering a 7-4 victory.

The victory bought a fourth East title in as many years for Havering but more importantly a place in EHL Divison Two North to be played in Birmingham on the 10/11th January.