Finally the snow melted and the ice thawed so we were able to play some hockey last weekend!  Here is a round up of all the match summaries from the league games. Thanks to everyone that submitted a match report...

Men's section

After not hitting a ball in anger since 12th Dec, Leeds 1s were eager to get 3 points to set their second half of the season off in the right way against Chapeltown in North Div 1. Leeds dominated from the start and should have been one nil up after Chris Miller squared a pass to Dean Edwards past the GK, only for Deano to miss the ball and kick it! However, within minutes, Leeds won their first and only penalty corner of the match and duly scored. After the initial shot was blocked, a half volley fell to Andy “Dogger” Rudd who dispatched a beautiful forward drive into the net.

Leeds went quickly two nil up in a move mirroring Deano’s earlier miss, the key difference being that Deano duly scored and put the previous attempt out of his mind.  Chapeltown then had a flurry of penalty corners themselves and finally scored from an effort that bobbled around the circle.

Undeterred by this minor setback, Leeds quickly restored their two goal advantage within a minute. A shot from the edge of the area was deflected in by 18 yr old Michan McKeown who was on hand making the goal wide to deflect the ball into the roof of the goal past the GK.

The second half was a fairly poor encounter. Both teams created chances but the turnover ratio went up and both teams seemed content on playing ping pong with possession.

Lewis Butcher, coach said, “I was very pleased with the first half, our play replicated our game plan and our press worked very efficiently. However, the second half performance was not the type of hockey that we are practising and against a more clinical opposition, we could have been punished for our incredibly cheap turnover. Fortunately, Chapeltown did not appear to want to keep the ball either and in the end, 3 points were deserved and will go a long way to helping us achieve our outcome goals for the season.”

Sadly Leeds 2s were outplayed by table topping Hull, who won 4-0 in Yorkshire Div 1.

Leeds 3s clinched a tightly fought game away to Doncaster with a last minute winner in Div 3. Leeds opened brightly and created numerous chances in the first half before Andy Harkins got Leeds' opening goal. With the score tied at 1 -1 Leeds continued to create chances and defended well against attacks from Doncaster in an increasingly open game. Leeds continued to press and in the dying minutes of the game Fetch put away a goal to seal victory and maintain second place in the league. Joint man of the match went to Nick Webb and Adam Foster.

In Division 4, Leeds 4s extended their winning streak to 6 weeks, with a deserved 3-2 victory over Doncaster at an unusually unsandy Lee Lane East Arena. Leeds took the lead with one of their first attacks, a nice quick flowing move from Right-Back to Right-Mid to Right-Wing, who crossed for Centre-Forward to score (Hugh Wood), textbook stuff. Donny got a goal back to make it all square at half-time. The opposition then took the lead 10 minutes into the second half with, to be fair, a well worked goal. The 4th Team heads did not drop however, as they responded immediately by taking the game straight down the middle of the pitch for Hugh Wood to supply another good finish. The winner was much like Leeds first goal - a quick break down the right - this time with Rich Davies covering a lot of ground to slot at the left post. The scoreline could have been greater in Leeds favour with a few chances missed, but on the whole it was a strong team effort for the first game back after the very long Christmas break. Man of the Match votes were spread out across the team but the award went jointly to Jon Houldsworth and Hugh Wood. The other award of the afternoon was more clear-cut as Phil "Bathtime" Buckle declared that the showers at Horsforth were not good enough for the likes of him, and he would meet us at the Weetwood bar later, after carrying out his ablutions at home. Rumours that he has just had a tattoo of Jon's name are completely unfounded...

In Division 7 Leeds 5s travelled to Lincoln Roses for probably their toughest game remaining of the season. Push back was delayed by earlier games over-running - and not by Vince getting stuck in the McDonalds car park in Xscape on the way and leaving his wallet on the roof. If we had done a Dick of the Day vote I wonder who it would've been?!
 
The home team started strongly and were two goals up after 15 minutes. Leeds fought back valiantly, with two excellent short corner strikes from Vince Brown and Kallum Greenwood. Roses were a quality side though, and were tearing apart the visiting midfield and defence and creating many shots only goal, only to be thwarted on numerous occasions by Patrick Hall.
 
Into the second half and the home team took the lead again, but Leeds dug deep and drew level at 3-3 with a great finish from Alec Foxall under pressure on one of our few attacking forays into the opposition D. The home team pulled away in the last ten minutes with two more strikes, their creative midfielder pulling the strings and Leeds legs tiring, a situation not helped by five different player picking up injuries.
 
In div 8, Leeds 6s took the lead against Huddersfield from a short corner after the ball broke to John Moriarty at the right hand top of the D. Bang - into the bottom corner.  Chris Hutchison then forced another one home as Leeds made a commanding start to the game. Huddersfield were well organised however, forcing two goals back and gradually coming into the game, as their experienced positional play worked well to counter against the strong running and dribbling of the Leeds team. In the dying minutes, Leeds resistance or concentration finally waned, and Huddersfield scored the winner after a fast break with the final touch of the game. Absolute shocker! 

Finally, In division 9, Leeds 7s lost to Lincoln Roses 4th team 5 goals to 1 goal. Rod, Vish and Jack were back after Christmas and Phil Dubb was back in town. Gary and Jim were guesting, Matt joined us and Arum played his second game. Eight changes in all did not bode well against the second team in the league.  Leeds started well and pressed Lincoln but without creating chances. The young Lincoln players did not take long to take advantage of their fitness and penetrated the Leeds D. Charles got drawn out of position for an easy goal and was too slow to react to a through ball that was diverted past him.

Leeds put in plenty of effort, but attackers were well marked. Leeds resorted to long passes and dribbles. These broke down and Lincoln came back with strength and speed. Leeds got through a few times, but the Lincoln keeper closed down attackers well.
 
Lincoln pressure created more chances. A hard hit at goal was diverted past the keeper near to the post. Another two goals came from poor marking, including a slick three-player move pushed in at the post. The keeper saved a high flick over the bar off his wrist and diverted a high screamer past the post. Leeds got a consolation goal with a follow up by new player, Matt, from a shot by Jim. Lincoln were worthy runaway winners and it is difficult to play well against a young well organised fit team.
Women's section

Women's section

Leeds 1s drew 1-1 against Wakefield in Yorkshire Prem. One up until the last 10mins thanks to Alice Roscoe, captain Cat Reed still praised the performance saying “This was a good match considering we’ve not played together for 6 weeks.  We probably deserved to win after creating more so it was a shame we couldn’t convert more chances.”

In Div 1, Leeds 2s battled hard against the Bingley Bees 1st team on Saturday, bu unfortunately lost the game 2-1. It was a well fought match, with captain Ash Swindells equalising before half time scoring her first goal for Leeds, ending her dry spell.  With only 11 players everyone enjoyed the run around and put 110% effort. There was a dubious decision to give bingley Bees a penalty flick, which they scored to make it 2-1. Rosie Baker our youngest player got Man of the Match. 

In DIv 3, Leeds 3s drew 3 apiece with Bingley Bees 2s at Horsforth. Leeds took a while to get into the game, and before long leeds were down 2-0 however heads stayed up and Leeds fought back hard to equalise, goal scorers were mary stead and izzy pickles. mid second half bingley bees scored again, but leeds remained determined and focused and Mary Stead scored her second goal of the game. Leeds defended well and fought consistently - good resilient performance by everyone.

Finally in Div 5, Leeds 4s lost 5-0 to Hudderfield K Ladies 1s in a match where everyone tried really hard despite the long Christmas break showing we had lost quite a bit of fitness. Huddersfield K had a lot of chances but a strong defence stopped what could have been several more goals. We had several breaks in the second half and some shots on goal but struggled to score. Man of the match was Vicki Lui who played in every position possible with some shots on goal as a forward and clearing a shot from the line in defence.