Marlow’s Men’s first team enjoyed their weekend more than their female counterparts, consolidating their position near the top of the England Hockey West Conference, while the Women dropped a place to seventh, with some work to do in the last two weeks of the season to finally put fears of relegation to bed.

The women came off second best on Saturday, losing 3-0 to high-flying Trojans, a scoreline which didn’t reflect a closely fought game. Trojans first goal came in the first quarter from a rasping shot from a narrow angle from the prolific Amy Sheehan, while for Marlow, similar efforts from Caroline Richard and Lottie Porter flew narrowly wide. Trojans sneaked in a second before half time, from a passage of play which included a crucial back-stick pass which the umpires didn’t spot.

From 2-0 down, Marlow pressed hard in the second half, winning multiple penalty corners which came to nothing. The closest they came to scoring was when Lottie Porter beat the Trojans goalkeeper with a bullet strike, only for a Trojans defender to somehow effect a clearance. At the other end, Alys Ramm made several good saves to keep the deficit at two, and by the final quarter it was clear it wouldn’t be Marlow’s day. A third goal for Trojans in the final minutes sealed the deal.

Results elsewhere saw Marlow slipping from sixth to seventh in the ten team league, and needing a win at home against Slough, currently in ninth place, to make certain of retaining their place in the league for next season.

Marlow Men enjoyed a thumping victory at home on Sunday. In a match of second versus fourth, the reds ran out 5-1 winners, to retain faint hopes of promotion, but more realistically, leaving them in pole position to secure the runners-up spot, five points clear of third place Chichester with two matches left.

Marlow were fast out of the blocks, scoring twice from open play in the first quarter, first through Josh Morgans and then - with an improvised finish which drew applause from the crowd - Jayden Zammler.
Zamler scored a third mid-way through the second quarter, and the half time score of 3-0 by no means flattered the home side.

As is so often the case with such scorelines, the winning team can struggle to maintain their intensity, amd so it proved for Marlow, Ashmoor scoring from a rare penalty corner. Any hopes of a comeback fror the team from Devon were snuffed out in the final quarter with two comprehensive penalty corner conversions, first by captain Sam North, and then by Tom McKinlay.

Both Marlow teams play their final home games of the season this weekend, and both will be intending to sign off with a flourish.

Saturday was quite the day for the club as a whole, with fourteen wins from fifteen matches, the most notable of which were perhaps the W5’s 3-1 win away against Maidenhead 4s, a result which secured them the league title, and the M3’s 2-1 win against Wycombe first team, which leaves them needing just a point to do the same. On Sunday, the U12 boys A team beat the Marlow B team to secure the County Cup, while the U12 girls fell narrowly short, losing their final 1-0 to Amersham and Chalfont but qualifying nonetheless for the regional finals.

Josh Morgans, scorer of Marlow M1s opening goal on Sunday.
Picture courtesy of @GMWSportPhoto