Back after a week’s break, all teams in the Hong Kong Hockey Association men’s Premier Division were scheduled to play last Saturday Nov 9. However, Punjab-A eager to display their three newly acquired Olympians were kept on tenterhooks as their opponents, the division’s newly elevated KNS-A, could not raise a team. This gave Punjab a walkover and the 3-points.
Khalsa had a comfortable win over HKFC-B winning 8-1, but the Club-B side did well to keep the score down to this total and also had some success in the goal scoring department by pulling back a consolation goal towards the end of the game, much to the appreciation of their fans. Ahmed Ewis did not have his usual sparkling game missing a few drag flicks from penalty corners and one wonders if he is going off-the-boil.
In the first match of the day played at Football Club (Sports Road) HKFC-A took on Shaheen-A, who this season have been denting the pride of some of the big boys and are currently in fifth place in the standings.
Club-A had quite a wake-up call early in the match as Sheheen-A had several penalty corners awarded to them for infringements inside the 22. And then finally Shaheen-A were awarded a penalty stroke, which Arif Ali slotted home to put them in the lead 1-0.
Club gradually picked up the pieces, but still had severe difficulties retaining possession due to quick attacking by the visiting team. After getting two goals in fairly quick succession, Club-A became somewhat more composed, winning the encounter 5-1 to keep them at the top of the standings. The key difference in the match was in the goal scoring department.
Meanwhile, Valley-A had an excellent match against KCC-A in the early fixture of the day played at Happy Valley (HV1) and won the encounter 4-1. KCC are still trying to regroup after losing two of their best players to Khalsa at the start of the season, but it was a good win for Valley keeping them in sixth place.
Pak-A playing SSSC-B notched up their first win of the season winning a closely fought game 4-3, while SSSC-A had comfortable 4-0 victory over Elite-A.
This Weekend
With a full program of Premier Division matches planned for the coming weekend, many people in Hong Kong Hockey are eagerly awaiting the match between Khalsa-A and Punjab-A, a clash of the titans to be played at Happy Valley on Sunday Nov 17.
As well as Punjab bringing in top line internationals, Khalsa has also added another one or two new players to their squad. With Punjab on equal points (15) with HKFC-A at the top of the standings and Khalsa just two points behind caused by their draw with Shaheen-A earlier in the season, it will mean a place at the top or dropping behind the current leaders. HKFC-A are expected to win their match against a reduced strength KCC-A.
This should be a big occasion and many supporters are likely to turn up, but they will be disappointed not to have the luxury of seating as they did at Kings Park. The Valley ground only has three small stands for seating and this match may show the inadequacy of these facilities.
