After 700 minutes of Hockey Slough 3s finally secure a well deserved win. The signs of improvement were there developing week by week as the confidence grew and finally 3 points were secured!

Before the game Slough were confident that they could take points from this fixture and it just needed to be put it into practice. Slough started with high confidence and generally did not give Ashford a meaningful attack for the first 20 minutes with solid defence by all the defence, especially Taranjit Singh and Sam Watkins. Watkins, in particular, has really developed in to his defensive role over the past few weeks with his positioning causing attackers to rush and make mistakes and by becoming more aggressive in the tackle starting to win balls AND make good, solid safe passes to remove the danger. The defence was ably assisted in this by a midfield of Surjit Sandhu, Arunjot Singh and Ravinder Laly. Sandhu and Singh provided the graft while Laly provided the guile and distribution. This fed the Pace of Andre Monserrate and Rob Popplewell who revelled in a number of chances.

It was Ashford who opened the scoring somewhat out of the blue when a stick block was adjudged to actually be a stick tackle and Ashford scored from the resultant corner. Then Laly and Monserrate almost equalised both narrowly missing until Rob Popplewell finally scored under dubious circumstances. A Laly corner was directed goalwards and saved on the line but lifted high towards Popplewell (which should have been a Slough corner). But in a Move reminiscent of the Argentinian Masestro, the "Hand of Popplewell" was struck, the umpires missed it, the ball dropped kindly at Popplewell's stick and he flicked it home from a narrow angle. 1-1

At half time, team talks were somewhat interrupted by an argument between the umpires but when they had finally calmed down thje second period began. Slough continued where they left off continuing to press and with Laly bamboozling the Ashford defense any time there was a set piece close to the D. In fact any free hit from 5 yards was a dead cert corner. However these were difficult to conver being as the setting sun had decided that its horizon ward trajectory would place itself right behind the injection point.Eventually however after some amazing defensive saves by Ashford, a Laly shot rebounded from the keeper straight to Steve Dixon who pushed it in via an Ashford Leg to make it 2-1.

Slough then let Ashford equalise rather quickly when earlier season maladies raised their heads. Following an attack the midfield failed to delay the Ashford counter and when Dixon was drawn in to a tackle on the 25 and then bypassed with a pass, Watkins was left 1 on 1 with the Ashford Striker. The forward collected the ball and managed to pull off a reverse stick strike for a goal even though he was closely marked. Another one to put down to experience!

Slough did not give up however and managed to secure some more corners and eventually Ashford's extremely brave near suicidal diving in front of the ball secured Slough a stroke, expertly dispatched by Laly to secure his Man of the Match. Slough then attempted to waste time (successfully), however the end of the game and Slough's celebration was somewhat soured by incidents after the final whistle including a red card for an Ashford player. However Slough were jublient to secure their first victory.