URN

Midway through the cold Friday afternoon that was 11th March, Nottingham Trent University were leading the 2011 Varsity series 4-1. Come the next Friday evening, the men and women of the University of Nottingham had completely turned the championship around and led 5-4. Building on the successes of the Netball and Men’s Basketball, however close those results were, victory in both the Men’s and Women’s Hockey would result in Uni leading the series for the first time this year.

As the afternoon turned into evening after the Women's Hockey team securing a valuable Varsity point for Uni, the Beeston Hockey stadium began to get busier, despite the drop in temperature. The PA system started blaring out motivational tunes, such as Rocky, in an attempt to create an atmosphere of tension inside Beeston Hockey Club. Both teams were out on the pitch long before the push back, putting in some last minute training and sizing each other up. When the umpire blew his whistle to begin the game, there was a great roar from the spectators, as they looked forward to a cracking game of hockey.

The Women’s Varsity Hockey pushed back in glorious sunshine at half past three in front of a decent-sized crowd for a lazy Friday afternoon. Trent dominated the opening exchanges, looking dangerous on several occasions but it was Uni that struck first on 18 minutes, after some lovely build-up play sliced through the Trent defence and a perfect cross from the right wing resulted in a delicate lob over the hopeless Trent keeper. 1-0 to Uni and with that, the dynamic of the game completely changed, with the girls in green now controlling the play.

For the rest of the half, Uni remained in charge, but were guilty of over-playing and not testing the Trent goaltender enough, leading to much frustration amongst the spectators. However, the girls in white and pink still looked very dangerous on the counter-attack, but their shooting consistently let them down despite working several good breaks. With the score line still close at the end of the 35 minutes, it was anybody’s game.

England vs France – Wednesday 17th November 2010 at Wembley Stadium.

Exclusively for URN, Louis Cotgrove reports on the England vs. France friendly international, which can only be described as a waste of 20 quid.

Passion, commitment, desire, enjoyment, entertainment. These five words can be applied to any England national team, except perhaps football. The players seemed to merely pay lip service to the honour of representing one’s country in a sporting medium. The defence was shoddy, the midfield lacklustre, the attack limited. When I told people, I was at the England game, the responses were all the same, “Commiserations”, “I turned it over halfway through”, “They are [awful], why [on earth] would you go to see them play?” I wish I could disagree…

URN Sport’s Louis Cotgrove reports on the Nottingham Forest vs. Coventry City match in the Npower Championship on Tuesday 9th November 2010.