Caledonia Dreaming or Ian38018 Sporting Travels: Hockey

Friday, 1 August 2014

Hockey - Glasgow2014

Baljit Singh Charun Singh of Malaysia

31^st July 2014

England 3-1 Canada

New Zealand 6-1 Malaysia

Having purchased my hockey brief during the first round of ticket sales I was really rather pleased to discover, when the draw was made some months later, that I had bagged a session featuring two of the favourites: England and New Zealand. Unfortunately these were each country’s final group games, and both had already qualified for the semi-final stage, which contributed to a pair of particularly one-sided encounters.

But it was entertaining enough, with the highlights being the brace of thumping penalty-corner goals scored first by Ashley Jackson of England, and then by Canadian Scott Tupper during the first match.

Glasgow National Hockey Centre.

England's Phil Roper has a splash at goal.

Mark Gleghorne and Henry Weir out-muscle a Canadian opponent.

Mark Gleghorne shoots for goal.

Ashley Jackson's shot beats Canadian goalkeeper David Carter to put England 3-0 ahead.

Following a penalty corner Scott Tupper scored Canada's consolation in the closing minutes.

New Zealand v Malaysia - Glasgow 2014

We later saw Malaysian number 9 Meor Hassan take a ball hit at full force square in the throat. I was sure a short trip up Saltmarket to Glasgow Royal Infirmary was in the offing, but after a shake of the head and a brief pause to re-catch his breath, the hardy little chap galloped back into the fray.

I also enjoyed a brief contretemps with one of the venue stewards. On two occasions during the session the heavens opened soaking all below. At the onset of the first downpour many spectators, quite understandably, reached for their brollys, but swift as rats out a sewer appeared a pair a youthful stewards who scurried around ordering folks: “Brollys down, the people behind you cannot see”. Which I thought was fair enough,

Later, when it became apparent from the leaden-skies a second downpour was imminent I migrated to one of the many vacant seats in the top row of the stand. Cue rain, cue my brolly, cue officious little fifteen-year-old old steward telling me to put brolly down. "But there is no-one behind me", I countered, to no avail. So whilst he sheltered bone-dry inside his little entry tunnel, I and few thousands others were treated to right-good Scottish soaking.

But my real gripe of the day was the fact I had been able to move my seat at all. For, as with the hockey at London2012, there were empty seats here, there and everywhere; despite their being, apparently, no tickets available for this or the next session.

I had been dropping onto the tickets website for weeks hoping tickets for the following session when Scotland would be playing may become available. But to no avail, and it irked me to leave the venue this morning knowing Scotland’s match with Australia in the afternoon would, in all probability, be played to the now traditional plethora of bum-free seats.

TV pictures later showed this indeed to be the case.

Grrrr!