Hockey: Billson breaks the ice: Victory causes concern for Teddington

TEDDINGTON opened their European campaign with a useful 4-1 win against Ireland's Lisnagarvey in the European Cup-Winners' Cup competition here yesterday but will be concerned at some of their indisciplined play at the back and the easy way they conceded a string of penalty corners, writes Bill Colwill from Terrassa, Spain. Fortunately, the Irish, without their injured captain Jimmy Kirkwood, lacked a corner drill to worry Teddington.

Andy Billson gave the London side a splendid start, winning a penalty corner in the opening minute, which he converted with a stinging shot. With Peter Gibbins showing great pace on Teddington's right wing, the Irish defence was put under considerable pressure in the opening spell and it was no surprise when Gibbins, latching on to a long ball out of defence from Tony Colclough, set up Russell Benzies for the second after seven minutes.

A couple of minutes later Billson hit the post at another penalty corner before carelessness crept into Teddington's play and they had to weather a series of Irish penalty corners shortly before half-time.

With Simon Nicklin marshalling the defence after the interval, Teddington regained the initiative, Phil McGuire increasing their lead with a well-struck penalty corner after 10 minutes. Reduced to 10 men following the inexplicable suspension of Jon Hauck, Teddington allowed John Gray to take advantage of poor defending to pull a goal back.

With two minutes remaining, Jason Laslett collected the ball from from Clive Camburn and swept through to complete the scoreline.

The host club, Atletic Terrassa, got off to a good start with a 6-1 win against Ekaterinburg from Russia.

Teddington: G Meredith; P McGuire; J Wallis, S Nicklin, A Colclough; J Hauck, J Laslett (capt), T Moore; P Gibbins, R Benzies, A Billson. Substitutes used: C Camburn, S Blan.

Lisnagarvey: R Geddis (capt); N McNellis; C McGruggan, A Dowd, P Pim; D Clarke, G Boomer, R Taylor; P Richardson, J Stevenson, J Gray. Substitute used: G Lavery.

Umpires: G Langle (Fr) and J Rommel (Ger).