Hockey: Loughtonians flourish indoors

OLD LOUGHTONIANS gave notice of their intent of regaining their national indoor title with a powerful display of aggressive hockey as they strolled to a comprehensive Premier Holidays East Super League victory at Aldenham School over the weekend.

As their coach, captain and manager, the Scottish international Colin Hector, said: "Realistically, indoors is the only chance of us winning a title this year and we intend to go for it." The signing of Guildford's player-coach Ian Jennings, who for more than a decade has had a successful indoor career with St Albans, will help their chances and certainly improve their penalty corner conversion rate.

The surprise team of the event was Dunton Engineering who started with a shock 8-6 win against St Albans and finished in second place behind the Old Boys. They owed their success to two Southgate players, Pietro Attalla, who scored most of the goals, and Kwandane Browne, who captained Trinidad at the Commonwealth Games.

Eiko Rott, Southgate's German striker, dominated the South championship with his club qualifying along with West London Institute for the national rounds. Yeovil & Sherborne and Firebrands were the two West qualifiers.

Norton, with a 100 per cent record, won the North qualifier with second- placed Hull also going through to the preliminary rounds of the national competition.

The DTZ Midland competition was abandoned when a goalkeeper in the Olton & West Warwick game against Stourport at the Perdiswell Centre died a few minutes after admission to the Worcester Hospital.