Hockey: Taylor masterminds theft

Army. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

Civil Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

IF GAMES were decided on territorial advantage the Army would have won handsomely at Aldershot yesterday. Rarely can a final score have been so blatant an injustice to the losers.

The previous day the Civil Service had beaten the Navy 1-0, having dominated the game. But they stole this one, taking advantage of a generous penalty stroke award and a second goal which will not have pleased Jon Williams, in the soldiers' goal, who appeared to let the ball through his legs.

In the early exploratory stages of the game the players contrived to find a variety of ways of presenting the ball to their opponents and it was very much against the run of play in the 31st minute that the Civil Service took the lead. Simon Hazlitt was alleged to have interfered with Mike Hannon's stick and Jon Taylor stepped up to convert the resulting penalty stroke.

Two minutes after the break the Civil Service struck again - Taylor sending Nigel D'Cruz away down the right for him to score from a narrow angle with a shot which seemed to take Williams by surprise. From then on it was virtually one-way traffic but the Army were unable to pierce the defence, wasting 12 penalty corner strikes.

The Army's experiment of playing Hazlitt as sweeper met with only limited success. His tendency to wander left gaps in their ranks of which the Civil Service failed to take advantage.

The soldiers badly need a general and will be hoping that the arrival of Major Ian Jolly from Germany next week for the Inter- Services campaign will fill that role. They will need also to put their corner drill under close scrutiny if they are to retain the championship.

ARMY: Capt J Williams; Capt S Hazlitt; Cpl D Antonelli, Capt R Mercer, Capt J Free; 2Lt M Way, S/Sgt I Jennings, L/Bdr I Gall; Cpl S Greenwood, S/Sgt F Miller, L/Cpl R Burton.

CIVIL SERVICE: G Wayland (Brean); R Jones (Winchester); E Vickery (Old Kingstonians), A Craddock (Cannock), R West (Winchester); M Hannon (Swansea), N D'Cruz (Lyons), H Cole (Blackheath); C Slatcher (St Neots), J Taylor (Stirling), I Brown (Springfields).

Umpires: Lt A Porter (CSHUA) and K Mathews (SCHUA).