Saturday 16th of September marked the much anticipated start of the hockey season for Luton men’s 1s who hosted Shefford and Sandy men’s 1s. With new coach Grant Homan at the wheel and the return of the best Whitehall (not a hard achievement) to ever grace the red jersey of Luton hockey club, expectations of a successful season for the team were ringing around the club leading to a sell out crowed being in attendance.

As the clock struck 11am the umpires blew the whistle and the season was underway. With expectations high, it would have been thought that surely the Luton players would supply their best performance. Sadly within the opening moments Mickey Crowson, a World Cup silver medalist, a medal he will happily show you at any time if he is not tucked up at night cuddling it, did not get the memo and decided to do some uncharacteristic stray passes to the men in black. Luckily for Luton they quickly found their feet and started dominating possession and taking a firm hold on the game. This annoyed the travelling players causing a few of their team to pick up unnecessary cards, with the first of the season going to the Shefford full back who was more . Luton took full advantage of their dominant start. Having the hardest drag flick ever recorded in the east region of England it was only understandable that it was believed that the first drag flick of the game would go to Kieran Whitehall, but due to his selfless nature he gave the opportunity to David Pike who slotted the ball into the bottom left corner. A second quickly followed after Dan Shearer found himself with an open goal. Despite having the entire target to aim at he wanted to prove why he is the only Shearer to be graced with club 1st team level hockey and fired it into the bottom corner. What a return to the club after some time away. Next the inevitable happened, the crowd got their wish and Kieran Whitehall slotted home Luton’s third. It was written in the stars that he would score but no one could believe the quality of the goal which only a player of a certain caliber could even think about, let alone pull off. Whilst on the baseline at the smallest angle Kieran saw the keeper take a small step off his line and fired a rocket of a slap shot through a gap which was as tight as a nun’s….. hair comb. After the addition of Whitehall to the side Luton clearly were spurred on going into halftime 3-0 up.

The second half got underway and Shefford came out looking like a new side. During the break they must have been given a team talk to rival anything ever given by Alex Ferguson, or given some of Lance Armstrong’s special medication. Luton were now in a contest. Two goals from Sandy brought the score line to 3-2 and meant the game was now in the balance. Sadly for Shefford, late in the tie Luton were given a short corner, after their keeper turned into Bilbo Baggins and went on an adventure kicking the ball in a postcode which was different to his D. Mickey Crowson capitalised on the opportunity putting the game to bed.

The full time score was 4-2, rounding off a successful first day of the season for Luton. Luton will now look to kick on from this result and prove to the league why they are a title challenging side.

D.O.D went to Kieran Whitehall after he got more yellow cards than he has thumbs.

M.O.T.M was awarded to Dan Crimp who made some vital last ditch tackles to irradiate any Shefford break aways.