Chesterfield's 2nd and 3rd teams faced each other in a league match for the 2nd time this season at St Mary's on Saturday 10th February.

The 2s are currently on an unbeaten run since the start of 2024, and looked reinvigorated since the Christmas break. The 3s have recently found their feet in the league and have moulded themselves into a hard to beat team, with a blend of youth and experience.

Despite a 6-0 scoreline in favour of the 2s, the game was keenly contested and the 2s were kept out for long periods of the game. They eventually broke the deadlock after 20 minutes through Kara Perry-Mason and followed five minutes later by a penalty flick from Abi Grocutt. At half time the 3s had a challenge ahead of them, however an injury to Simone Towndrow after XX minutes meant the 3s had to battle on with 10 players. They eventually succombed, and conceded a further 4 goals in the second half, with two goals each for Claire Hamilton-Cruse and Abi Lawson.

2s captain Emma Chapman has this to say about the game "The scoreline does not show how competitive the game was, and the 3rd XI acquited themselves well throughout. The game was played with an excellent spirit between the two sides with no fewer than six under 16s on display".

Pictured below - 2s skipper, Emma Chapman

Emma Mycroft, the 3s captain was pleased with her team's performance "It was a nice and relaxed game, with a totally different feel from last season. We did go down to 10 players in the second half which didn’t help along with tiredness meaning it was an uphill battle. But on the positives, we kept it at 0-0 for about 20-25mins of the first half and we had 3-4 attempts on goal too. Overall a great game and performance!"

Pictured below - 3s captain, Emma Mycroft

Coach for the Women's 2s and 3s, Callum Taylor, was pitchside to watch the action and he said this "I was proud of how all the players were with each other and how together they were, despite being against each other. I've seen interclub games before at Chesterfield and even other clubs and they don’t have any where near that amount of respect for each other that was on show today.The real winner this weekend was the game of Hockey and Chesterfield Hockey Club'.

Next Saturday both the 2s and 3s are back in action. The 2s face top of the table, Leopold HC, in the 10am fixture at St Mary's. Whilst the 3s are playing away against Chapeltown 2s. As if that wasn't enough, the 2s are then playing again, this time against Dronfield Ladies who are 2nd in the table.

#evergreen