Hornby Soccer League:

It was great to see the young ones at the photos evening at the Hornby Working Mens' Club in the new playing shirts donated by our fantastic sponsors (Action Indoor Sports, Brick Tech Ltd, Hei Hei Health Centre, Paper Plus - Hornby/South City, R. P. Novara-Dave Ltd and XCM Group Ltd. The future of our club lies with these boys and girls, but with Gary among them the future is in good hands.

Juniors:

Two tough weeks for our 10th Grade B's found the second half much tougher than the first as we fell 0-4 to Halswell and 0-5 to Rolleston, although each of these results were much better than when we faced these teams in the opening rounds.

Back to back 0-6 losses does not do justice for the work and effort put in by our 10A's. With only a couple of weeks of the season left, these players will be looking to end on a high and show their development before moving to the competitive grades next year.

With a resounding 5-0 win last week not quiet enough to close the goal difference and only gaining third place on the table, the going was equally tough this week as our 11th Grade team played in the knockout's.  Great defensive work from both teams saw the match decided on penalties with a 6-3 result eventually listed.

The 12th Grade team also played knock-outs this week, having lost their last league match 4-10 against the division winning FC2011 team, we were paired against the same opposition for the second week in a row and came up short again with a 2-6 defeat with our lot showing a steely resolve to never give up in each of these fixtures.

Desperate to get back to winning ways, and climb the table, our 13th Grade team put in a gritty performance to come away with a 3-2 win over CTFC and backed it up this week with a resounding 5-1 win, including a well taken penalty (not an easy thing on Owen Mitchell), over the higher ranked (and the coach's old club) Papanui-Redwood team perhaps indicating who would have won Div4 in the first half of the season had this fixture been played.  With one week left, fourth is the realistic goal and if other matches go our way third place could be on offer.

14th Grade were once again on the wrong end of lopsided score boards as they went down 7-0 to Boys' High and an adjusted 1-8 to Western, with Curtis sticking to the coaches' game plan and young Jordan showing maturity beyond his years.  With yet another early morning in store for the final match of the season (another away trip to Amberley), the book can be closed on what has been an extremely difficult year for this hard working team.

A 0-3 loss to table topping St Bedes and a 2-2 draw with Nomads means our 15th Grade team can realistically only hope to finish as high as fifth, unless results go their way.  The final match of the season against sixth placed Halswell will be decisive.

Our 18th Grade Girls were looking to continue their run of strong results, and a 4 all draw with Coastal Spirit again showed we can foot it with the best clubs in Christchurch.  This was undone as we crashed to a disappointing 0-4 defeat to FC2011, a loss that will see us struggle to finish in the top half of this competition.

Seniors:

Looking to back up their strong showing in the first match of the cup competition, our Presidents team fell 1-4 to Coastal Spirit and then 1-3 to Nomads.  The latter game included a back five with 256 years of dribbling experience, Robbo being awesome, Boris being angry, and President Brett being deadly 6 (or was that 60?) yards out from goal.  We now travel out to Ellesmere in the battle for the wooden spoon.

Div6 was also keen to continue their good work in the cup rounds, but was undone by some dubious decisions as we went down to Papanui-Redwood by 1-4.  In this week's fixture against an emotionally charged Burnham outfit, a minutes silence was observed for the two soldiers killed while serving in Afghanistan during the week, with the two teams unable to be separated at the end resulting in a 2-2 draw thanks largely to some heroic defending from our lads.  A road trip to Ashburton awaits and another battle for timber stirrers.

Having gotten the better of FC2011 for the first time this year our div5 lads were relishing the prospect of facing Mid-Canterbury knowing their poor record on our turf, unfortunately our lads failed to front and were punished 0-5 gifting the Easterners their first win on Warren Park for over 4 years and the chance to repeat the feat in the finals.  For this week's match, a much improved performance earned a 2-0 win over Methven and the prospect of facing Rolleston at Brookside for the bronze medal.

Div2 were keen to make their cup competition interesting, and the 1-1 draw with Universities meant a win over Christchurch United (a team that got the better of us at the last time of asking) would be needed to secure another finals appearance at our beloved Warren Park.  The 4-2 result included a hat-trick for Paj, but nothing for coach Granddad who once again failed to score from the spot against the Blues.  We face Parklands in the final at Warren Park with a 2:30pm kick-off and urge all club members and supporters to come down and support the boys as we look to win a fourth consecutive cup on home soil.