GKTHC Alumni Newsletter DECEMBER 2013

F O R E W O R D F R O M T H E C L U B C A P T A I N

F e r g u s S t u c l e y C l a r a b u t C a t m u r I n t h i s N e w s l e t t e r :

H o c k e y C l u b

S O C I A L

E v e n t s

R e p o r t s

2

A L U M N I

E v e n t s

R e p o r t s

5

T E A M

M i d - S e a s o n

R e p o r t s

7

1 s t X I 7

2 n d X I 9

3 r d X I 9

M i x e d X I 1 1

. . . Y O U R A L U M N I S E C R E T A R I E S . . .

R y o k i A r i m o t o & T h e o M u t h

Myself and Theo have been very grateful of

the support and pro-activeness of the Alumni

this year, as it has hugely facilitated our job

being more aware of what the Alumni desire

and are looking for from the current GKTHC...!

Thank you (^^.

The KCLA games were dominated by GKT

this year and the report of that can be read in

this newsletter—it’s a great read. Also we suc-

cessfully hosted the first GKT ALUMNI WEEK-

END half way through our season in Decem-

ber consisting of an “Alumni Pubcrawl” and an

“Alumni Day” filled with plenty of hockey. The

remarks we have received for this have been

great and I am very glad the alumni were able

to reminisce on their days at GKT and feel

part of the club again by literally doing what

they did on a “Wednesday”..! A more formal

report of the weekend can be read further in

this newsletter. We hope this new tradition will

carry on for the coming years and please keep

in touch with us via [email protected]..!

We hope you enjoy the Newsletter & have a

Wonderful Christmas!

Ryo & Theo

Gu

y’s

, k

ing

’s &

St.

Th

om

as

’ H

os

pit

als

Ho

ck

ey C

lub

D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 3

G K T H o c k e y C l u b

GKT Hockey Club

ALUMNI Newsletter

Seasons greetings,

I hope this newsletter finds

you well and you’re excited

for the festive period.

These pages can only

contain a small snapshot

of life at GKT Hockey and I

hope you enjoy them as

much as I have enjoyed

this term - thanks to all our

contributors.

The season began with a difference this year.

We felt a change was needed for trials. So we

mixed it up a bit. Hockey Trials before

Fresher’s Trials. And serious hockey trials?! It

was a risk, but we reaped the rewards when

one hundred excitable freshers descended on

Fortress HOP one Sunday. Most of these play-

ers returned for the infamous Fresher’s Trials

the following week. I’m sure you remember

yours fondly, or perhaps not. This year they did

not disappoint. A special note of achievement

for the social secretaries, who managed to

‘cock-block’ the entire Fresher cohort in one

fell swoop - I’m sure they will elaborate later in

the newsletter on this marvellous feat.

Talking about social, we have had two hugely

successful tours since September - T.I.T.S.

(Tournament in the South) to Southampton

and Fresher’s tour to Berlin. The classic mix of

alcohol, nudity and “having too much fun” com-

bined for hilarious results. We can confirm that

German doctors still don’t have anything on

the NHS, as one unfortunate fresher discov-

ered. NAMS mixed tour is not long away and

we would love to see you as part of the alumni

team in Norwich.

The new website launched at the end of Au-

gust to mark a new online presence for GKT

Hockey. To see what’s been happening I urge

you to have a look at

www.gkthockeyclub.co.uk. Alterna-

tively, “Like” us on Facebook where regular

updates are posted throughout the season.

Lastly, our recent Alumni Pubcrawl and Day

was a roaring success; thanks to Ryo and

Theo for putting in the ground work and mak-

ing it happen. I am proud to say that the club

continues to thrive - if you weren’t able to

make it back this time, come see us soon.

Don’t be a stranger.

Merry Christmas!!

Ferg

M i n i - n e w s

Freshers’ Tour was to

the furthest location in

History

1st ever Alumni Week-

end in December

1stXI are currently un-

beaten…!

...minions dominating

Guy’s Bar…!?

Mixed team through to

Semifinals of NAMS

League

http://www.gkthockeyclub.co.uk

This year started with a very strong intake

of fresher’s at the Freshers’ Fayre in Sep-

tember. We warmly welcomed them to our

club at fresher’s trials. This was a huge

success as they already had a chance to

mingle at the club trials 3 days earlier. With

much reluctance, they trudged to HOP for

an afternoon of fun and games. Fun was

definitely had (more so by the old boys) and

there were a plethora of games on offer for

the fresher’s to learn the rules and meet the

old boys. One fresher showed his newly

found devotion to our club by shouting at

the King’s boys – just a few yards away –

that “King’s are c***s”. Perhaps the high-

light of the day was the fermented herring;

a Scandinavian delicacy that we felt the

fresher’s just couldn’t miss out on. Old boys

were trembling at the smell; however it did

manage to keep the girls away until 9pm.

After fresher’s trials we held a mixed social

in our brand new clubhouse at HOP, held

after all our teams had played. In atten-

dance was the new Dean for Medical Edu-

cation, who had incidentally, cancelled 3

meetings and taken a £20 taxi to be there.

He then proceeded to buy a £22 pitcher to

be shared around. He might be getting

more invites to our future socials.

We wanted to go big this year for tour so

Berlin it was! Somehow the destination

remained a mystery until we hit Berlin 16

hours after we left London (now that’s what

you call a fun bus!). We met in Guy’s Bar

just after our performance at the circus

(fresher’s were topless clowns, obviously)

and soon departed on our mystical journey.

Funnel in the [channel] tunnel was a per-

sonal highlight and escalated so much that

there was stinky chat about French police

pulling the bus over at the other end. That

would have been awkward seeing as

though we had enforced the rule – no pants

in France. Highlights of the trip included:

tour photo at the Reichstag, ice skating,

curling, German beer on tap (literally), cur-

rywurst, tour snog being rejected by a pros-

titute, head butting the Berlin wall and Bay-

watch at the Berlin wall. In addition to all of

this, we did have to make the obligatory trip

to the A&E department as a fresher needed

to have 10 stitches in his hand, following a

fight with a vodka bottle. The return trip

called for us to rise and shine at the opti-

mistic time of 6am (after most of us re-

turned at 5am from our night out). Everyone

loaded on the bus, ready to go. Quick head

count. 1 short…. Hannes. Not only had he

fallen asleep after he had packed all of his

stuff. He fell asleep in the only place in the

hostel that was hidden from view for a good

20 minutes, lying vertical on a sofa hidden

by the arms. Fortunately the rumours that

he had gone wondering around Berlin look-

ing for food were unfounded. Thankfully we

were all accounted for and headed home

after what was a TOURiffic weekend! The

icing on the cake was hearing cries of ‘I

have never seen Dr Watson down a pint’ on

the channel tunnel back home. See the

TITS round up…

Beaujolais - we can neither confirm or deny

whether this event happened, and even if it

did, we can't say for sure that a fresher

ended up in A&E.

The term came to fruition at the club’s

Christmas Dinner. This year, we thought

GKT deserved a bit of class and so we

booked it at the Southbank pub, The An-

chor. With themes: 1’s – Cavemen (some

more slutty than others), 2’s – Sheiks and

3’s – Minions (they remained very yellow

for a few days after). As highly regarded as

The Anchor is, they forgot to supply cutlery

for our fresher’s and apparently the chef put

far too much pepper on Ozzy’s starter.

All in all we have had an incredibly fun

term, full of frivolities, and we can’t wait for

the second.

Oscar & Dan

S O C I A L D E B A U C H E R Y U P D A T E

S o c i a l s e x : O s c a r B a r n i c k & D a n C u r l e y

F R E S H E R S ’

T O U R

2 0 1 3

B E R L I N


This term has been full of activity and excit-

ing developments regarding the media as-

pect of the club. Abandoning the old Word-

press web page, we migrated to Pitchero

(www.GKThockeyclub.co.uk), which has

functioned as a hub for not only news, infor-

mation and event promotions but as a way

for captains to keep track of their team se-

lections and matches. Every member of the

club now has their own profile page that

shows availabilities, post match statistics

and scope for personalisations. Further-

more, linking all our media outputs

(Facebook, Twitter and the Pitchero home-

page) into one cohesive narrative has

saved considerable time as any updates/

news in one becomes automatically up-

dated in the rest. There's still more to do

regarding media, but for now Happy Xmas

and New Year from the Media manager!

Luan

M E D I A M A N A G E R R E P O R T

L u a n - d o n d a n g

“One fresher

showed his

newly found

devotion to our

club by shouting

at the King’s

boys – just a few

yards away –

that “King’s are

c***s”.”


http://www.gkthockeyclub.co.uk/

2013 saw the biggest TITS turn out ever,

with 40 odd GKTers making the journey

into the wilderness to Southampton. With

the theme being ‘This Is War’ (somewhat

inappropriate for a remembrance Sunday),

GKT chose to honour one of our final years

and selected samurai outfits. In typical Eng-

lish weather the 40 or so assembled in Bol-

land house, each sizing up rival fancy dress

efforts, particularly notable performances

coming from Mark Gabrawi and Charlie

Reeve. Ryo arrived somewhat hung-over

and in what was initially thought to be his

weekend-wear, although this turned out to

be his fancy dress. Spirits were already

high following Wales’ rugby humiliation to

South-Africa, an occurrence that a ginger

final year was left pondering all weekend.

Gin was consumed and our motley crew

departed Guy’s and embarked on to the

TITS FUNBUS! Yes a fun bus to TITS! Un-

fortunately some freshers had yet to get to

grasp the concept of ‘funbus’ and forgot

alcohol, an act that they soon came to re-

gret. The journey under way, GKT did what

GKT does best and proceeded to get

smashed. Most of the journey remains a

hazy mystery to me, although I do remem-

ber something about picking up hitch hikers

and a certain female second year hockey

fresher getting pretty well acquainted with

them…

Despite the untested competence of the

mixed captains, GKT arrived in Southamp-

ton and managed to divide themselves into

host houses, Gaby insisting she be the only

girl in an all boy house. Bedding issues

resolved, GKT hit Southampton, curry was

munched, jaegerbombs were downed, and

somehow most of us found our way to jest-

ers, every bit as disgusting as anticipated.

With many TITS freshers this year, the nov-

elty of the ‘jesticle’ was thoroughly enjoyed,

and photographic evidence would suggest

everyone had fun. Rugby boys (who

seemed to have got lost and ended up on a

hockey tour) Jon Ryves and Scott Eastick

had interesting nights, Jon ‘having a Crate

of beer’ and Scotty demonstrating his tech-

nical skills with a harpoon. Well played.

Andrew Baigey showed that his situational

judgment was not his forte when he de-

cided to bring an unknown hockey girl back

to a room he was sharing with ten men and

then hid her under his duvet for 2 hours.

When asked about her he just said some-

thing about meeting her at Costa? Rich

Cam took the opportunity to introduce his

housemates to an old friend, known by the

alias ‘Dr Watson’. Dr Watson, while a little

shy at first soon came out of his cage, and

proceeded to spend the rest of the week-

end out, eventually and quite sneakily get-

ting well acquainted with pretty much every-

one on TITS.

Sunday saw GKT showing their inner steel,

by being the only team drinking, which lead

to a surprisingly good standard of hockey!

The freshers demonstrated their worth by

getting lost on a naked lap of the pitch, and

the men’s mixed captain found himself in a

sticky situation with his feet well off the

ground. The afternoon saw Bayo discover

why claiming gin indestructibility is a bad

idea, and I’m pretty sure we pissed a lot of

people off. With the night creeping in, GKT

beat a retreat to the Southampton SU pick-

ing up booze on the way, before leaping

back onto the bus and heading back to-

wards civilization. Arrival back in London

saw most make a beeline to Dover Castle,

where those who remained found out rather

too much about each other in an imitation

of ‘would I lie to you’, hosted by Dan

Curley.

Harry

T I T S 2 0 1 3

M i x e d C a p t a i n . : H a r r y C o u l t o n

“…sharing

with ten men

and then hid

her under his

duvet for 2

hours.”


KCL alumni day is the kind of rabble rous-

ing, drum beating event that young institu-

tions with no place in the real history of the

world like to arrange to aggressively assert

their right to exist. Think American Inde-

pendence Day. This year, unlike previ-

ously, the medical school, home of Alumni

dating back 1000 years (most of whom

were unfortunately unable to attend), were

invited to send teams.

For many reasons, rather than turning up

with two teams to play each other, we ar-

rived with 10 men, and promptly challenged

KCL (alumni and students) to put up the

best they had against us in a winner-takes-

all match.

Gauntlet laid down, we promptly retired to

the bar for the age-old warm up of Touch

the Cup. Having lubricated our gastro-

intestinal tracts while our future opposition

were laying down a dominant win against

their own alumni, we took to the grass

pitch, with our 10 man team much divided

by widely different cultural references. Not

helped by the fact that the two freshers

gamely attending were 5 years old when

some members of the alumni were freshers

themselves.

Expecting a thrashing, the

GKT all-starts (sic) set

themselves up for a

counter-attacking game

only to find that very little

countering was required.

Quickly 1-0 up, amongst very dubious but

well-meaning umpiring, the team quickly

found a stride that had not been antici-

pated, so much so that the hamstrings of

the older members could not keep up.

A variety of spectacular goals followed,

while the Kings team were quickly reduced

to potshots and speculative attempts to

make a point, like any good humanities

essay.

The game finished 5-0, and as the better

team were heard to cheer their opposition

in the time-honoured fashion of the English

sportsman, from their vanquished oppo-

nents came barely a squeak.

There have been greater moments in the

rivalry between GKT and Kings, which for

them has been long-running but for us has

only occupied the last 20% of our exis-

tence. But it is hard to think of any in the

last 10 years.

The sight of the tree outside the bar draped

in 'King's sport Forever' t-shirts hanging

forlornly from it's many branches summed

up a day high in both triumph and tragedy,

distributed most unequally between the

teams.

Tom

Despite this, what was nice to see was I,

myself as a final year whilst attempting to

take care of a fresher, was able to catch up

with ‘Mak’ aka Mukunder Patel who was a

final year when I was a fresher..! An equal

age range of 18, 23 and 28…I

would never have dreamt of this

line-up when I joined GKT, to be

honest I cannot believe I’m a

final year already..!

The following day consisted of

three games of Mixed, Men’s and

Ladies’; the score being 4-2, 2-1,

and 3-4 to the Alumni respec-

tively, making the Alumni the

winners of the 1st GKT Alumni

This year we were very pleased to host the

FIRST GKT Alumni Weekend at the begin-

ning of December consisting of a pubcrawl

around the delights of London bridge and

borough high street, followed by an after-

noon of hockey at HOP. A total of 17

Alumni attended, and we feel this is the

most number of Alumni we’ve managed to

gather in a long time..!

The pubcrawl started off to be a very pleas-

ant evening, with some catch up talk over a

beverage or two…however being a GKT

night out, it did not take long for things to

escalate to drinking games and dirty pints—

namely for our token fresher, Geoff who did

suffer some unpleasant consequences.

K C L A G A M E S R E P O R T

A l u m n u s : T o m S i m p s o n

G K T A L U M N I W E E K E N D 2 0 1 3

R y o k i A r i m o t o

“...two freshers

gamely

attending were

5 years old

when some

members of the

alumni were

freshers

themselves.”


Day in history..! Congratulations =) MVPs

for the respective teams were awarded a

bottle of Gordon’s finest Gin, signed by

every player who played in the games. This

is a tradition which had been reinstated by

Vinesh Patel, in the Vinesh Patel Cup we

held over the summer. MVPs for the mixed

game was awarded to Alumnus Mark Shim-

mings for his solidarity in being a brick wall

of stopping every ball which could poten-

tially go past him and fresher Geoffrey Law-

rence showing a fine performance in goal

despite being an eternal Left-back for the

current 1stXI. In the Men’s game these

were awarded to Alumnus Kaanthan Jawa-

har who also captained the Alumni side

with strong intent successfully leading them

to victory over a strong 1stXI side; when he

chucked the aerials every player was

speechless. MVP for the current XI was

awarded to second year med. Student, Dan

Curley for showing some phenomenal pace

and skill up front and scoring the only goal

for the team, despite being the goal keeper

for the 1st XI. In the Ladies’ game MVPs

were awarded to Alumnus, Jess Seymour

and fourth year med student, Grace Isbister

where both players have captained the

ladies 1stXI in the past, and I heard that

there was some furious hockey being

played between the two…they thoroughly

deserved the gin.

Once the games were done on a cold but

dry December afternoon, Dean was very

kind to offer all of us some curry, rice and

chips for a very generous price. I’m pretty

sure everybody enjoyed this seeing as the

food ran out. Also my apologies for forget-

ting to organize the vegetarian option..!

I hope all the Alumni enjoyed their weekend

back at the club, and may I take this oppor-

tunity to thank you all for being so efficient

and cooperative with responding to emails.

It has made myself’s, Theo’s and Grace’s

life very easy when coming to organize

these events. Thank you!! Also I hope this

tradition of a mid-season Alumni weekend

continues as the remarks for this have been

great (…and I myself would be very much

keen to come back for this kind of event

when I graduate…)..!

Finally to finish, this is just a thought which

arose in me…Time flies particularly fast

when you join GKTHC, and I hope some of

you agree with this…However what I can

say with confidence is, GKT Hockey Club is

something which I’ll take pride in no matter

how old I get. The link with the Alumni is

absolutely crucial not just for the Alumni but

also for the current club and the way we

can accomplish this is by having both ends

of the club to be enthusiastic and willing to

let this happen. I feel this is definitely start-

ing to happen since this Alumni weekend..!

We’ll be in touch soon with regards to

NAMS, which is on the 11th-14th APRIL

2014 as well and for any future events! We

look forward to seeing you all very soon in

the near future =)

Ryo, Theo & Grace x

. . . c o n t i n u e d . . .

“...Curley for

showing some

phenomenal

pace and skill

up front…”


This half of the season, the four teams; 1st

XI, 2nd XI, 3rd XI & Mixed XI captained by

Sachin Sharma, Faisal Karim, Andrew

Baigey & Harry Coulton have had varying

degrees of success, but the main thing that

all three teams have in common is the

strong pride they have for playing for GKT.

The captains our leading the teams strongly

through the GKT tradition both on and off

the pitch and are setting a great example of

how GKTHC should be.

The three men’s teams have been compet-

ing in the BUCS leagues of 2B, 4B & 6B

with the 1st XI standing at the top of 2B,

2nd XI at 5th of 4B and the 3rd XI at 4th of

6B. The 1st XI are the only ones left in the

BUCS Cup now in the last 16 of the compe-

tition awaiting to play Surrey 1st XI.

In the LUSL leagues, the 1st XI are cur-

rently at the top of Division 1, and the 2nd &

3rd XI are both third in Division 2 & 3 re-

spectively. Again the 1st XI are the only

team to remain in the LUSL Cup awaiting to

play RUMS 1st XI in the Quarterfinals.

The Mixed XI have successfully made it to

the semifinals of NAMS league this year

and are awaiting to play Warwick medics.

There are more competitions to come up

including the first ever Varsity game against

RUMS, the UH Cup and of course the Mac-

adam Cup. We wish the teams the best of

luck for the second half of the season after

Christmas..! Hopefully we’ll be able to re-

port back some great news in the Summer

Newsletter (^^.

T E A M R E P O R T S

G K T H C

T E A M

R E P O R T S

1 s t X I

C a p t a i n : S a c h i n S h a r m a

ful couple of weeks as our new formation

was worked on, fitness was improved dras-

tically and we began to gel as a team both

on and off the pitch.

We have dominated most matches we have

played so far. Two wins against Imperial

1’s, as well as wins against LSE 1’s and

Essex 1’s were all pretty straightforward

thanks to the high levels of skills and deter-

mination on show. Our best victory of the

season so far has to be against Canterbury

Christchurch 1’s. Traditionally a power-

house in university hockey, they were not

prepared for what faced them when they

travelled to the fortress that is HOP, even

with an England international in their side.

Straight from the first whistle we dominated

the match and didn’t let them settle, smash-

ing them 5-1. This was one of the best per-

formances I have ever been part of at GKT.

The other performance to note was that

versus the ‘Hole in the Strand’. With both of

us unbeaten after the first 4 games, this

was a crucial match. Preparation was not

the best with tour taking place the weekend

before. I spent the whole weekend trying to

make sure we all avoided injury but failed

as Fresher Anthony decided to smash

Fresher Calum’s hand with a vodka bottle

(or so I have been told). However, unde-

terred we went into the match high on confi-

Played – 12. Won – 11. Drawn – 1 Lost – 0.

#unbeaten2K13 has been found trending

over the media sites since GKT 1’s season

got underway mid-October. Fast forward 2

months, it has been one of the most suc-

cessful starts to a campaign any GKT team

has seen in recent years. We are top of our

BUCS and LUSL leagues and into the later

stages of both the BUCS and LUSL cups.

The position we find ourselves in is only

one we had dreamed about when we con-

sidered what the season had in store for us

way back in September.

With a team in transition, and a very large

fresher intake, thanks to Fergus’ immense

marketing campaign to highlight GKT as a

‘Campus Team’, a thorough pre-season

was essential to bed in all the new lads.

Although results didn’t all go to plan (one

win, one draw, one loss), it was a success-


dence hoping to end a 5 year wait of beat-

ing the polytechnic. A goal in the first ten

seconds helped our course but then spent

the next 69 minutes, 50 seconds defending.

We managed to battle our way to a point

and stay top of the league where we have

remained up till now.

The LUSL league has provided us with

some easier fixtures on a Sunday, allowing

everyone to get some more game time. A

goal difference of plus 22 after 4 games

highlights the dominance we have shown in

this league. The early cup rounds have also

been rather simple (including a 15-0 win

against RUMS 2’s) and we have reached

the last 16 of the BUCS cup and the last 8

of the LUSL cup.

Off the pitch has been just as entertaining,

partly due to the fact we have a large num-

bers of freshers willing to do pretty much

anything to amuse the old boys. Fresher

challenges have proved to be very popular

every week, with a variety of exotic and

strange foods and beverages being con-

sumed. Dance-offs, sing-offs and comedy

routines have also kept us thoroughly en-

tertained at our monthly Nando’s team

meals with much more to come next term.

All in all, it has been an amazing start to the

season. We hope to continue that into the

next year as we challenge in 7 different

competitions and hopefully we can bring

back home some silverware to Guys.

Finally I would just like to send some

Christmas thanks:

To Ferret, our wonderful coach who has

kept us all in check and has given so much

to GKT hockey club over the last year and

a half

To The Freshers who have been a great

bunch of lads and have begun to learn what

GKT is all about

To The Final Years, appreciate massively

the commitment you have shown to carry

on playing even with the work piling up

And most importantly:

To everyone involved with GKT Hockey,

the support we have received this year up

to now has been unbelievable and we, as a

team, are very grateful. Next term sees

some massive games for us (ending with

Macadam Cup) and any support we get

helps psyche us up that bit more, so thank

you very much!

I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas

and a Happy New Year.

Sachin x

. . . c o n t i n u e d . . .

“...#unbeaten

2K13…”


It would probably be fair to say the Mighty

2s have had a rocky first half of the season;

a young squad plagued by peripheral

placements and injuries to the senior mem-

bers have seen us struggle to keep our

opponents at bay. As far as BUCS goes,

one win, one draw and three losses later

and we are finally gaining some momentum

and playing the kind of hockey of which the

2s can be more proud.

Despite suffering our 3rd loss this season

to the dastardly RVC in our final game be-

fore Christmas, we managed to play some

confident, attacking hockey with our new

fresher, Salman 'Sleazy' Sheikh getting

amongst the goals recently. Also, our mid-

field lynchpin, Ozzy 'long legs' Ahmad has

been marshalling the midfield and playing

through the pain barrier to provide us with

some stability and bite down the middle.

We've even had ex-Captain, Fresher Rich,

come back and put in some hard shifts for

the team.

Off the hockey pitch, selling 20 tickets for

Christmas Dinner despite being allocated a

mere 15 shows you what the 2s is all about.

And I would say that the Arab Sheikhs

gracing Guy's Bar on that chilly evening

were the best looking and best dressed,

Sheikhing it like Polaroid pictures on the

dance floor.

So what we do have this season is a heap

of young talent - and while it’s all too clear

that none of our freshers had ever downed

a pint before uni, with this blend of youthful-

ness and experience, we are improving

every match and I'm looking forward to the

second half of the season.

Faisal & Dom

trials left us with a fresh faced team of 33

boys with something to prove.

And prove they did. Our pre-season friend-

lies were encouraging, losing narrowly to

the well established and cocky Ladies’ 1s,

forcing a 0-0 draw from the well established

and slightly-cocky Ladies’ 2s, then giving

the newly established yet cocky Men’s 2s a

decent run for their money. As a new

The start of the season was a big turning

point for the 3s. Due to a number of losses

to the club at the end of the 2012-2013

season, the lion’s share of the squad

moved on to greener pastures in the 2s and

1s. What we were left with was (with one or

two notable exceptions) a squad entirely

made up of the previous year’s hockey

freshers. A fantastic intake from freshers’

2 n d X I

C p t . & V C : F a i s a l K a r i m & D o m A l d r i d g e

3 r d X I

C a p t a i n : A n d r e w B a i g e y

“...none of

our freshers

had ever

downed a

pint before

uni…”


squad, these games were essential in dis-

covering what our strengths and weak-

nesses were, allowing the wonderful Julie

Ferrett to tailor our Monday training ses-

sions to our needs. (It’s worth adding that

having a coach that works as hard for the

3s as she does for the 1s is an absolute

godsend)

Our first BUCS fixture was the toughest

we’d have to face all term - the Greenwich

1s. We played well but they were a better

team, and the result of our flat-out determi-

nation was managing to keep the score

below double figures. At least there weren’t

any on-pitch fights with them this year.

Next up was the Imperial 4s. Well, on paper

they were the 4s but they had so many

ringers on the pitch even they didn’t know

what team they were meant to be - their

‘captain’ genuinely had to be reminded at

the coin toss. That being said, we held out

well on a flooded pitch and the score of 5-0

wasn’t representative of the hockey we

played.

Goldsmiths turned up with 6 men, but they

seemed like nice blokes so we ended up

calling the match a walkover and donating

a few of our players to them to play a

friendly. The traitors were suitably punished

afterwards, but it was clear that the 3s

squad was really starting to work together

as a unit.

This translated into a 2-0 win against the

RUMS 3s the following weekend - sadly I

was at a conference (the one f***ing game

I’ve missed all season) but a full report of

the match, written by acting-captain-cum-

dickhead Alex Warren, can be found on our

flash new club website. Read it, if only for

phrases like “But cometh the hour, cometh

the man. Today that man was Alex War-

ren”.

Serendipitously, our next fixture was three

days later against the same team. Both

teams had reason to fight hard, which

forced the GKT 3s to play the best hockey

this captain has ever seen them play. The

game ended 1-1, which both sides agreed

was a fair result. The next game was a 6-2

beating by the UCL 3s, after which every

other game was cancelled or postponed for

next year.

Off the pitch there were definitely more

wins than losses. The 3s lived up to their

strong social reputation with excellent

Guy’s Bar attendances, hideous tosser

nominations, and the best Christmas Din-

ner theme ever (Despicable Me’s Minions).

Big love to the freshers for jumping into the

GKT experience with both feet (or both

fingers, if you’re Sachin sitting at Keats),

and to the postgrad freshers for putting up

with this shit all over again.

Andrew

. . . c o n t i n u e d . . .

“...losing

narrowly to the

well

established

and cocky

Ladies’ 1s…”


“...with open

goals missed,

naughty

tackles made,

and gin

received…”


The season commenced on a stormy Sun-

day, HOP lit by lightning. The setting possi-

bly doing justice to the awesomeness of

hockey the newly fledged GKT mixed team

produced against Southampton medics.

With a team consisting of numerous fresh-

ers, GKT did not disappoint, and managed

to go one up on the visitors by half time.

Southampton, being the strongest in our

NAMS pool, came back all guns blazing

and equalized shortly after half time. With

some amazing tech from the freshers, GKT

converted their chances and retook the

lead, and continued to frustrate Southamp-

ton holding them out until the final whistle.

With Southampton vanquished, only Penin-

sula and St Georges remained. Fortunately

the consanguineous medics from peninsula

withdrew from NAMS (if not from each

other) leaving only St Georges in GKTs

path. A scrappy match ensued, with open

goals missed, naughty tackles made, and

gin received on both sides. GKT soldiered

through, snatching a victory and the top

spot in our NAMS pool. With this exciting

news, GKT will be facing Warwick in the

semi finals in early 2014.

Unfortunately due to BUCS doubling LUSL

fixtures having listened to and acted on the

opinion of a tiny minority of voices the vast

majority of friendly matches this term gone

have had to be cancelled due to lack of

availability. Expect to hear news of friend-

lies vs St Georges and London Strollers in

the New Year. Old students are naturally

welcome to take part.

Harry

M I X E D X I

C a p t a i n : H a r r y C o u l t o n

Club Captain: Fergus Catmur -

[email protected]

Alumni Secretaries:

[email protected]

Men’s Committee

Club Captain—Fergus Catmur

Treasurer—Max Schofield

Fixtures Secretary—Nidhin Laji

Social Secretaries—Oscar Barnick & Dan Curley

Alumni Secretaries—Ryoki Arimoto & Theo Muth

1st XI Captain—Sachin Sharma

1st XI VCpt.—Khush Shah

2nd XI Captain—Faisal Karim

2nd XI VCpt.—Dom Aldridge

3rd XI Captain—Andrew Baigey

3rd XI VCpt.—Alex Warren

C O N T A C T I n f o r m a t i o n

eager to tell us, or even just want to give us

an update of how you’re doing...literally

anything! You can even slag off this news-

letter if you like (...but preferably, please

don’t...just because I’m yellow…). Utilize

this newsletter to your hearts content.

Finally, please let us know of anything you

would like us to do and keep in touch..! We

are always here and are always looking

forward to seeing you beautiful people!!

Hope you all have a wonderful

Christmas and a Happy New Year (^^.

See you in 2014..!x

I hope you have all enjoyed the read..! Just

a few points I would like to raise now with

regards to some things we would like to

implement for the Alumni in the future..!

Firstly, if you know of anyone who is not on

the mailing list for the Alumni please let us

know or inform them to email

[email protected] for them to be

added on. We are thinking of implementing

a monthly update of the hockey club to the

Alumni and will aim to send an email on

every 20-22nd day of the month..! If you

realize you’ve said that forbidden word on

that date, maybe it’s a reminder for you to

check your inbox…

Secondly, in future newsletters, we would

like to add in more reports from the Alumni.

So if you have any inspiring stories you’d

. . . F i n a l r e m a r k s …

R y o k i A r i m o t o

www.gkthockeyclub.co.uk

GKTHC Alumni Newsletter DECEMBER 2013

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Transcript of GKTHC Alumni Newsletter DECEMBER 2013