ON a superb weekend of hockey for the Chard club, a thoroughly entertaining Under-14s tournament took centre-stage, as Chard hosted visitors from Bruton.

A total of 41 boys and girls represented Chard Hockey Club on the day, with the slightly more experienced Chard Boys A winning all their matches, closely followed by Chard Girls A, and the coaches were delighted with the expansive hockey on display.

The club said: “Just a couple of mentions, Louisa Dare tireless running throughout the morning. Izzie Herbert, improved confidence in her own ability. Georgiana Guest and Amelia Wellman strong tackling and passing. James Palmer in his first tournament grew in confidence and tackled well and another debutant Chris Walters made many surging runs in attack.

“Many thanks for the Parents support. Claire Butler collecting the match fees and especially to the Umpires and Coaches - Gary Wheaton, Danny Grabham, Tom Eames, Spud, Ali Long, Ben Larcombe.”

On the adult side of the club, it was a packed fixture schedule, starting with the men’s first-team game against a very strong Mendip side. Chard went down to a 6-0 defeat but never stopped battling throughout against a quality opponent.

Chard B took on Minehead B in a terrific match 3-2 in favour of Minehead. Chard spent much of the first period in defensive mode, with goalkeeper Tony Millett and the back four of Riley Millett, Kevin Mooney, Steve Mahoney and Calum Gilbert kept very busy.

From this platform, Chard opened the scoring when Rich Jones tapped in after a penalty corner had caused chaos in the Minehead defence. The visitors replied with goals either side of half-time before Duncan Lewis levelled the scores at 2-2.

Minehad edged in front once more and Chard were denied a last-gasp draw when the umpires ruled for an infringement after Trevor Goss thought he had scored from another penalty corner.

Chard Ladies were also left frustrated after a narrow 3-2 loss at Exe. Captain Amy Goss scored for Chard and a fabulous strike from Charlotte Mooney made it 2-2 at the interval but Exe snatched victory with a short corner goal.