M1 Visit Wimbledon On Sunday
By Colin Pike
Surbiton Men make the short trip to Raynes Park High School on Sunday afternoon for a much anticipated local derby against Wimbledon (push back 2.30 pm).
Surbiton have a three point lead over Wimbledon with a game in hand at the top of the Men's Hockey League Premier Division and with both teams going into the clash unbeaten this season, something will have to give.
Both teams won on Saturday, Wimbledon coming away from East Grinstead with a 4-3 victory and Surbiton coming out on top at home to Hampstead & Westminster after an 8-4 goal fest.
Surbiton's Luke Taylor and Wimbledon's Ed Horler are locked together on 14 goals as divisional top scorers after Taylor converted a penalty corner and scored from the penalty spot against Hampstead and Horler notched a hat-trick in West Sussex.
Wimbledon won 3-1 at Brooklands Manchester University on the opening day of the season, before drawing 2-2 at home to Reading.
A last minute goal saw them draw 3-3 at Old Georgians before they stunned the University of Exeter with a 12-0 home victory.
Another 3-3 draw away to Holcombe has been followed by a run of four successive victories: 2-0 at home to Beeston; 3-1 away to Hampstead & Westminster at Lee Valley; a 7-1 thrashing of Brooklands Manchester University and last night's win at East Grinstead.
Leading goalscorer Horler has been supported by Ben Francis with seven goals, Ben Arnold with six, Ronan Harvey-Kelly and Phil Roper with three and Jack Waller with two.
Tom Barratt, Jonny Codling, Peter Friend and Ian Sloan have all found the net once as Wimbledon look to improve on last season's disappointing seventh place finish.
In the corresponding fixture last season, Surbiton won 2-0 at King's College School on the last day of the season, Tom Sorsby and Dave Beckett scoring in the last seven minutes.
The first match at Sugden Road took place on the opening day when Surbiton won 3-1, Alan Forsyth scoring twice with Tim Akins also on target whilst Ben Arnold scored for Wimbledon.
Elsewhere on Sunday, Hampstead host East Grinstead; Old Georgians will want to bounce back from suffering their first defeat last week with a win at Holcombe; Reading make the long trip to Brooklands Manchester University and the University of Exeter are at home to Beeston.