M1 At Home To Brooklands On Sunday
By Colin Pike
Surbiton Men start the defence of their Men's Hockey League title when they welcome Brooklands Manchester University to Sugden Road on Sunday (push back 2.30 pm).
Surbiton have signed Tim Nurse from Team Bath Buccaneers and Jamie Golden from Grove Menzieshill to bolster their squad.
Brooklands finished eighth last season and in an attempt to move up the table have recruited five players including Alex Holmes from the University of Durham, promoted to the Premier Division for this season and Ed Carr from Cardiff University.
Both Surbiton and Brooklands have a habit of scoring at least one goal in their matches and last season Surbiton were the only team to stop Brooklands scoring.
Unfortunately both games were very one sided with Surbiton winning 12-0 away and 7-0 at home.
Since 2009-10, Surbiton have won seven and lost two of their nine home encounters, Brooklands last winning in Elmbridge in 2015-16, 5-3.
Brooklands also won 4-1 in 2009-10, but apart from Surbiton's 2-1 win in 2010-11, the margin of victory has widened with the last four matches ending 7-0, 7-1, 5-1 and 6-2.
Brooklands will also want to look out for Alan Forsyth who has scored in every home game against Brooklands since 2014-15, a run of six successive matches.
Form suggests a high scoring Surbiton victory but on the opening day of the season anything can happen.
Due to the COVID-19 situation there will be no hard copy programmes available on the day, however the matchday programme can be viewed via the link in the Club News section.
Elsewhere, newly promoted Oxted visit East Grinstead and Holcombe are at home to Old Georgians, a fixture which also provided plenty of goals, Old Georgians winning 5-4.
The University of Exeter start with a home game against Hampstead & Westminster and Wimbledon welcome Tier 1 champions, Beeston to South West London.