M1 At Home To Southgate In League Finals On Sat.
By Colin Pike
Surbiton Men take on Southgate in their second match in Men's Hockey League Finals Pool B at Sugden Road on Saturday evening (push back 1815).
The match will be streamed via the Surbiton Hockey Club channel on You Tube and the list of live videos is here
Surbiton and Wimbledon could both qualify for the League Finals semi-finals with a game to play if Surbiton beat Southgate and Wimbledon beat Oxted on Saturday evening.
Surbiton were in tremendous form last Saturday as Oxted were beaten 8-1, whilst Southgate lost 7-3 at Wimbledon.
It was the second time that Southgate had lost 7-3 this season, Surbiton winning by the same scoreline at Southgate Hockey Centre on 7 October. That was the first time that the teams had met in the top-flight since 2014-15, as Southgate were relegated to the Conference East, where they stayed until 2019-20 when Division One South became the second tier and the Conferences became the third tier of domestic league hockey.
Southgate won Division One South in 2022-23 and were automatically promoted to the Premier Division. They were last at Sugden Road on 10 February when they lost 4-0, mainly due to Struan Walker's hat-trick.
Matt Ramshaw is Southgate's leading goalscorer with eleven goals closely followed by Teague Marcano on nine. Kwan Browne has scored seven goals with six coming from penalty strokes, and Richmond Lum is on five. Will Calnan, Jack Middleton and Karan Sofat have each found the net on four occasions with Archie Foster and Daniel West both on two. Rohan Bhuhi and Sam Paterson have both scored once this season.
Southgate were the first ever EHL Men's champions in 1988-89 and first met Surbiton in the national league in 1992-93 when Division One comprised sixteen teams. Each team played the other team once during the season and Southgate won 4-3 at Sugden Road in October 1992. That is the only occasion that Southgate have won away to Surbiton with the next three meetings in Elmbridge ending 2-2 before Surbiton won the last seven.
On home turf, Southgate have beaten Surbiton three times, but the last of those came in October 2011 when Southgate won 1-0. However, Southgate were on course to beat Surbiton in September 2012 after leading 2-0 with both goals scored in the first minute, but Surbiton fought back to ultimately draw 4-4.
In Pool A, reigning champions, Old Georgians are at home to Hampstead & Westminster, who won 1-0 at Holcombe last week. Old Georgians beat Beeston 5-4 and the Nottingham club visit Holcombe on Saturday night.
In the relegation playoffs, Reading will be relegated if they fail to win at East Grinstead and the University of Nottingham will join them if they lose at home to Cardiff & Met, who would ensure safety with a win.
If the University of Nottingham are relegated, their second team would be denied promotion from the Conference Midlands as a club can only have one team per division. Stourport are on course to be promoted from second, although they could go up as champions if they beat St. Albans at home, the University of Nottingham 2s lose at the City of Peterborough and Stourport overcome a current three goal inferior goal difference. Barford Tigers and Norwich City's hopes were dashed last weekend.