On Saturday, 26th November, Brentwood Handball Club travelled up the M1 to Cranfield University to play the Essex Blades University Handball team.


The Brentwood squad welcomed 3 new players to the team Ian Weir, Terry Ward and Duncan Whitfield. They were joined by the experienced Rob Grant playing his first match of the season, Sean Briscomb, George Thorpe and Boris Pini. In goal for Brentwood was Mark Cory who was still recovering from the ankle injury sustained in the last league game.


Brentwood started the game strongly with Rob scoring the opening goal followed by Ian scoring his first goal for the team to give Brentwood a 2-1 lead. The Essex Blades then scored 5 goals without reply to lead 6-2 after 10 minutes. Further goals from Rob and Ian and debut goals from Duncan saw Brentwood increase their score to 6 goals at the end of the first half. However, the Essex Blades, all but one of whom were foreign players who had played previously, used their experience to score 14 further goals to give them a 20-6 half time lead.


Once again, like in the last match, Brentwood started the 2nd half strongly scoring 5 goals in the first 10 minutes with George getting on the score sheet and Ian, Rob and Duncan adding to their earlier goals. However, the Blades scored 10 goals in this time to increase their lead to 30-11 after 40 minutes. As the game neared it's end the Essex Blades scored a further 12 goals with just one in reply from Brentwood making the final score 42-12 to the Essex Blades who remain unbeaten in the Development League South this season.


Despite the loss, coach Hans-Jörg said their were many positives in the game - goalkeeper Mark Cory, despite not being fully recovered from injury, made some great saves and Terry, Duncan and Ian playing extremely well in their first competitive game with Ian and Duncan scoring 7 of the 12 goals between them, making them joint 'Man of the Match' for this game.


This game was also the 2nd game in Boris 'The Everyman Olympian' handball challenge which you can read more about at:
http://everymanolympian.blogspot.com/2011/11/handball-challenge-match-one-cranfield.html


Next game for Brentwood is on Sunday, 11th December, away at the Cranfield University sports hall vs Warwick University Handball Club. For this match Brentwood are hoping to have most of the squad available and will be looking to pick up their first win of the season.