Our own Ant Mellor and Matt ‘Stan’ Boardman represented England Over 45s at the IMHA European Cup in Rotterdam, Netherlands over the past few days.
They got off to a great start in the group games, beating Italy 6-1 and Ireland 4-2 to top the group and qualify for the Final Stage of the competition, pitted against the other two teams that topped their respective groups, Scotland and Germany.
Scotland also went undefeated, seeing off Wales and the hosts, the Netherlands; whereas Germany won and drew against Spain and France.
England’s first game was against Germany who had beaten Scotland the day before. A very tense back and forth, with England taking a 2-0 lead early on. Germany fought back to 2-2 before England scored again to regain the advantage. Germany again equalised and then scored another to make it 4-3 with time running out. England battled on and drew level, before getting the winner with seconds left on the clock. A great 5-4 win, which meant that they only needed a draw against Scotland the following day to win the Cup.
But the game didn’t quite start as England had intended, going 1-0 down in the first quarter. After goalless second and third quarters, Scotland took the initiative and scored a second. England were now chasing the game and got a goal back with less than five minutes to play, meaning that they as it stood they were joint top of the Group with Germany on goal difference. As the game stretched Scotland managed to get a third goal, sending England into third place on goal difference.

A great achievement for both Ant and Stan, we are a very proud club!