CUHC Summer Tour

This year, building on previous successful tours to both Barcelona and Malta, our full club tour went to Malaga. We fielded 1 Men’s and 2 Women's touring squads with representation from all of 8 CUHC’s regular sides. As always, the tour was a chance to catch up with friends, enjoy a beer in the sun and blow off the cobwebs before getting back into the groove of the regular season

 Despite the best efforts of the Spanish ‘mañana’ mindset to thwart our hockey playing ambitions, we did in fact manage to play three games whilst on tour. So a huge thanks must go to Hockey Malaga Carranque for kindly hosting a huge CUHC contingent over the week.

We played the first women’s game on Thursday evening against a Spanish side with a healthy dose of U13s. The light blues looked dashing (thanks Julia for the brilliant vests) and dominant throughout, netting a comfortable 2-0 victory with goals from Kortens and Evans. The men, after a draining 4-hour padel session, were more than happy to be supporting from the sidelines in the only way they knew how - lots of good hearted chants.  

 The rest of the hockey was played on the Saturday, and the men went first, implementing a zonal press masterminded by Conway to great effect (he didn’t want to run). Just before half time a scrappy short saw CUHC go one ahead. Despite a strong performance our struggles in the heat really showed in the fourth quarter. Constantly on the defence, the Spanish eventually won a short corner with some ‘gamesmanship’ to level things up, final score 1-1. Big props to Wadley and Evans for stepping up and playing in the men’s game, providing some much needed legs and both putting in stellar performances. 

The second women’s game was played under the full glare of the Andalusian sun and - safe to say - the heat took its toll. So by the final quarter, five subs had fallen to one. Not content with marshalling the men’s defence just two hours previously, Evans opened proceedings with an absolute screamer. After the hosts equalised, Falkous fired the light blues back into the lead with a cracking goal of her own. It was at this point when the deadly combo of sunstroke, a dwindling bench and an umpire more focused on Instagram reels than the game itself saw our concentration slip, resulting in the Spanish side capitalising with two late goals, handing us a narrow 3-2 defeat.

On a final note, the trip was made a success by everyone who turned up and bought into Rowanland Inc's organised fun, so thank you all for coming and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Also a huge goodbye to three CUHC legends for whom this was their final hurrah in light blue (Rowlands, Blewis and Alicia) - we will miss you greatly.  

Rowan Chantrey and William Rowlands  

CUHC Tour Secretaries 2024-25