Slough Ramagarhia hosted their annual tournament at Wexham School on Sunday 26th. In its 24th Year the tournament attracted 8 top class teams, promising a feast of hockey for all the spectators. They were not disappointed. Most teams had players from the national and premier league teams on display. The event was arranged into two leagues, with the top two teams going through to the semi-finals knockout stage. The opening game set the tempo for the day with Slough Ramagarhia, captained by Ekam Bachu and BA battling out a hard fought 1-1 draw. With teams coming from across the country as far afield as Nottingham, the local teams had to up their game to get through the group stages.

On a warm summer day some of the teams, including last year’s champions, Five Rivers struggling to keep up with the pace of the games and failing to make the knockout stages. The 4 finalists were Slough Ramagarhia, G11, Sikh Union Nottingham and Ford HC.

The first semi-final between Slough Ramagarhia and Sikh Union Nottingham was a fast paced affair, but with several leading players Sikh Union was too strong for Slough Ramagarhia, who went down 4-1. The second semi-final was much closer contest with G11 from the Midland coming out on top over Ford HC, who despite having Kwan Browne a former captain of Trinidad and Tobago international team, went down 3-1.

The final between Sikh Union and G11 proved worthy of the festival with both teams playing at an amazing pace despite the long day and tried legs. Sikh Union proved too strong for G11 coming out deserved victors winning 3-1.

Kwan Browne summed up the spirit of the tournament stating that "the event was well organized and fun, whilst at the same time being of a very high standard and he was very pleased to take part in such an event".

Slough Ramagarhia gave special thanks to the Umpires who did exceptionally well to oversee some very competitive games. Slough Ramagahia looks forward to building on the success of this years event with a similar standard of teams for the coming years and continue to make more friends within the hockey community.
Report by S.Dhoot
Photos by B.Hobday.