Bedford Hockey Club’s Ladies’ first team player, Kelly Bingham is currently representing England Women’s Over 45s in Valencia, whilst the squad participate in the European Masters Hockey Championships.
The opening match, on Friday (23 May), saw the team take on Scotland, and it was Kelly who opened the scoring just three minutes into the match.
Despite Scotland levelling the scores ten minutes later, England went on to dominate the match as it finished 7-1 to England.
After a rest day on Saturday, the team were back in action on Sunday, fronting up to Ireland and it was Kelly, now with 19 international caps to her name, who struck again taking England into the lead from a penalty corner in the dying seconds of the first quarter.
Despite several more penalty corners awarded to England, the score remained 1-0 until England secured the win with a goal from open play, one minute into the third quarter.
The final match of the pool stage saw Australia, who had already experienced losses in both their previous matches, face the power of top of the table, England.
England put in yet another clinical performance, crushing Australia with a 9-0 victory.
Wednesday (28 May) sees Kelly and her squad face Belgium in the quarter-final play-offs, looking to progress to the semi-finals on Friday and the grand final on the 1 June.
You can follow the progress of Kelly and her England team via the European Hockey Masters Championship website here.
Words by Jean Fitch
