Oliver Didham

Didham does it again as Old Loughts pick up first win

Colin Munford Friday, October 5, 2012
6:00 PM

Conference East: Old Loughtonians 5 City of Peterborough 1

Oliver Didham’s hat-trick helped Old Loughtonians Men’s first team put their first points on the board this season at home to City of Peterborough on Saturday.

In turn, that moved them up to sixth place in the Conference East table, after this late afternoon match at Luxborough Lane.

The hosts opened the scoring in the fourth minute when Luke Mepham found the goal.

This was answered soon after by Peterborough, but the Chigwell side were able to score twice more before the break, both from Didham.

Loughts kept up the pressure on their visitors in the second half and Didham scored another to complete his hat-trick and Tom Watson ensured they finished off the match in style to secure a 5-1 win.

Meanwhile, Old Loughtonians Ladies first XI suffered their first loss of the season away to an organised Ipswich side at the weekend.

The team was far better prepared for this fixture than the traffic issues they were faced with going to Wimbledon two weeks ago.

And this preparation put them in a good place to put yet more points on the board, but after the first few minutes they found themselves under pressure.

The defensive unit was as solid as ever, but they just struggled to relieve themselves of this pressure.

Finally, the girls managed to link up well enough to warrant a D entry, but sadly this resulted in a disallowed goal – a moment that changed the outcome of the match.

Instead they had to wait until the second half to see a goal.

Athletically

With 20 minutes still to play, Ipswich won a penalty corner, which was athletically saved by keeper Becky Duggan.

Worryingly, Duggan suffered a blow to the head in the save as the Ipswich forward uncontrollably ran into her as she dived.

The game stopped for a while as both players received treatment and then with the re-awarded corner, Ipswich broke the deadlock with a three-pass routine.

With only moments to play, Old Loughts saw a number of chances disappear, with the umpire choosing not to award Shenarda Dedic a penalty stroke, while there were other questionable decisions.