This Is Guernsey

THE Brewin Dolphin Business League hockey season has been wrapped up with a 2-0 win for Credit Suisse over the highly fancied PWC in the Division One cup final.

‘It was a good all-round squad performance and the subs made a difference,’ said Credit Suisse’s captain and defensive lynchpin Roger Le Page. ‘We had 15 players and that made a difference at the end. We were solid defensively and we scored a couple of cracking goals.’

Suisse had done well to hold a PWC team, which contained Guernsey stars Adie Peacegood and Tim Creasey and one of the best female players on the island, Mickey de Vial, until half time.

Into the second half, PWC started to turn it on with Peacegood coming close with one shot.

However, against the run of play, Suisse’s own island play-maker and the goal-hero of last year’s inter-insular, Andy Alford, put his side ahead with a wonderful individual effort.

Alford picked the ball up on the halfway line to beat three PWC players before unleashing a stinging reverse stick strike that cannoned into the far backboard.

‘Goals like that only come about once in a lifetime,’ he said afterwards.

A little later the whites’ striker, GH Smit, demonstrated his eye as an island batsman that saw him named as the 2007 cricketer of the year when he slammed home a first-time shot from the top of the D to seal the trophy for his team.

The victory goes some way to alleviate Suisse’s agony of losing the all-divisional cup final to Butterfield a couple of weeks ago.

‘We finished fourth in Division One, missed out on one cup and won the other one – in all it’s been a very good season,’ said Le Page.

Someone else who feels that this season’s Business League has been a success is league organiser, Jason Le Page.

‘It’s gone really well and all the teams have seemed to enjoy the season,’ he said.

‘There were no major issues, which is always nice.’