Junior Success in Barcelona 2015

2015-12-978-660

The Spanish celebrate the Immaculate Conception on 8th December every year ahead of Christmas and as such, the first Friday of December is a bank holilday. The Real Club de Polo de Barcelona decided 29 years ago that a bank holiday weekend in December sounded like a good time to host a youth hockey tournament.

This junior tournament complements the Polo Club's senior tournament which has been running for 66 years; The Kings Tournament (Hockey Reyes) is played in early January and only Europe's top club teams are invited. A big thanks to our hosts, RC Polo, for another fabulous weekend of hockey.

A thousand emails to 150 different people, tens of thousands of pounds changing bank account, two flights, a tough selection process and a few Spanish phone conversations made for GHC's fifth annual trip to Barcelona for the Torneo de la Inmaculada Marga Monegal.

Six teams of GHC players helped make up the 82 teams and nearly 1000 players in the tournament. This year in addition to Spanish teams, there were teams from Russia and Italy. We also had the pleasure of 50 adults coming along for the entertainment - parents, coaches, doctors, managers. A full complement. And what a weekend.

The overall results are here below along with some photos of the weekend (scroll all the way down for the gallery). Match reports are coming in from the squads and can be found on the Junior Match Reports page.

Under 16 Girls

Group A

Guildford
RC Polo A (Barcelona) 0-3 loss
Honigvogel HC (Zaragoza) 3-0 win
ASD Lazio Hockey Giovani (Rome) 1-0 win

Semi-final: Guildford v Iluro HC (Winner of Pool B) 1-0 win

Final: Guildford v RC Polo A (Barcelona) 0-2 loss

Finish: Runners-up

Under 16 Boys

Group A

Guildford
RC Polo A (Barcelona) 0-2 loss
Junior FC (Barcelona) 2-0 win
SPV Complutense Sanse B (Madrid) 6-0 win

Semi-final: Guildford v FC Barcelona (Winner of Pool B) 4-0 win

Final: Guildford v RC Polo A 4-2 loss

Finish: Runners-up

Under 14 Girls

Group A

Guildford
RC Polo A (Barcelona) 1-0 win
RS Tenis (Santander) 0-4 loss
RC Jolaseta (Bilbao) 1-1 draw
Club de Campo B (Madrid) 3-0 win

Finished second in Group A so went on to the 3rd/4th place play-off against second in Group B:

Play-off: Guildford v Club de Campo A (Madrid) 0-1 loss

Finish: 4th Place

Under 14 Boys

Group B

Guildford
RC Polo B (Barcelona) 2-2 draw
RS Tenis (Santander) 3-0 win
RC Jolaseta B (Bilbao) 3-0 win

Two wins and a draw put Guildford top of their group and into a play-off group with the winners of Group A and Group C:

Play-off 1: Guildford v Club de Campo A (Madrid) 2-0 win

Play-off 2: Guildford v RC Polo A (Barcelona) 0-3 loss

Finish: Runners-up

Under 12 Girls

Group B

Guildford
RC Polo C (Barcelona) 5-0 win
CD Terrassa (Catalan) 0-0 draw
Jolaseta 33 (Bilbao) 12-0 win
RS Tenis (Santander) 5-0 win

The 12-0 win helped the team come first on goal difference (drawn on points with CD Terrassa because of the draw between the two sides. The girls were in the play-off for first/second place:

Final: Guildford v Jolaseta (Bilbao) 3-0 win

Finish: Winners

Under 12 Boys

Group E

Guildford
Club de Campo (Madrid) 6-0 win
RC Jolaseta (Bilbao) 1-4 loss

With the loss to Jolaseta, the boys finished second in their intial group and were therefore put into the play-off group of five other teams who came second in their groups. The highest they could now achieve would be 7th (the six winners of the six initial groups were in separate play-offs).

Group 4