For­mer T&T in­ter­na­tion­al Kwand­wane Browne con­tin­ues to turn back the clock and at age 47 was amongst the goals as South­gate Hock­ey Club ex­tend­ed its win­ning re­turn to the Eng­land Hock­ey League Men's Pre­mier Di­vi­sion on Sat­ur­day af­ter a nine-year hia­tus.

Play­ing at the Welsh In­sti­tute of Sport, Wales, be­fore a crowd of around 600 spec­ta­tors South­gate matched the 4-1 score line of its last away vic­to­ry with a dom­i­nant dis­play over Cardiff & Met with play­er/coach Browne, a for­mer T&T in­ter­na­tion­al with over 400 caps, lead­ing from the front.

This vic­to­ry was achieved de­spite the ab­sence and in­flu­en­tial play of an­oth­er T&T in­ter­na­tion­al play­er and last sea­son's top scor­er, Teague Mar­cano, who is still await­ing the con­fir­ma­tion of his stu­dent visa.

Archie Fos­ter scored ear­ly for South­gate, to si­lence the home crowd, be­fore Alf Din­nie put Cardiff on the score sheet and equal­ized with a his­toric first goal scored by a Welsh club in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion.

This goal on­ly spurred South­gate to run through the gears and they romped to the em­phat­ic vic­to­ry through a de­but goal for Will Cal­nan, in the 41st minute, Browne, who scored two min­utes lat­er, and then Daniel West, who made the game safe amidst a messy sec­ond half lit­tered with green and yel­low cards.

In oth­er match­es Hol­combe end­ed the open­ing week­end as ear­ly ta­ble top­pers with a dom­i­nant 4-0 home win over Read­ing; while two Oxted’s 15-year-olds stood up to Pre­mier Di­vi­sion de­mands by com­bin­ing and play­ing bril­liant­ly in a thrilling 3-2 away win at lo­cal ri­vals East Grin­stead.

There were al­so huge state­ment wins for Pre­mier Di­vi­sion big hit­ters Sur­biton, Wim­ble­don, and cham­pi­ons Old Geor­gians, with Sam Ward net­ting a dou­ble against the Uni­ver­si­ty of Not­ting­ham and Tom Car­son al­so col­lect­ing a brace for the 2022/23 cham­pi­ons.

Sur­biton main­tained their dom­i­nant home record with a 5-2 vic­to­ry against Hamp­stead & West­min­ster (Browne’s pre­vi­ous club). Lon­don ri­vals Wim­ble­don al­so scored all five goals as Karl Stag­no’s side kept up their im­pres­sive home form with a 5-2 win over Bee­ston.

Com­pet­ing in yet an­oth­er tour­na­ment in the UK, the T&T duo al­so helped South­gate to one of the two pro­mo­tion spots in the six-club Eng­land Hock­ey League Adult Su­per 6s In­door Cham­pi­onships Men’s Na­tion­al Di­vi­sion Two com­pe­ti­tion.

The pro­lif­ic Mar­cano fin­ished as the tour­na­ment’s lead­ing scor­er with 30 goals - 19 in the de­cid­ing di­vi­sion­al round play­offs. These strikes came from every phase of the game and in­clud­ed 16 open-field goals, 10 from penal­ty cor­ners, and four from penal­ty strokes. This tal­ly was four more goals than Si­mon Egerton of Bow­don, while Am­mad Butt scored 23 goals.