2010-2020 - A decade of milestones

Below is not an exhaustive review of the decade but more a brief glide through the seasons.

After putting together a roster from nothing the previous season, Head Coach Barry Spours continued to strengthen the team in an improving league. With former EPL sides Chelmsford Chieftains, Wightlink Raiders and Romford Raiders joining the party, Streatham managed to secure a mid-table spot thanks to a strong start, aided by some canny recruitment and good old-fashioned passion from Spours.

Club legend Joe Johnston returned from Invicta to lead the scoring and was backed up by contrasting Slovak pair Tomas Valko and Peter Molnar. Valko, the temperamental match winner, who mixed sublime skill with an ability to spark a riot, was the polar opposite to the smooth skating and quiet Molnar however both lit the lamp frequently.

Impressive youngster Michael Ranby, an underrated signing from neighbours Haringey was also a stand out in a season that the team iced an incredible four netminders and thirty-five skaters over the campaign.

A mid-season departure of the talented Jack Tarczycki to Invicta was tempered by a return of former Streatham junior Rupe Quiney from a stint in Canada, but the roster was never settled nor the lines.

A Play-Off quarter final loss to Invicta Dynamos ended the season in disappointing fashion, no thanks to an injury to the influential Molnar prior to the decisive second leg.

The promising signs from the back end of the 2010/11 campaign disappeared quickly thanks to a summer departure of Johnston and uncertainty over where the team would be playing after the doors to the 80-year-old Streatham ice rink were shut for good. Star signing Scott Moody from Slough Jets lasted just one game and wasn’t seen again.

A struggling start was summed up when Ranby headed off to Chelmsford leaving a real lack of scoring depth. Spours drafted in former import Jerry Pavlus and experienced utility man Stewart Tait to arrest the slide and the former’s goals made a difference alongside summer signing from Northern Ireland Stevie Balmer.

An emotional final game at the old rink saw the team arrest a losing streak by beating MK Thunder convincingly in front of a hardcore of supporters. Balmer made history with the last ever goal in the old barn.

A relatively seamless move to the temporary rink in Brixton brought a change of fortune, helped massively by the signings of hardnosed winger Norm Pinnington and Oxford pair Andy Cox and Dax Hedges.

Relegation was still looming however, and it was left to local netminder Will Sanderson all alone, to save the team from humiliation (literally) with a stunning double save against Slough in the dying seconds of the final game in Brixton. Had the puck gone in the net as it should, Streatham would have gone down.

The following week, backed by well over a hundred Streatham fans in Slough, the team pulled off what would later be described as “The Great Escape” with another thumping win that left fans wondering how the team had gotten themselves into such a position in the first place. It would be a last hurrah for Captain Ed Koral and indeed Pinnington who departed the club at the end of the season. 

A look at the eventual seventh placed league finish would suggest the 2012/13 season was one to forget, but for a slow start, the team would have finished significantly higher.

Backed by a fresh crowd of enthusiastic locals checking out hockey for the first time, plus the hardcore of Streatham fans making the trip into zone 2, hopes were high that the team could kick on from the relegation fight the year before.

Head Coach Spours made significant changes to the roster, bringing in nine new players including some big names with prolific Czech Jakob Klima and former GB junior international defensemen Tyrone Miller and Dominic Hopkins signing up for a season in South London 

Despite their individual talents, the new look team failed to gel and Spours soon handed the reigns over to another Streatham icon, Warren Rost.

Rost’s old school brand of discipline mixed with improved scoring from Klima, Johnston, Joe Allen and Hopkins propelled the team up the rankings, as did a feisty side typified by Jamie McIlroy and Phil Manny that saw the team beat all of the big boys in the league at Brixton giving hope for a successful campaign in the Play-Offs. 

Unfortunately defeat to Jeremy Cornish’s Wightlink Raiders team in the Quarter Finals put paid to that, but Klima did at least scoop league player of the season.

With a return to the new Streatham Ice Arena on the cards, plus a solid showing at the back end of 2012/13, Rost found it easier to attract players and build further on the foundations Spours had laid.

Free scoring pair Steven Fisher and Sean Scarbrough arrived from Cardiff to replace Klima’s goals after the Czech opted for a summer transfer to Invicta. Coming the other way up the A2 to London were Jack Tarczycki and Callum Best showing that perhaps the allure of Kent was not as strong as it once had been in the league.

Michal Oravec continued his good form and a combative third line of Evander Grinell-Parke. Liam Rasmussen and the afore-mentioned McIlroy gave the team a solid base.

A frustrating 3-3 draw with Bracknell Hornets on the opening night for the new rink summed up the season, with the team finishing 5th in the league. Despite the failure to win the showpiece fixture the locals backed the team and posted four figure crowds for the first time in many years, including a Cup final against Chelmsford.

The season will probably be best remembered for a stunning cup semi final win over Invicta Dynamos that saw the team come back from 8-3 down to tie 9-9 and win in the showdown. Netminder Aaron Taylor making the decisive save in the shoot-out.

The Play-Off quarter final progression was soured as a couple of London Raiders players waded into the home crowd picking up multiple suspensions and deeming the second leg unplayable. This was followed by a semi final ejection at the hands of eventual champions Chelmsford.

The campaign ended with Fisher and Scarbrough as leading scorers and optimism (again) for the upcoming season.

Despite Streatham posting their best league position in six years, finishing 3rd behind Chelmsford and Invicta, the 2014/15 season would go down as a slight disappointment.

Summer recruitment looked strong, with Robbie Brown coming in from Wightlink Raiders and former prolific junior Louis Lockwood returning after time away from the game. Former Telford blueliner Stuart Bates and feisty Cardiff forward Adam Wood seemed also to have given the team a real depth of quality.

Niggly injuries and unsettled lines kept the team just short of contention as Rost tried everything to break the grip of the dominant Chieftains at the top. Even the mid-season return of former hero Klima couldn’t stop the team from suffering frustrating defeats against lower ranked teams.

The standout player of the season was to be Callum Best however, as the former Guildford man jinked his way through most league defences and ended the campaign as top scorer in the league and player of the season.

Pre-season optimism of silverware was finally extinguished in the Play-Offs thanks to an ill-disciplined and all round below par display against Milton Keynes Thunder in the quarter finals.

Another summer of solid recruitment on paper gave Streatham fans hope that a trophy could finally arrive in SW16, especially with the arrivals of EPL starlets Nick Chinn, Chris Wiggins and David Savage. 

Defenseman Ryan Giles arrived from Chelmsford with experience of winning silverware and big Czech forward Kamil Kinkor added an intriguing spark. Unfortunately, Best’s form from the year before had attracted higher level interest and he left for Guildford.

When the puck dropped however, things didn’t quite go to plan. Easily the most physical team in the league, Streatham battered most teams into submission to start with, before injuries and suspensions began to catch up with them.

Savage, a Rolls Royce at this level on the blue line, left a few months into the season and Wiggins picked up a concussion leaving Rost to try and shuffle the lines around on a regular basis. Matters were made worse in the Cup final against Chelmsford when Kinkor was sensationally released after the 1st leg.

The eventual 5th place finish in the league summed up the season and it took a last gasp winner from Chinn to avoid an early exit to Oxford in the play-offs. The celebrations delayed the inevitable, as a week later the team were eliminated by Chelmsford, with emotional scenes as long serving defenseman David Carr retired through a guard of honour.

At the end of season awards evening, Coach Warren Rost announced that he would be handing over the reigns to Chinn for the forthcoming season and was thanked for doing a superb job in transitional times.  

In a bold, but not uncontroversial move, the club dropped the Redskins moniker and returned to the original 1932 name of Streatham IHC. This was well received in many quarters but understandably not all.

The summer had been quiet in terms of recruitment as Chinn opted not to sign any imports and brought in highly rated netminder Euan King, plus young prospect Conor Redmond, Jack Lee and former Streatham junior Conor Sheehan to boost the squad.

A shock opening night home loss to MK Thunder suggested that all was not well in the camp early on and results didn’t improve immediately – prompting King to depart. When Wightlink Raiders folded due to their rink closure, GM Graham D’Anger opted to bring in their now available Coach Jeremy Cornish above Chinn in a move that would have further repercussions on the squad.

With Chinn and Wiggins now gone, Cornish had the pick of his former team and brought in no less than eight new players causing predictable ripples in the existing squad. With effectively the best players from two of the best teams in the league, plus the return of Best from Guildford, hopes were high that the team could at least challenge in the Play-Offs after falling too far behind in the league to mount any title challenge.

Sadly, Chelmsford again proved too strong in the semi finals and there were emotional farewells for club legend Joe Johnston and long serving winger Liam Rasmussen through another guard of honour. Long serving netminder Sanderson had also departed the squad mid-season.

With a full summer to play with, Cornish wasted no time making his mark on the squad and in the process released popular local players Jack Tarczycki, Steven Fisher and Casimir Madren-Britton. American Sean Scarbrough opted not to return leaving only Adam Wood, James Warman and Joe Allen from the previous core under Rost.

A fresh new look team with MK Lightning pair Adam Carr and Michael Farn at the forefront appeared to be one that could break the Essex stranglehold on trophies, but the EIHA had other ideas.

The implosion of the EPL meant that Streatham would compete in the same league, but with four big budget teams parachuted in from above, while former opponents Chelmsford, Oxford and Solent quickly made their excuses and vanished to the league below.

Left with Invicta, the Raiders, MK Thunder and Cardiff Fire for company in a big new challenge, Cornish added Ryan Watt and former trusted Wightlink players to help the team tread water if nothing else.

What followed was a season of some surprising wins, more losses than usual and a relatively impressive 6th placed finish, rather than a likely title challenge had the formats remained as they were.

Faced with simply another season of battling against the odds, Cornish again worked hard on recruitment, filling the squad with energy and speed, typified by the return of Jacob Ranson, Andreas Siagris and Ziggy Beesley. 

A summer coup of attracting Damien King to South London between the pipes gave the team a solid base, and Canadian Alex Roberts was brought in to address scoring issues from the previous year, along with former GB international Leigh Jamieson, defenseman Ben Russell and former Solihull man Tom Soar.

Roberts proved to be a revelation ending the year as team top scorer and league all-star, but the team ended up again in 6th place.

A loss in the play-off quarter final was to be expected, but the team posted some impressive results, especially at the beginning of the season before a lack of depth told.

At the end of the season Cornish called time on his stint on the bench after successfully guiding the team through what could have been two nightmare campaigns of heavy losses were it not for his ability to recruit a solid team at an improved level. Roberts standout campaign earned him a move to the French League.

The formation of the new National League removed the former EPL teams from the league leaving Streatham with a title challenging squad under new Player Coach Adam Carr. With only one loss in the first half of the season, the team now have four months of fixtures to try and deliver that long awaited trophy to the High Road…