Congratulations to Amy Salmon of the L1s, who is in the Scotland U16 squad for a series of international fixtures against Wales, Ulster and Ireland in coming months.
The Scotland youth squads also feature many former Kobras, and also our current Kobras goalkeeper coach Kara Shiels.
There is a long queue of boys and girls in the process of stepping up to adult hockey in the club right now, with several boys having trained with the men this season and several girls looking to make the same move soon.
However, with a goalkeeper crisis in the men's section, William Lester was able to jump to the front of the queue, making his debut in Saturday's M2s match against Stirling Wanderers. And a clean sheet seems a pretty good way of starting your career, with the game ending scoreless.
Gurdi writes:
Some tremendous saves. He did us proud during seconds' nil-nil draw...
Well done William.
So the new pitch is open and seems to be meeting with a favourable reception from everyone. We are now one of only a handful of clubs in Scotland to own their own pitch, and the smallest club by some distance.
The first competitive match saw the M1s seeing off Grange Development in fine style, closely followed by the L1s, who had a harder time of it against WIT.
Some housekeeping points: there were quite a few muddy footprints on the turf inside the gate. This is very bad for the pitch. Can we therefore please ask everyone to wipe their feet before going onto the pitch and to ask spectators and visitors to do so too. A boot brush will be available when the pitch is open. This is particularly important when visiting the clubhouse, because it tends to be very muddy outside the door to the changing rooms.
The club is in something of an injury crisis at the moment, with both men's and ladies' seconds struggling to put eleven players out yesterday. The ladies at least can call on their trusty colleagues in the Korinthians, who always step up to the mark when required. So thanks to Vicky and Lesley for answering the call, and not complaining when Cap'n Wendy had them playing for most of the match!
If truth were to be told, this wasn't just making up the numbers either, with the ladies holding Monarchs of Midland Division 1 to a draw in the cup, only losing out in a penalty shoot-out.
The men's firsts had a big game today in the shape of the semi-finals of the District Cup at Peffermill. Taking on the might of Watsonians 2s, who are currently not far off the top of Central Division 1-which is to say a long way above us- the boys did a great job to only lose 4-1. Just yesterday, Watsons had put ten past a mid-table team in their own league!
Great performance guys. We're very proud of you.
Looking nice, isn't it?
There has been a bit of a delay on the pitch installation, with the contractor getting problems in completing another job. But I'm pleased to say that the carpet started going down this morning.
The shockpad was completed as planned over the weekend and the new carpet was delivered to KGV today. Installation should start on Thursday.
Rebuilding work has now begun. That's the new shockpad being put in place. This phase of the project should run up to Saturday or Sunday.
By the end of today, the old shockpad should be fully removed. You can see in the picture above that there is less than half of it left.
In the background of the picture, you can see the materials for the new shockpad, which were delivered today - bales of rubber pellets and drums of binder.
So far, so good.
So the carpet is gone - the last few pieces are being loaded up on a lorry as I write. Next step is to clear the shockpad underneath. The contractor is intending to work on Saturday, and this job should be done by the end of Monday.
After that, we have to inspect the macadam layer to make sure it is sufficiently flat and to make any repairs that might be necessary.
