COWHC Men's 1s vs Camberley & Farnborough Men's 1s - 10th December 2016

9 months since I last had the honour of playing for CROWs 1st XI, I was on the way down to a misty and drizzly Camberley & Farnborough Hockey club.
A lot can change in 9 months; we learnt that the UK Average Joe likes a good gamble with the economy as the steak. We learnt that the US doesn't enjoy being outshone on the "Questionable Political Decision" leaderboard and quickly regained top spot. Finally we learnt that Tottenham have as much chance of finishing a PL season above Arsenal as Henners does at keeping a slapped pass below knee height...
Back to Saturday, the game started with a with a formidable period of pressure from the CROWs, Camberley were camped in their own half for the first 20 minutes.
A few good opportunities came and went before Feebs put all his strength behind a drag flick that just about had the wheels to cross the line, mainly thanks to the Camberley keeper having, in his own words "a slutty pair of legs he couldn't keep closed" 1-0 CROWs.
Next came the CKS show, characteristic darting runs, lack of desire to pass and the willingness to shoot from any angle served him well scoring a hat-trick over a 20 minute period (half time was somewhere in the middle of this, but you're guess is as good as mine...) The best of these was a diving reverse stick effort which, I'm reliably informed, brings his reverse stick success rate this season up to 1 in 86. 4-0 CROWs.
We finished the half with 10 after Timbo saw green for not retreating 5. He puts this down to an umpiring blunder, but is more likely due to him breaking his self imposed alcohol related "Not one drop" policy in a major way on Friday.
The second half may or may not have started with CKS completing his Hat-trick before Camberley pulled one back.
A robust tackle from one of the members of the feared Aryan defence, led to our hosts having a rare opportunity at our goal with their second short of the day.
As the defence lined up in readiness, Smudger reassured Slayaa that "this guy hasn't got a flick" just before this guy pinged it in off the left post half way up... 4-1 CROWs.
Smudger quickly made up for this by dispatching a well worked corner of his own to restore the 4 goal cushion. 5-1 CROWs.
With the game done and dusted, it was time for someone to try and secure the DoD vote. Feebs went with the move that in recent weeks he's trying to make his own, the Floorial. Lining up an ambitious 30m cross field chuck on the move, scuffing it and only managing a slow (but very accurate) 3m bobbled pass to a team mate.
TD went one better (or two to be precise). After playing one of the best 65 minutes of hockey for the club he went about ruining that with two failed aerials, the first of which finished a lot nearer the football pitch than the hockey one.
Neither were good enough to deny me the honour of writing my first journalistic masterpiece. After a well worked move down the right wing Callum "I wish hockey matches were longer so I could run more" Kumar-Shaw took the ball to the baseline and got cleaned out by a keeper at least 3 times his body weight. Out of concern for my floored team mate I respectfully put the ball out of play from 1m out with the open goal gaping, the right thing to do.
With the first half of the season done and dusted. CROWs 1st XI sit proudly at the top of the league with 25 points from a possible 33 and having scored 20 more goals than anyone else in our league.
Plenty more to do next year but 2016 has treated us well.
Finally I couldn't work out where to fit this in but Henners experiencing a full midlife crisis needed a mention. Reach out to him for more info.