COWHC Mens 3s vs. Old Kingstonian Mens 3s

A flurry of snow first thing on a Saturday isn't quite enough to turn the ordinary world that is Croydon into a fairytale, especially when it precedes a freezing cold match day at Oasis. No white lines here, just sand as far as the eye can see!

The days leading up to the match had seen e-mails going round creating what seemed to be a logistical effort worthy of getting team GB to Rio, not a couple of people over to the school. What was more incredible was the amount of people wanting Adam in their car, making me wonder is there something I should know...

Anyway, everybody made it on time. Skipper Cleashy has resigned himself to the role of the Special One for the next couple of weeks claiming injury, but I think he just likes wearing a nice coat and directing the wild boys of COWHC 3s! Meet El Presidente!

A good warm up meant the team were hungry like the wolf from the starting whistle. Pressing OKs from the front with such energy that the opposition must have wondered if that was how Napoleon felt at Waterloo! More importantly, the passing was going so smoothly that with a boom bang-a-bang we were 1-0 up early on. Apologies for the careless memories, but I must admit that I have forgotten who scored when, so you'll have to fill in those gaps yourselves. The game was so quick there was too much information for me to process while keeping up with the play!

I did get a couple of minutes on the sidelines after taking a ball to the knee. After I recovered, El Presidente put me on at left half, I wasn't sure if he was serious at first, but he said I shouldn't be running scared from a more advanced position and that I should believe. I have to admit it was fun, although the voice in my head did sort of think Hallelujah! when I reverted to defence (Adam may disagree... more on that later). By that time we were not only 3 - 0 up, but Corny had managed to put a P-flick wide after great work by TC whose shot had been stopped een beetje behind the line... a goal could have been given, but had that been the case it may have made the DOD vote harder!

Unfortunately after that we did refrain from our high intensity effort slightly and allowed OKs to get a goal back. That did give us a sharp reminder to keep up the standard and not give the opposition a chance to rise like a phoenix.

Half time gave us a chance to reset and we started the second half with a view to a kill. The intensity was back to top level, and our attacking play was burning the ground. Some of us maybe over did it... OK, I did... getting caught out of position and leaving Adam briefly up against 3 attackers. I wanna say it was because I knew he was controlling their centre forward like a puppet on a string, although I agreed to cut out the hero runs.

And I did, for all of two minutes... but a loose pass across the 25 from OKs centre back was too much of an invitation. The reflex kicked in and I nipped in to win the ball, slipped it to Dav who laid it off to Steelers to finish.

Adam then agreed a full back could cross the halfway line, but it was a case of making your mind up when it was appropriate to do so.

At the final whistle we'd put 6 past the team who at the start of the day had been one place above us in the league, leading to a sense of euphoria... although the wild dances were confined to later.

12 heroes in the squad made it tough to pick a POM, but the votes went the way of Steelers for his superb display and 2 goals. The other scorers were TC (2), HamJam and Swifty.

(Second match report challenge met, although unfortunately I couldn't work in my number one choice of Hard Rock Hallelujah)