COWHC Mens 3s vs. Reigate Priory Pilgrims - 30 Jan 2015

The venue this week was St. Bede's School. Apparently St. Bede is known as "The Father of English History" and this is certainly one game we shall consign to the history books.

We knew going into the match that it would be a physical encounter, something Reigate have a bit of a reputation for. However it would appear that we didn't get the memo about the game being played using rules more akin to the form of hockey played by our North American cousins.

It was always likely to be a hard road for us with only 10 1/2 players available. Skipper Cleashy bravely defying doctor's orders to at least try to make a nusiance of himself up front.

Right from the off Reigate were in clear war pigs mode, and I'm not being paranoid in thinking that their main tactic was to see us die young! Their psycho man number 4 in the middle was the main, although by no means only (the mob rules in these parts) culprit and within the first 10 minutes had gone straight through the back of Ben with no attempt to play the ball. I think there's about a minute of the game around this point that Ben probably doesn't remember!

Minutes later he was at it again, this time delaying a strike at the ball until AJ was close enough that not only was the ball struck, but AJ's knee as well. The smack was enough for AJ to need some time off on the sidelines and while we were still reeling from this Reigate struck... although this time within the rules of the game as they broke down our left and a cross to the middle found one of their players, who had snuck into space between Chris and Martin. He took a touch to control and fired a shot past Phil into the net.

Despite getting the upper hand, the opposition were still playing like characters from The Shining, with Dav, Ben and Corny in particular getting the sealclubbing treatment. Heads, shoulders, knees and toes... you name a body part and Reigate were either trying to use it to clear us off the ball or injure it!

That said, our never say die attitude kept us competing and trying to play our game. Ben was like the wizard when he had the ball, Chris was popping up here, there and everywhere like an outbreak of Vitas Gerulaitis and we were creating chances.

The clearest came from a short corner, where Adam received the ball top D, spotted Ben's run, played a perfect pass... only for Cleashy to tackle Ben on the post! I think at that point even the Devil cried!

At half time we did try to calm ourselves down, but sadly the voodoo from Reigate continued, ending up with poor Dav getting a stick to the mouth leaving him with a split lip.

Now down to 8 fit players and two partially mobile, it feels good to me to say we actually continued to take the game to the opposition. They were left resorting to hitting long balls forward which John and Martin swept up nicely. There were one or two times they did catch us with more than a 2 on 2, but Chris and Adam usually managed to get back and mop up the danger. Unfortunately on one of these occasions Graham decided to secure the DOD vote for himself as Chris broke through three or four hatchet-like tackles and won a free hit. Despite this, Graham thought the umpire needed a piece of his mind... subsequently receiving a green card for his troubles... and taking us nicely down to 7!

And yet I would still argue we were playing much the better hockey and were creating more half chances, which were being ruthlessly (in all senses of the word) closed down. Unfortunately, even with Dav coming back onto the pitch looking like an extra from The Mummy, we couldn't find that final touch to get the deserved point.

Hopefully those that picked up their various knocks aren't now feeling like children of the grave and that it wasn't too much of a black sabbath.

This game puts you through Heaven and Hell, so let's turn this back to the former from next week.

POM was Chris, as apparently I put in a tireless effort.

Oh, and if by some chance Reigate's number 4 happens to stumble across this report - you're actually one of the more skillful players in this league, but unfortunately your sheer brutality means no-one appreciates this, all they talk about is your willingness to flatten players. If you keep that up, one of these days you will put someone in hospital with a serious injury, which is not the point of this game.