COWHC Men's 3s vs Purley Walcountians Men's 4s - 19th November 2016

Saturday rolls around and once again I find myself leaving my wife to go and play for the mighty COWHC 3rd team ("Have fun" she said). The venue had been switched from the sandpit that is Oasis to the much nicer Royal Russell, which is as good as it gets for us in terms of pitches really, so we as happy as a stripper vicar on animal nitrate!

A squad of 16 eager players had a somewhat unconventional warm-up - moving a coach which had become stuck in the mud near the pitch. After that, how could we not be pumped to take on our big, local rivals?

And yet somehow, as in previous weeks, we started slowly... the formation didn't really stay together, the passes were more like mis-shapes than crisp, direct balls to teammates... I think scrappy is the best way of describing it. And then, after 5 minutes, a double whammy.

First, Dav picked up the ball, drove into the D and unleashed a reverse-stick, lofted, rocket of a shot... which caught Jack square in the mouth! Credit to Jack, he didn't crumple, but it was clear he wouldn't be alright given the amount of blood visible, so he made his way off to the sidelines where skipper/ manager/ coach dP attempted to patch him up. Unfortunately the steri-strips kept getting caught by the fuzz around Jack's lips and so he had to take himself off to A&E to get stitched up.

While this was going on, Keith decided that it wasn't fair that Jack was getting all of the attention and decided to pull his calf! So with Jack bleeding and Keith in trouble, the 16 had very quickly become 14. Adam Cady managed to stretch the playing resources further though, picking up a nasty crack to the foot from the ball... and then there were 13! Those numbers did allow us to change personnel without too much worry though, and gradually we began to improve.

Two goals were scored in relatively quick succession and we got through to half time with the clean sheet intact.

Unfortunately the second half started in a similar way to the first as we again seemed to be a team of daydreamers and allowed PWs a bit of a toehold. They won a couple of shorts, and from one of these, even though it seemed we'd forced the player wide, he still got a lifted cross/ shot away which was deflected in by his teammate.

That put a rocket the size of Saturn 5 up our collective backsides. Straight from the restart Corny played an aerial into a wide open space on the right, Swifty ran onto it, and then a succession of slick passes ended with a shot that thumped into the backboard. 3 - 1

Moments later it was 4 -1 and the slight return threatened by PWs was not going to be a Lazarus-like resurrection.

Our play was getting better and the movement through midfield and the forwards was olympian in scope and 4 became 5, became 6, became 7 and then 8. PWs, to give them their due, continued to play some good hockey, yet couldn't find their way past the rock-solid defence.

Corny had time to miss a P-flick, but fortunately it wasn't crucial in the end.

Goals were 3 for Corny, 2 each for Ben Ellis and Swifty and one for Raj.

POM - went to Corny who, despite the P-flick miss, had a fine time up front.
DOD - unanimously went to Dav for improving re-arranging Jack's looks (you've got a lot to answer for, Dav!) Remember Jack, the female of the species apparently digs scars.

Thanks to Mike and AJ for umpiring