COWHC Men's 2s vs Purley Walcountians Men's 4s - 04th March 2017

Looking through the windows on a Saturday morning to work out what the weather will be like in early March is something of a lottery. One corner of the sky is blue, the other grey. And yet those of us that play for COWHC 3s are still motivated to make the trip out to PWs - not exactly goin' back to Indiana, yet despite Jack saying "I'll be there" (like all of us), he still managed to end up at the wrong pitch!

With PWs sitting in 4th place, albeit a few points behind us, we knew this wouldn't be as easy as ABC. Yet a strong squad had us thinking we could be goin' places.

We warmed up and, because time waits for no one, the umpires got us under way. The match started quite evenly, and PWs, despite not getting much change out of the dancing machine that is our back 4, they did win a short corner. But a clean sheet was our destiny and the danger was swiftly repelled.

And then the boogie man struck - Ollie took a sideline hit, played in Mulley who streaked through the defence and rocketed a shot into the net. The PWs keeper stood no chance with that, but pulled off a superb save a bit later on when I drilled the ball into the D, Corny got a touch which was bound for the corner, yet somehow the keeper managed to get it together and blocked the shot.

Our play was perhaps a bit scrappier than usual as we allowed one thing in particular to affect us (what you don't know, I won't tell...). so despite creating a couple of further chances we were only 1 - 0 up at half time.

Skipper dP gave his usual words of wisdom at half time, including enjoy yourself and I want you back at your best for the second half.

And for the most part we did that. Sure, PWs did put us under the odd bit of pressure, but with Hutch marshalling his troops at the back there was no way through.

And Hutch was involved in our second goal, a short corner that he struck well, the keeper saved, but Will was quickest to react and finished things off.

There was still time in the game for two green cards - one a-piece, with a PW's player deciding that, after being pulled up for handing off one of us, the ball needed to be off the pitch instead of ready for our free hit, and Jack cementing his DOD by having a go at their umpire even though we had the ball. Needless to say the umpire told him to walk right now.

The final whistle blew and while it may have been something of a Hallelujah day, we had seen off a tricky opponent and thanks to other results going our way (still in a state of shock about the OC's game!) it's a lovely one - because we're back on top of the league!

POM was a joint win for Mulley & Will (whatever you got, I want!)
DOD was unanimously Jack (just blame it on the boogie!)

Thanks to everyone who came to support and huge thanks to Nicky W for umpiring.