COWHC Men's 4s vs Old Reigatian Men's 3s - 06th Oct 2018

One of the perils of playing an outdoor winter sport is that you get some cold days and you get some wet days... and occasionally, although not normally in October, you get a combination of weather that seems to be a cross between a monsoon and an arctic blast. That probably explains why I'm sat here writing this with the beginnings of a cold.

But sometimes, even the abysmal weather can be lived with when a match goes the way this did.

OK, so the day didn't start brilliantly as Brooksy messaged me to say that his wife had come down with the lurgy and he was left holding the baby... quite literally. Down to 12... still, at least that gives me one sub...

Joe kindly took yours truly from the L1 game, were I'd been pretending to umpire, together with Adam and Nicky over to Reigate. We arrived at RAAS and, after battling our way through the 4x4s and sports cars making their way out of the school car park arrived pitch side. Raj and Jonny had struggled way through Croydon traffic to make it just in time for the warm up, I say warm up, more like "slightly take the edge off the cold". We were at a bare 11... Josh K not present, that's OK I thought, he'll be here (more on that later).

The match started and we were slightly heartened to see the oppo only had 10, but that doesn't always mean the game will be easier, and the conditions really wouldn't help either.

Having promoted myself up the pitch to play defensive midfield, we began to play the good, passing hockey that we had the previous week. Calm on the ball and moving around the pitch, the gaps started opening up. Raj made a good move down the right, I slipped the ball to him and broke into the D to take the return... however unselfishly I decided to dummy the ball knowing Adam was behind me (totally deliberate, honest!). He controlled the pass and calmly slotted away. 1-0 CROWS

We were constantly putting Old Reigatians under pressure and won a couple of short corners. My radar was slightly off with my initial injections, but that actually worked to our advantage on one, where Adam received the ball on the right, took it into the D and played it back across goal to me at the back post where I scored my first goal in at least 3 years!

Our movement and passing continued to pull holes in the oppo ranks and I think we had scored two more when ORs broke, a mishit cross skipped into the area, deflected off my stick into Phil, bounced off him and landed at an opposition player who tucked it away.

We didn't panic, we carried on our game and swiftly broke up the other end to score again.

The second half was more of the same, and continued passing and moving led to numerous chances, several of which were converted. It even saw the appearance of Josh about 10 minutes in, who had managed to go to the wrong pitch!

Final score 10 - 1 to us!
Scorers were:
Adam x3, Raj x2, Scott x2, Joe, Qaz and me

POM was very well deserved Killer