Match Report

He has ceased to be, bereft of life, he rests in peace, he has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the Great Head of Light in the sky …

And I guess that we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, such capability and kindness, of such unusual intelligence should now be so suddenly spirited away at the age of only twenty-three, before he’d achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he’d had enough fun.

Well, I feel that I should say, “Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard! I hope he flys.”

And the reason I feel I should say this is, he would never forgive me if I didn’t, if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you, capture your attention and tell you about planes on his behalf. Anything else for him would be mindless. I could hear him whispering in my ear last night as I was writing this. I was attempting to reminisce on the weekends game and attempt to count how many short corners we had won (I think it was around 15) and all I could hear was the ghost of Collard whispering about if planes actually had a left phalange…

But in all seriousness, if he were here with me now, I would probably have the courage to sit through conversation about Boeing 747s, 767s and 777s as I would rejoice being in his company again.

He loved to stick block. In fact, Collard, more than anyone I knew, embodied and symbolized all that was most offensive and juvenile in Hockey. And his delight in stick blocking people led him on to greater and greater feats. I like to think of him as the pioneering beacon that beat the path along which fainter spirits could follow.

Some memories, I remember playing with him against Basingstoke. I suggested that with the volume of corners we had that we should really train on them so we can put some in the rigging. He responded that he had dreamed about concords which in the moment I dismissed as I was so focussed on winning more short corners.

On the 27th October we were playing a game where we were over all the opposition like a rash but managed to lose 4-2. Dominic Coe had managed to fire two goals into the netting off short corners but the oppo had been far more clinical when in our area. As Mark would say ‘Carpe Dieming’. I will always remember that day, as Mark was pulling out a corner the comment was made that he looked like me but had “eaten a few more takeaways”. In the moment I felt honoured as he fizzed the ball to the top of the D where it was flicked mercilessly to the post man who tapped it for four.

At the end of that day we felt as a team that we had played some of our finest hockey in terms of patterns of play and stick blocks (in thanks to Mark), but it had not been enough. The umpires on the day were impressed by the calibre of play along with the fact we couldn’t shut down the game in the first half.

I remember Collard receiving a yellow card against him from none other than the finest chumpire in the land for stick blocking. Once he had received the rectangle he fell to the ground and crawled all the way to the dugout, screaming loudly, as loudly as he could.
And if you remember Mark, that was very loud indeed.
It is magnificent, isn’t it? You see, the thing about shock … is not that it upsets some people, I think; I think that it gives others a momentary joy of liberation, as we realized in that instant that the social rules that constrict our lives so terribly are not actually very important.
Well, Mark can’t do that for us anymore. He’s gone. He is an ex-Collard.
All we have of him now is our memories.
But it will be some time before they fade.