COWHC Ladies' 1s vs Phoenix - 20th November 2016

It was a cold and miserable Sunday morning in the depths of Croydon high. Our Sunday game should have been like any other match! With a full team 100% raring to go, after an early night, 8 hours sleep and absolutely no alcohol the night before. #HockeyIsLife. But alas this was not the case…

Disclaimer – This match report has nothing to do with hockey.

Not more than 6/7 hours before having to be pitch side various members of the team were what we like to call doing a pre-game warm up…. This could be described as partying the night away to those who do not play or understand hockey. But to us it’s a good work out burning all the alcoholic calories off that we had consumed after losing Saturdays game, well this and the fact it was Nicky Wilsons Birthday night out, so naturally we had to celebrate. I think some people decided to party a little too hard and never actually made it out to this pre-game work out held at Treehouse.

After arriving at Croydon High slightly late due to some of our team making a detour to get bacon sandwiches (which were very much needed and tasted incredible) and some still in bed 5 minutes before needing to leave, we discover no one is pitch side and realise they are all huddled in the entrance to the Croydon high school gym/sport centre/ I’m not actually sure where we were. Most looked half a sleep or still intoxicated (not that we would condone this before a cup match) While still trying to sober up and look like we are capable of playing hockey the opposition walk out of the changing rooms fully kitted up and ready to go. (including the goalie, helmet and all) despite the fact she would need to walk up the many many stairs and slight hill to the pitch. Totally not exaggerating as we all know when hungover/still drunk the height of a hill and the number of steps doubles!

Now I believe there was some kind of team talk but sadly I missed this due to being on the phone. (Long story short Henners was not the only one with car issues Saturday. Your very own match reporter managed to reverse into a Lexus, so was profusely apologizing to the guy on the other end of the line.)

We eventually made our way up to the pitch hoping to find the rest of Croydon Old Whits hockey club out in force to support their Ladies 1st team. Despite asking fellow club members well in advance and many even commenting with good luck and ‘liking’ the Facebook post the side-line was empty. I mean it was a bloody Sunday at midday…. We all know hockey players don’t have a life… #HockeyIsLife …. What else are people doing…. We were very disappointed.

To be fair we did have one supporter for about the first 10 minutes, not that this was by choice. I won’t mention names but they never made it home after a very messy night out. After a desperate plea on the phone to his mother and various family to come pick him up they eventually rescued him from the side-lines and torture of having to watch the L1’s attempt to play hockey.

As you may have gathered there isn’t much about hockey in this report as I don’t recall most of the day! So from what I do know is we did actually start out in the first 10 minutes pretty strong, I am pretty sure we dominated there half. We did make some decent passes using what we practiced in training and gave the opposition a bit of a run around. Phoenix were a quick team so outpaced us when it came to them breaking out of our ‘D’. I believe we started to fade as the pre-work out session was catching up with some of us, and Phoenix managed to score 2 goals despite the efforts of our goalie trying to save them.

Now if we had been on top form these goals would not have happened as we could of avoided them, but alas they did. We managed to hold our own and even had several attempts at a shot on goal from 3 short corners, but sadly we just couldn’t execute the finishing touch. Even after trying a lovely pass out to top ‘D’ with a sneaky pass out to the left slip. In our hungover states we still believe the goal grew legs and moved a couple of yards to the right! After what seemed like an age we were down to the last 7/8 minutes of the games and still at 2-0, I had just subbed off and while doing so the one and only Nicky managed to score! I was gutted I missed it, (sorry Nicky I wish I could say how amazing your goal was and how I saw every detail of it but I can’t. ) Maybe someone else will be able to fill the missing gaps in for me.

So after a quick celebration the team regrouped into their own half. We were determined to score again in the last 5 minutes, going out strong and giving it our best. Phoenix passed the ball back and came out strong down their right hand side but with the team spirits high we recovered the ball hoping to get a break away. Sadly this did not happen…. Our debut player from the Ladies 2nd team Poppy Rosen-Nash had gone in for a tackle, we assumed a stick tackle had occurred due to the sound, but no this was the sound of Rosen-Nash’s thumb breaking and dislocating! After walking off the pitch like a champ she was taken to A+E to get it seen to, where they later told her she would be needing surgery if she wanted full use of her thumb in the future! We all wish her well and a speedy recovery, and we hope this hasn’t put her or the other 2’s players off from joining the 1’s when we need help!

So if you got this far thanks for reading the Ladies 1st match report, of which none of it was about hockey! The End results being Phoenix 2- 1 COWHC