COWHC Ladies 1s vs. Old Cranleighans - 28 November 2015

For our match today we were lucky to have world-renowned author Rachel Bartholomeusz in our midst. Her current novel, 'A tale of Surrey byways and the creatures who roam in the night' is based on a true story and is currently soaring up the list of bestsellers. Rachel continues to make friends with the various Surrey Div 2 teams and their coaches that we meet each Saturday. Chloe also dragged herself from her sick bed and brought along her best comedy voice with which to entertain us.

Twelve players came to the pitch today with the bit well and truly between their collective teeth. As one, we roared into action, picking up our marking from the outset and thereby avoiding our really irritating habit of allowing the opposition an early goal before we get settled. This is something we should try every week! With our marking in place, we wove our way around the pitch and, with confidence, we held on to the ball, picked out our team mates and decided to pass the ball to them rather than the opposition. This is something we should try every week! As the opposition grumbled and griped, we held our nerve and determinedly came out on top in 50:50 tackles, allowing us to make plentiful attacking breaks. This is something we should try every week! After 70 minutes of end to end stuff, the defence had mopped up numerous short corners, the midfield had made firm friends with their opposite numbers, and the attack had tested the OCs keeper with some feisty manoeuvres.

As Hoops said, this was certainly a winning draw and we were euphoric with our league point. Sharon produced some fantastic 1:1 saves, Santy had a shot on goal (we all did a double take but it was definitely Santy), Becky got dressed in a hurry and put her trackie bottoms on back to front, Lena had a bump on the head, Alex got a misshapen thumb (it's proving VERY hard to type but I am soldiering on in the hope of some sympathy votes), Nicky published her spaghetti style pitch coverage, Dicko proved it's never too early for a gin and tonic, and a rhino, a gazelle and a vegan octopus were spotted amongst the cheesy chips in the clubhouse.

Thank you to Martin and Ken for umpiring, to Hoops for firing us up, and to Netty for being our lucky mascot whilst looking after our handbags on the sideline.

The team was: Sharon, Lena, LBell, Santy, Chloe, Dicko, Alex, Rachel, Becky, Livy, Amelia and Nicky.

PoM votes were 1 each for Santy, Dicko, Becky, Lena, 2 for Amelia and Alex and 4 for the super committed (she may not be able to shout but she can battle with the the best of them on the pitch) Chloe.