COWHC Ladies' 1s vs Wimbledon Ladies Dev - 05th November 2016

On 3 November, the hockey gods gave us the graveyard slot of 1630 away at Wimbledon, on bonfire Saturday, the first week after the clocks went back, and they delayed all the matches before us to ensure a pushback time of approaching midnight. Not only this, they gave us a team of long legged teenagers to chase around. Lesser teams would have been tempted to throw in the towel before the starting whistle, but not the Mighty COWs. True to our red and blue heritage, we absorbed the opening pace of the youngstrels in the early exchanges and showed the guile and tenacity that only experience and wisdom can bring.
While Wimbledon were immaculately well drilled in their set pieces, we were full of initiative and determined to win the 50:50 tackles. This we did with aplomb, and we set up some exciting attacking opportunities. Unfortunately the hockey gods kept moving the goal posts, and each chance either slipped wide or flew too high to be counted. In the meantime, Wimbledon twizzled and flibbertigibbeted their way into the D and, despite valiant defending, broke through on 2 occasions. One was disappointing, as we slowed down expecting the whistle to blow, to our cost, and the second was an unstoppable short corner strike. In the closing quarter the hockey gods frowned at Emma, the bravest midfielder known to us all, and she took a stick to the eyebrow. Cue much blood, a huge bandage and enormous respect from everyone.

3 Nov: the team was Sharon, Lena, Emma, Chloe, LBell, Alex, Emer, Rachel, Sally, Nicky, Santy and Dicko.
PoM votes were 0.5 for Rach and Lena, 1 each for Emer, Emma and LBell, 2 for Nicky and 3 each for Chloe and Alex.

Thank you to Corny for umpiring and Becky and Matt for braving the freezing temperatures and midnight pushback to support us.