UCL Academicals Mens 3rd XI 0 - 1 Kenley Men's 2nd XI
Match Report
timely meeting of greats, a good hour prior to the game, ensured a calm atmosphere prevailed pre-match. Although Chopper was slightly flapping that Luke hadn’t arrived with the shirts, all was well in the team.
The game started as it was to go on – that is, badly. Kenley came out hard, and pressed us from the off. Caught napping (in their own inimitable style), the 3rd XI let a sloppy through ball towards our danger zone, and some quick play by the opposition meant it hit the backboard before we knew it.
Coming back from the restart, the Accies stepped it up. Knowing that it was going to be a (very) physical game changed our demeanor, but the fact is we are used to playing hockey, not some bastard child of shinty and street-fighting.
Tempers flared, voices of frustration heard, and all in most people got a bit of a pasting. On the rare occasions when we managed to play our game, we looked composed, and put together a few maneuvers towards the opposition D which, whilst looking threatening, all came to nothing.
Using our new wunder-player Pete (no, not the one-armed-bandit, he’s long gone - to some hippy commune I suspect) to take the shots came to nothing, although despite being a ‘friend’ of Mincer, he is welcome back any Saturday.
(Lack of) Goaldnall, posing his usual deadly triple threat in the D was taken out the only way their keeper knew how – a cynical hack that took our hero’s legs from beneath him, and left him looking skywards. Thankfully he had a soft landing on the guilty party’s collarbone, which, I suspect, will make him think twice before messing with that particular 13 stone hunk of man muscle again.
A disappointing 1-0 loss to a team we should have beaten, and an unceremonious dumping from leading the league to 4th, we welcome the return match, playing under the 2010 FIH rules of field hockey...
A military-style quick run to the local off license (no school children) procured us several gallons of warm lager and cider (and one pack of digestives) in order to a) drown our sorrows and b) take the sting out of watching the girls 2nd XI dominate Kenley ladies.
After a short train journey back to civilization (kindly, and randomly, accompanied part of the way by Monsier Pikey Snr.), we headed to a pub in the back end of Victoria.
Man was (near unanimously) voted for Goaldnall, and in a vote similar to the sort of democracy practiced in communist Russia, he was also not-so-man… 2 pints in, and the rest of the evening looked promising in the company of the girls 2s.
In an unprecedented move, the winner from both previous votings also went on to be crowned man and wanker of the Ladies 2s match. Now that’s something special indeed.
League: Battersea Mixed Winter
Pushback time: 2010-11-06 13:22:00 UTC
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Notes
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