BACK TO WINNING WAYS !!!!!
Epsom 5's 2 : Old Georgians 0 (3rd December)
So the gallant troops of Epsom 5's marched on, with a little more confidence that this week we could actually win a game in the absence of our lucky Peruvian mascot. Surely, surely we could have some success to report back - and perhaps the threat of Carlos' return with new witchcraft skills he had been perfecting in deepest darkest Peru was enough of a boost.
Also, in what is now becoming tradition we welcomed our 4th captain of the season in Nick Payne - clearly the burden of defeat hangs heavy. He even came with strategy and a game plan - the plan was great, but a little bit offended that the 2 centre-forward's were represented by tall slender drink bottles and the 4 in mid-field were dumpy fat and well basically round (vis-a-vis hockey balls). After realising the only 2 players which sort of resembled the bottles were Rob and Olli, that was the forward line sorted, and it was up to me, Chris, Cheyne, Jonesy (late we might note, missed the strategy talk and probably did not realise he was playing as a short, dumpy round thing - or did he....) and Jack to rotate and be the heartbeat of the midfield.
Defence being Simon, Graeme, Nick, David and Tapping, with Andy in goal looking to improve upon the 8 goal thrashing of last week (to be fair to Andy, we sort of let the Bank player wander into the D too many times last week, and the team was probably responsible for half the goals - but we have to blame someone).
So off we started, and soon realised the OG team was probably a good 10 years younger than us, and first 5-10 minutes was a little bit too even if not pressurised. Hey, we were now accustomed to pressure over the last 4-5 weeks of soaking up defeats, and we held strong. Soon the game turned, and we actually played some really good hockey - the defence was solid at the back (or is it soiled at the back?), the midfield ran well (despite us being fat, round and dumpy - don't worry I will get over it for next week) and with good linking with the 2 forward's we were actually winning in every sector of the pitch. We had the beating of OG's, we knew it, and this was looking good - we could actually return to winning ways.
OG's had the one danger man (the young guy with big, spiky and over bleached hair - and I did hear Marcus ask his Dad from the sideline, why that man had silly hair, to which Graeme professionally advised that he was not in a position to discuss fashion, as he had a game to observe). Special mention to David who I thought was great at slowing the danger man down, and indeed generally had the beating of him each time; but this goes for the whole defence - we were awesome at the back.
We won a few short corners (for those actually watching the game there were shed loads, but as author and receiver of most, without scoring any, I am going to reduce down how many we did not score from - so there) and after Steve superbly changed to game plan 4 (this is the one where we fluffs it, it bobbles forward, bounces around a bit and then gets to another player who may actually score) the ball was cleverly weaved into Oli who smashed it into the goal (Ok less of a smash, but they all count). So this is what winning feels like.
From there, we never really lost control of the game, and we really did win the majority of all defensive, midfield and attacking battles. Our pressure continued and we managed to score a second goal courtesy of Rob - Rob will need to add the details as I really can't remember how he scored - but sure he ran really fast and managed to get the ball between the posts and under the bar which is the sort of idea.
2:0 up at half time, and Nick's clever strategy continued - the return of the jelly babies.
Second half was largely the same Epsom dominance as the first, albeit we failed to convert the few short-corners we had (and yes, as author I can reduce down the number we had, albeit am very grateful to see Carlos return next week and show us how it's done). I did manage to weave past 2 running defenders, and reverse flick the ball diagonally across the goal and which sailed into the top corner of the net - well that was the plan, and would have worked as their goalie stood static in amazement as the ball sailed on and just a few inches over the bar - could have been great and saved TFC but wasn't to be.
Our only wobble came when Andy, decided to do some sort of Irish jig with the ball and passed it between his back foot and our post a couple of times, but he assured me afterwards he was totally in control and was just showing off his skills and control of the ball (doh - it's the white round thing - that's not wearing an Epsom midfield shirt).
End result a well deserved 2:0 victory to Epsom and has moved us up to 9th in the league (or 3rd from bottom depending if you're an optimist of pessimist).
Must say that OG played with a really good sporting spirit and it was a delight to host them. Strangely their captain did flip between Mr Nice, and Mr angry a couple of times, but hey overall it was a great day for Hockey.
Votes became very interesting and many old Epsom by-laws were used and many others simply made up on the spot. Rob won MoM for scoring, but then equally won TFC for missing many more (we could and probably should have won by a few more). Caggers as umpire both on and off the pitch (and thanks to Caggers again), invoked bylaw no.103 which saved Rob from TFC, and then invented a scenario where I allegedly gave away a short corner for not being 5 yards. I still cannot remember this incident and confident I was still wandering around midfield letting the defence get on with it, but then I did vote myself TFC for being shot by the Therfield sniper earlier in the game (some may think I just fell over in the D whilst trying to score, but I was badly shot - did not want to alarm anyone, so just got on with it) and so gallantly agreed to take TFC for the team. Now realised this title means waking up early Sunday morning, using the score from the day before and making up a match report which loosely fits.
Anyway, it has been a pleasure, and next week we visit Trinity Old Midwives who are bottom of the table, lost 13-0 to Purley last week, but put in a surprisingly good result yesterday only losing 4-2 to Spencer - interesting turn around...... Lets not forget we could and should have beaten Spencer so should be a good week for us again.
We welcome the return of the Peruvian Master (and jelly babies) whom I note has already assumed he's back into our winning team.
Steve