Well the game started badly for me when I charitably offered my umbrella to our supporter who was getting wet from the rain. As I went off to get my umbrella from the car the match started and I was a couple of seconds late. From this point on avoiding TFC was like pushing water uphill. Despite some excellent crosses from myself, winning a P-Flick and generally playing pretty solidly I got TFC. (ok I did miss the ball when covering in defence and clouted the oppo on the leg too). However even Caggers attempted baseball swipe was not enough to divert the award to myself.
Any to the game, we started off pretty poorly and soon found ourselves 1-0 down. I know we don’t like doing it but warming up beforehand makes so much difference to our game. This week and last we all stood around chatting and both times were very slow off the blocks. Once we had woken up the game started to go our way – our midfield trio of Pikey, Chris and Olli (MOM) played some fantastic passing hockey, often taking the ball from our 16, passing 5 or 6 times and getting it into the oppos “D”. It they keep this up we will be losing them to a higher team (well not Pikey of course as he’s too old).
We soon got parity back with an Olli goal, abiot scappy in the D but Olli kept his head and slotted away. Our forwards were pretty slow today – we all had several shots on goal but none went in. Later on Chris took a brilliant opportunity and wacked the ball into the top of the net.
After half time we swapped things about upfront – Dan was labouring big time having committed a large proportion of his skin onto the astro pitch with some committed but perhaps optimistic dives for the ball – Carlos went to centre, Breesey to the right and Dan on the left. This proved to confuse the enemy defence when I picked the ball up from another smooth Oli pass, dribble round 2 defenders (or was it three), drove into the D, was just about to bury it when a defender shoulder barged me off the ball. Fortunately the Umpire was in a great position and awarded a P-flick. I did consider taking it myself however I’m not sure I could’ve put up with Carlos whinging for the next year if I missed it. Any how carlos seemed to take for ever setting himself up but eventually put it away smoothly.
3-1 to Epsom.
After that the Opps seemed to get a fresh burst fo energy and attacked constantly – Our guest player Rob took a hell of a tumble over the keeper and was limping a bit. Breesey (being the nice guy and all round team player told him to take five and recover and took over as sweeper. This proved a bad idea and the aforementioned miss occurred -thus sealing my TFC.
Anyway – a win is a win – and we must warm up next time – even if we don’t like it – we put ourselves under a load of pressure and give the opposition the upper hand mentally if they score first.