Men's 4XI vs Spencer Titans

Well I suppose it had to happen at some point. Muhammad Ali couldn’t win all his fights. Seabiscuit couldn’t win all his races. Jim’ll couldn’t fix it for everyone. And likewise the 4s run of 14 league wins in a row had to come to an end at some point. In all honesty we didn’t do enough to win the game, we didn’t play well enough to compete all over the park, and we weren’t careful enough to keep our extraordinary run going.

I mean, it was always going to be hard against the Invitational XI posing as “Spencer Titans”. Yes, it’s _possible_ that 15 players all wearing different kits are just waiting for their order from Akuma to come through. Of course, it’s _possible_ that those five young lads who showed up last minute hadn’t hot tailed it straight from a Division 1 game but were instead just running a bit late because their Vauxhall Nova was having trouble starting up. And yeah, sure, it’s _possible_ that Spencer’s actual 8th XI just happen to have a dozen 20 year old players who also play for Nottingham University and Reading HC in their spare time. I mean those scenarios are absolutely possible. I guess it’s also just about plausible that this was a team full of uni hockey mates whose names 100% will not match those on GMS, but maybe that’s just me being terribly cynical.

Anyway, annoyingly the visit of this Spencer Globetrotters XI happened to coincide with our team having its collective worst first half for a while. Even super reliable players had a bit of an off day, with stray passes, bewildering decisions and a chronic inability to make a single pass in between the halfway line and the oppo 23 such, and these very real deficiencies hamstrung us all game. As their GB international midfielder (who just happens to love playing Division 5 hockey) said after the game “I don’t feel like we won that game. It feels like Epsom lost it”.

Never were truer words spoken. Three gifted goals, and a midfield sclerosis of our own making; mishit passes and sloppy control; long desperate balls to no one, and naive defending against counter attacks. All the things we’ve worked so hard to eliminate from our game resurfaced when we came up against our first real test.

But despite all that I actually don’t feel too bad. At half time when we were 4-0 down and in danger of being on the wrong end of a real shellacking, I asked us to forget the first half and win the second half: we did. I asked us to step up and respond positively to the situation: we did. I asked us to raise our standards and outwork them: we did. They tired, we kept going. They broke away, we shut them down. We gave them a real game in that second period and they were hanging on at the end, clearing anywhere, making unforced errors, and boxing themselves in. Unfortunately for us it was too little too late.

Credit to the “Spencer” ringers, they’re good players who took advantage of our mistakes. They finished well, and knew what they needed to do to beat us: withdraw into their half, wait for a cack pass, turn the ball over quickly, and break at speed in numbers. We kept falling for it, and they kept punishing us for it.

However, with slightly better ball security, more accurate passing, keener marking and fewer braindead balls ups, I think that game ends maybe 2-2. Anyway, we’ll see how many of Spencer’s “8th XI” show up for the return fixture next year. I tell yer I would love it if we went there and beat them. Love it.

Players

Jonno

Outstanding defensive game from the JW, with some really good interceptions in the second half. He played physical hockey, shut their left half down for most of the game, and communicated really well all afternoon. However there are a few development opportunities: getting the ball under control more quickly, developing a better pre-scan, putting some fizz on those balls up the sideline, and working on ball security. Against teams like this (and we actually don’t know the standard in this league) Jonno’s going to need to be working at 100% sharpness all game. Teams will come and steal his balls otherwise, and nobody wants to see that.

Farmer

Up and down game from the big man with the hamstrings like overcooked spaghetti. I thought Dave’s positioning was pretty good all game, he had a very bright second half, and he defended pretty stoutly most of the time, although the first half was slightly less polished with a couple of baggy passes and a tendency to force the ball. Playing with a slight injury always makes things a bit harder, and Dave had to sit off their forward line a bit, but the defensive unit wasn’t where we lost this game. He did mostly what was required, but it’s hard to keep teams out when your team mates just will not stop giving them the ball in dangerous areas. Farmer also gets extra marks for delivering an aerial so bad that it beat two Spencer ringers and made its way to Loz. Perfection!

Maj

Another decent performance from the Majic Man himself. Didn’t do much wrong in this game - his usual reliable control, delivering a straight bat to whatever cross field googly came his way; some actual helpful shouting in this game (I know!); and even a bit of running to keep up with the alleged 8th XI wingers. Maj anchored us well, and I don’t mean in a “dead weight dragging us under the sea to a watery grave” type way. Not this time, anyway. The good news is I do now have the answer to something I had previously never understood, ie how is it that Maj gets to the ground an hour before push back and is still the last player to unpack, warm up, and get ready? Well, now it makes sense to me - it’s the same as when my Nan used to take me shopping. The reason it took four hours to get groceries is because she used to stop and gossip and gasbag and chat to literally everyone she saw, completely forgetting why she was there in the first place. Yes Maj, you are officially a granny!

Bish

Great to have the Reverend back. Pace and power still evident, energy and effort still there, first touch hopefully being delivered in time for next week’s game! We did look sharper with Bish in the game, and in the second half he helped us get on the front foot. But he did also help us learn one crucial lesson during this game: wearing an amusing if slightly camp light blue cap does not stop you slicing your first pass into touch! So now we know.

Pringle

Hard to think of much to write about Pringo as he was uncharacteristically a bit anonymous in this game. He definitely played in the midfield, and he definitely did some stuff. I think there was a bit of defending in there, I think there were a few tackles which I remember more of in the second half, and I’m pretty sure there were some passes too. So that’s good. Short corners went well - that I do remember - and he definitely came to the clubhouse afterwards. I seem to remember he was wearing a jumper. Can anyone fill in the gaps?

Duncs

Dave has set such high standards over the years that it feels harsh to say he had a ‘bad’ game because he gave the ball away twice and missed a through ball once. The vast majority of his play was controlled and measured, helping us gain and keep possession all game long. It wasn’t his fault that when “Spencer” retreated into their half we couldn’t string a single pass together for toffee. He was the sole reason we had the ball in the first place. But when one’s tiny handful of mistakes lead to goals which make the difference in a tight game, it does cast a slightly dimmer light on the collective memory of one’s performance. Sorry, but them’s the rules.

Jack

One of the very few players who didn’t drop a sperm whale-sized clanger today, Jack is in fact getting better each game, like a fine claret maturing in a cut glass decanter on a Chippendale occasional table. His passing was lustrous, his stick skills beguiling, and his movement like of a gazelle on rollerblades, smooth and graceful. He was unlucky not to get a goal from our first corner, a goal which might have changed the trajectory of this game. But in general he had a good day at the office on a day which, if we had all been in an actual office, would have featured a fire drill in the rain, sporadic issues with the photocopier, and a 4.55pm message from Corporate telling us we’d all been sacked for gross misconduct.

Rich

Hard to criticise the human pendulum that is Rich Lee, who just keeps ticking long after everyone else’s winding mechanism has worn out. Rich was our key player in the second half and really started putting pressure on the “Spencer“ midfielders and centre halves. A pity by that stage it was akin to adding a flavoursomely tangy but delicately subtle ranch dressing to a plate of ribs that’s already been burnt to a crisp. Can’t fault the lad’s effort, and we know Rich would run through walls for us. It’s just a pity we kept hitting passes into that wall as well.

Mandy

Hard to assess Mandy’s performance. The good news was, unlike last week, he didn’t spend the last ten minutes inexplicably parked at left back. He also took his goal superbly calmly, with all the sardonic casualness of James Bond dispatching a bothersome but inferior henchman with a vintage Walther PPK. To be fair, Mands offered us width, and did see quite a lot of the ball, but for whatever reason the build up play just wasn’t coming off. Had more joy in the second half against their actual 8th XI left back, but again we’d left ourselves too much to do by then. Seems to be handy in the bar, though.

Ludders

Unable to get much change out of the “Spencer” defence in this game, but I feel that was more because of the lack of service from our midfield than the brilliance of the opposition back four. In fact I haven’t seen service this bad since my brother ordered a vegetarian salad in a hotel in Montpelier and the waiter serving it proudly boasted how it came with _slightly less ham_ than the usual ham salad. With little ball time and without wingers driving in from the flanks, Ludders was reduced to carving out his own chances, like Michelangelo trying to sculpt David but with a small and slightly blunt Swiss Army knife. Ambitious but not likely to end in a huge success.

Gaz

You can buy a Lamborghini Countach but if you don’t service it properly it will end up on the scrapheap with all the Austin Allegros and Fiat Multiplas just the same. And we didn’t give the sports car that is Gaz much help today. When he did get the ball he looked calm and creative, but they packed their defence tight, beat us to the ball, and seemed to have a yard on us all over the park, especially in the first half. Trying to make the ball stick up front was like trying to glue an elephant to a jumbo jet with pritt stick: messy and ultimately futile. And then the real kick in the nuts came when Gary heroically went for a tackle at 4-1 down with three minutes to go and pulled his hammy. It looks like a fairly long pit stop for the lad, too. Wishing you a speedy recovery, Gazza.

Loz

Tireless performance from the Marsh Warbler, but as was the case with every single one of my teenage outings to the Ilford Palais in the early 90s, frustratingly fruitless in terms of scoring. Lawrence looked at times our most dangerous threat - he posed problems for “Spencer” when we did manage to get the ball to him, he had a couple of decent efforts on target, and he covered an awful lot of ground, but we just couldn’t make it happen for him. Once again the bigger boys got to take the Essex girls back to their semi-detached houses in their dad’s XR3i. Sad times.

Spike

Presiding over a first loss since November 2024, this was a bitter pill for the skipper to swallow, tasting every bit as sour and disappointing as that Guinness in Las Vegas which claimed to be the best pint in America. There were a couple of sliding saves, some nifty footwork, and two signature cruise missile clearances which seem to have become a thing this season. But it comes to something when a bloke who conceded four goals wins Man of the Match, and that tells you all you need to know about this game really.

So we move on, determined to learn lessons from a chastening first half, but buoyed by the response we showed in the second half. We didn’t let our heads drop, we didn’t lose our composure, we didn’t fall out with one another, and we didn’t capitulate. Instead we came out fighting and put in a much improved performance. We do need to work on making possession count in a compact environment; we do need to work on being patient, stretching and switching the play; and we do need to figure out how to make in-game adjustments: we can’t afford to wait till half time to make changes, especially if we have to all intents and purposes already lost the game. Last week Teddington were 3-0 down at half time vs Spencer. They won 5-3. That’s where we need to get to.

But let’s use this as a learning experience, pick ourselves up, and start thinking about tonking Wimbledon’s alleged 6th XI next week. We sit in third with plenty of season left to accumulate points and goals. So let’s do this!

Spike