Men's 4XI vs Barnes Accidentals

Hello again, and welcome to the latest instalment of my novella “How to concede goals and alienate people”. And what a corker of a chapter I have for you this week, excitingly entitled “How not to start a hockey match”. My accompanying textbook “Hamstrings for beginners” is also due out soon.

Now I started playing hockey 30 years ago. Some of our games were still on grass. We had offsides. We bullied off to start the match. My goalie kit was a pair of cricket pads and a baked bean tin for lower abdominal protection. In all that time, and in all the hundreds of games I’ve played, I have never found myself 4-0 down after eight minutes. Never.

I’m still not sure exactly what happened. We did a warm up. Barnes aren’t a very good side. We had a game plan that involved putting pressure on the oppo from the off. And yet, there we were. Eight minutes in. 4-0 down. Four identical goals conceded. Their one decent midfielder dancing down the middle, threading a ball through to a wider runner who makes the most of the seventeen acres of space and three geological eras of time to pick his spot in the bottom corner. Four times. In eight minutes.

And yet…..despite all that I still thought we could win the match. It’s as if they scored too quickly, and then went into too defensive a formation for fully sixty-two minutes. That’s a long time to defend a lead, even a relatively comfortable lead. And actually, had we been even five percent sharper, just a little bit more clinical, and generally not shit with the ball, I think we would have done it. Obviously it’s disappointing - not to say rather embarrassing - to concede four silly goals in quick succession, but it was actually more disappointing not to score more than two. We didn’t lose this game because of our comical defending at the start, because the game was still there to be won. We lost it because we couldn’t put a complete game together. Had we done that, we could have come away with a 6-4 win at least, I’m convinced of it.

Listen, I get that it’s hard to carve out millions of clear cut chances when the oppo have nine, sometimes ten men in their own 23, parking the bus and thickening their defensive lines. We’ve all seen Zulu so we know what you can do when you mass men into small areas that are easily defended. Granted, Barnes didn’t have the benefit of mealie bags and Lee Enfield rifles, but then they didn’t need them much anyway. Our forwards appeared to have left their assegais at home.

Whatever. We happen to know that in hockey massing men behind the ball IS a recipe for getting short corners. And sure enough we got five or six. But as is now customary, we only made one of them count. We scored five fine goals against promotion favourites Teddington last week, but couldn’t find a way to decisively break through a much poorer opposition in this game. We didn’t play badly, we just didn’t play well enough.

So this was a bit of an odd game, all in all. Ordinarily when you’ve conceded lots of early goals it’s because you’re playing a side that’s streets ahead of you, and you’re on course to getting bent over and toast-racked 17-0. Here it was clear, I admit, that we had a bit of a leak down the middle, but it was also clear that we were in no way the inferior side. The way you deal with this kind of situation is to shore up the leak and then effectively start again, and in this case we had virtually an entire game’s length to score the four or five goals we needed.

Unsurprisingly, given the way Barnes completely turtled, we had 99.63% of the ball for the rest of the match; and that’s what’s kind of disappointing. A hugely important goal three seconds before the half time whistle seemed as is it might be the big momentum shift. But our standards weren’t quite as high as we needed them to be. We needed to be on it, and too often we just weren’t. We simply couldn’t find a way to score.

Part of me thinks Barnes were as gobsmacked by that flying start as we were, and that their response was slightly panicky. Perhaps they knew they wouldn’t be able to keep a lid on us for a whole hour. But in the end we made it more comfortable for them than we should have. Don’t get me wrong, there was some serious pressure: they were chasing us around for a very long time, and the number of errors we forced them into must have been some kind of record. But when we needed real quality, when we needed a steady hand and heightened concentration, when we needed to execute passes and tackles to the best of our ability both collectively and individually, we fumbled it like a distracted vice captain dropping a full tub of jelly babies all over the Astro. And likewise, our season’s hopes lay liberally strewn on the floor, the mouthwatering fruitiness of last year’s championship dashed upon blades of damp plastic grass, the sweet potential of our gelatinous goodness leaching into the substrate, our chance of silverware gone the way of Maj’s tupperware, crashing unstoppably to the ground.

Spike

Conceded four goals before he actually touched the ball, and was a spectator for the remainder of the game. One clearance and one key save from Barnes’s singular second half breakaway was about the sum of things. Managed to lose his voice, as well as his dignity, and failed to make crucial in-game adjustments until the fourth torpedo had already struck below the belt line. Had more luck in his game later that afternoon, so I suppose there is always that, not that it comforts you lot much.

Maj

Not an appalling game, but significantly to blame for the first goal, so technically responsible for opening the floodgates. After a chaotic first ten, Maj had little to do after that aside from a couple of interceptions, the usual excellent trapping, and a couple of passes which went to Epsom players (I know!). He dealt well with the youngster on the wing, too, something he’s been able to do pretty much every game this year, defying all known expectations. But when you’re 4-2 down and desperate for a goal, the last person you want to see arriving on the edge of the oppo D, like a rumbling Avro Lancaster approaching the Möhne Dam, is the Azambuster himself. And no, he didn’t score.

Farmer

With his season ticket for the treatment table paying full dividends, it’s been a season of frustration for the agrarian one. And when your centre half is older than the average Galapagos tortoise, with a similar acceleration curve, the last thing you want is a game which starts with four oppo breakaways requiring defensive sprints and last ditch stretching tackles. That’s like putting a rubber band in the freezer and then stretching it between two lamp posts. Consequently Dave had to manage his minutes thereafter, but the damage was already done, in every respect.

Molly

Another defender with a 0-to-60 speed of an asthmatic snail, and blessed with hamstrings like over-cooked chow mein, and I’m afraid Molly didn’t last long either. One furious chase back (Barnes’s third goal?) where he hit 3.7 mph was enough to separate tendon from muscle, thus bringing Molly’s debut season to a sadly premature end. But if we learnt nothing else from this game, we now know he would make a fine locum nurse. All he needs is a little pinny and a stethoscope to go with his charming bedside manner, and the NHS is saved.

Bish

Athletic return for the big man with the big hair, but he too got caught short a couple of times by Barnes’s opening salvo. Maybe it was a bit of rust, maybe just a freak series of plays, who knows. But Bish was one of the players who really upped his game in the second half. He looked more decisive, more confident and more attack minded. Not every pass came off, but the vast majority of our possession and movement came up Bish’s side. Did a good job of containing Barnes too when we needed to put pressure on their backs. But was ultimately part of a defence which collectively soiled the bed multiple times.

Pringle

Initially part of a screen which had the kind of invisibility you associate with an actual windscreen, Rob eventually dropped back into a sweeper role to shore up the defence and to replace the sicknotes. Thinking about it, we probably should have made this kind of adjustment after one goal, two max, and in some respects Pringle was kind of wasted there for the rest of the game after Barnes retreated into a cave and didn’t test our defence again. But you live and you learn.

Dunx

The other half of a screen that had the robustness of one of those flappy mosquito screens you see in films set in the swamplands of Louisiana. But despite those first few minutes, Dave ended up putting in a pretty good display. Lots of the usual possession based pivoting, shouts for passes, and even a couple of sojourns into unfamiliar territory ie the opposition half. Not everything came off, but you couldn’t fault the effort. At times it was attritional around the Barnes D, and we couldn’t buy a goal. But then to be honest if you’re relying on Dave “Zero Goals” Duncan to be your creative attacking outlet, well, times are bleak indeed.

Kwesi

Sometimes felt like more of a cameo role for Kwesi this time out, as he shared time with other midfielders and struggled to put a long stretch of playing time together. Joined the fray when we were already 4-0 down so had to work hard to try and make some headway through the boggy trench warfare along the Barnes 23. Possibly guilty of one or two too many loose passes which broke down a couple of our more promising attacks, which got frustrating, and maybe lacked the ruthless killer instinct we needed in this game to get us over the top, but his link up play otherwise was decent enough.

Jack

Frustrating game for our show and shine model Cabriolet on the left wing. Faced with the massed ranks of the Barnes defence and some pretty hit and miss passes coming his way, Jack had to spend too much time winning the ball back rather than using it to kill off the oppo. He was our main threat running into the D, which he did several times with purpose and positivity, and he scored a cracker of a shortie. But for all his industry, graft and directness, it wasn’t quite enough.

Charlie

Good solid game from our only youngster (sorry everyone else). Worked hard out wide picking a tonne of stray Barnes passes, giving us seemingly endless turnovers, and drove to the line confidently, but wasn’t quite able to pick out that lethal through ball, or win enough corners to ramp up the pressure to make Barnes break. A constant but ultimately peripheral threat, Charlie “The School Janitor” Cullen must instead be content with a competent display of mopping up,.

Boydy

Not a performance for the scrapbook for the young lad, I’m afraid, as Boydy’s rush to disrupt and make things happen - which were his instructions, to be fair - caused him to lose concentration and finesse. I can’t fault his tackling - he looked bright and willing, and full of running and confidence - and he was a key contributor to the frankly ludicrous amount of turnovers we forced as Barnes continually failed to break out of their own half (the first ten minutes excepted). However his passing simply wasn’t good enough today, and sometimes it really killed momentum and sapped morale when we ‘d expended energy winning the ball back only to see it given away cheaply straightaway. Something for the Tomster to really work on in training and try and stamp out in game situations, but the intent and the ideas, encouragingly, were there.

Ludders

Busy, bustling game from the Luddite. Although he positioned himself well, and got round the back of Barnes on a few occasions, what we really needed were sharper reactions and tighter turning circles. He needed to be poised, ready at the far post; or able to spin off his man-marker in a heartbeat. He did work hard up there, being outnumbered and surrounded most of the game, but must be disappointed not to get on the score sheet given a full hour of non-stop Epsom attacks.

Loz

Very good game from our talismanic frontman, “Shiner” Marsh. Plenty of running and movement opened up the Barnes defence multiple times, and he was one of the players who looked really sharp and committed at all times. Responsible for dispossessing defenders a comical number of times, he did find ways into the D, and he did make things happen, but there always seemed to be another line of defence waiting for him, and he struggled to get more than a handful of clean shots off. And then of course some oppo ape decided to attempt intricate eye socket surgery on him with the fat end of a hockey stick, and that was the end of Loz’s pitch time. That was a shame, because he’d looked the most likely to score.

Davey L

The best of a mediocre bunch this week. An energetic and never-say-die performance, reminiscent of one of those overly-sentimental black and white war films shot on a cheap Shepperton back lot, where a brave-but-ultimately-doomed soldier takes the fight to the enemy before going out in a blaze of predictably pointless but patriotic glory. The lad Lee worked his socks off to get us back into this game, and he actually came pretty close. Topping a hustling, creative, driving force type display off with a well deserved goal, and providing top-drawer support to the surrounding cast, Davey is this week’s MoM winner. Congratulations!

So we have to dust ourselves down and reflect on what we can improve based on that performance. For example, we could perhaps start with not conceding a goal every two minutes at the start of the next game. That might help. But remember, we are playing games against sides who are desperate for points, and so we have to be on our guard at all times. We cannot afford to be complacent. As we’ve seen, there are no pants teams in this league: if you let up on the throttle, you will lose. This weekend we’re under the lights for a heavyweight clash with Wayfarers. Being 4-0 up after ten minutes would be acceptable.

Spike