On a miserable day in the utterly beautiful town of Crawley, the team arrived to be put in a changing room somewhere within the basement of a music department. Supplemented by late arrivals by Michael ‘Balotelli’ Lawrence, Ben ‘Pasta’ Stafford and Dave ‘WhatsOnYourFace’ Lawrence, things did not start off as well as they could have and this translated onto the pitch.

Following a couple of poor performances against Gore Court and Ashford, the BOE boys needed to put down a statement of intent. Unfortunately, they did not turn up until 20 minutes into the game.

On a wet pitch with a similar bounce to that of muddy grass, the team struggled to assert themselves from the whistle and endured a strong start from Crawley, who did anything but ‘crawl’ out of the blocks. A few questionable decisions against the away team and slip-ups in the first 10 minutes and BOE saw themselves 2-0 down (this may have been partially due to the umpires dissatisfaction with being asked to patch up the holes in the back of the net).

2-0 down was a wake up call, as it appears is a running trend for the BOE 1st team and the team began to click. With excellent movement from the forwards and some fluid hockey, the boys began to rise above the Crawley’s brute force and put together some good moves. The breakthrough eventually came through from Chris ‘Goal Machine’ Harden who netted a couple of expertly taken short corners to bring the scores even at the half-time whistle.

A different team walked back out on the pitch in the second half and BOE began to tear apart their opposition. With the Crawley team imploding and throwing in tackles reminiscent of a certain Mayor Boris Johnson in Japan, BOE took advantage and scored three goals in quick succession. The Laurence brothers each completed fantastic individual strikes as well as a well-finished team goal by Harden Junior.

As the game came to a close, Crawley picked up a scrappy goal having taken the ball into the D after moving it 1 yard and blasting it top bins. The umpire had been watching the planes land at nearby Gatwick at the time. To close the game, Dom ‘OneFootFaker’ Jaikaransingh picked up tidy finish and James ‘Catfish’ Logan missed an open goal whilst trying to build a sandcastle on the opposition goal line. The fixture finished 7-3 to the mighty BOE.

The game reflected a growing trend in recent games. To apply a golf -like handicap to the score at the start of the game and concede a couple of goals. This tactic is certainly risky and it remains to be seen as to how long it will last before a team decides to sit back. Overall, a win is a win and the three points came with another impressive goal tally.

MOM - Michael ‘Balotelli’ Lawrence: played quite well at times
DOD, TIE - James ‘Catfish’ Logan: built a sandcastle on the line of the oppo but failed to score, Ben ‘Pasta’ Stafford: dropped his shirt in a puddle.