THE BISHOP OF TUNBRIDGE WELLS - GODLIKE!

Top of the table vs the leagues 'In Form' team, lunch time on a Saturday, sun shining and the 1st XI had already won, the scene was set at Hawkenbury and both sides were up for it.

The game started at a ferocious pace with both sides having attacks and efforts on goal but after some ping pong in the BOE D, T Wells shot at goal and Erik deWit duly kicked it off line with his shin, no goal, great save, certain red card not given but.....a penalty stroke to the home side. Enter the hero of the day, Ryan Bishop, who made a delicious save from the stroke, falling to the ground to cover the most tame of efforts. 0-0.

It wasn't long after that BOE won their solitary short corner which they put away courtesy of a deflection and a rebound from Danny Moore. 1-0. BOE had the game by the scruff of the neck and as Rob 'Diego' Noble ventured forward he beautifully side footed the ball to Tom Piesold (welcome back) who shot, shot again and eventually let the T Wells defender locate the bottom corner for him. 2-0 and comfortable. 20 mins gone.

What happened next is beyond the realms of explanation. Half the BOE team decided that they were not happy with being 2-0 up and wanted to even the game up. We have been immaculate in our behaviour this year but today something changed! We moaned, shouted, got involved with wiffy chat and stinky banter. The trash talk we offered was on a par with Vicky Pollard and the complaining was beyond anything that Moaning Myrtle could offer up herself. Of course this meant that we were too obsessed with trash talk and umpires decisions that in 15 minutes we conceded 7 short corners, all of which were dealt with brilliantly by Ryan Bishop. A few points:

- Umpires don't change their minds when players berates them.
- if you concentrate on chatting you forget your performance
- if you behave like a petulant and irritating child, you tend to look like one too.
- for 15 minutes we were a disgrace to the BOE badge.

Apologies to the club, we did not look good.

However after a year 3 like telling off at half time by the coach, we returned to the game reborn. Back to reality and back to playing hockey. We were good, controlled the game and worked hard. But make no mistake T Wells are a good side and they came at us hard, desperate to get something from the game. On another day, they might well have done but for GK Ryan Bishop.

The last 15 minutes saw wave after wave of attack from the home side, plenty of short corners but they were not going to go in, not today. Bishop was a man possessed, nothing was getting passed. At times Ryan would make 2 or 3 point blank saves in a row with whatever part of his body he could move to get in the way, this was a quite outstanding display of net minding! The home side where at a loss how to beat him, well, they couldn't.....Bishop 1, T Wells 0.

As 3 points go, this was our hardest of the year, had half time not arrived when it did, we might just have dug our own grave. Thankfully we had our no.1 in nets and he made sure we took the points back to the Meadow and on the whole, deserved.

MOTM - Ryan Bishop - a hero to many!

5 games to go, New Becs next week, watch this space!