PLAY HIGHER LEAGUE TEAM, WIN 7-2

A lovely day out in the country at Marden and everyone (mostly the other team) was still getting over the Christmas belly. Strong, cold winds buffeted the pitch and sadly the neighbouring orchard provided little defence.

Within two minutes we had a short corner. Charlie slipped it to James, who slowly brought the ball forward... and brought the ball forward... and brought the ball forward. Pushed in for an easy goal. The opposition handed us that one on a platter.

At about three and a half minutes, the ball came zooming down the field, we passed it around like stars, Josh took a shot after receiving it just outside the circle, GOAL!!! from a hard cracking shot.

An eternity passed as the team waited another 2 and a half minutes. Another short corner. What to do? We just did the exact same thing. They were a bit quicker out of the box, slipped to our left and with laser precision, James pushed another one through, past all the sticks and under the diving goalkeeper.

We were getting confident in the score line and seemed to get sloppy marking players. The tempo of the game died down a bit and we saw much more back and forth. Around 20 min must have passed. A rapid fire run down the ground had most of the forwards touch the ball as we passed around and across. Ping-pong continued into the D and a cross across goal was deflected in by Charlie. (Or maybe Paul B but it's hard to keep track in these big scoring games).

Zac made a cracking shot at goal, undercut from the top of the circle. But the keeper saved it. One of us pored over the scraps and lifted it in for a superb goal. Must have been Paul B. 5-0

Another good run down the ground. The opposition was under pressure and struggled with our crosses. Defender stops it on the goal line... but with a foot. Charlie took the penalty stroke. A great flick to the top right of the goal and the tally goes to 6.

So the team went into half time 6-0 up against an opposition in a higher league (they are last in their league, but still a nice score). Certainly not the result we were expecting. Would it be 12-0 at full time?

After half time the game changed. We still struggled to mark players and they took advantage of this. Often Marden players would get the ball and make good progress, looking dangerous. Fortunately, they were usually stopped in the final line of our defence. Joni Coleman, Nathan Lawrence, Jamie Cotgreave (welcome back!) and Matt Deeley did an excellent job.

Somehow we let two goals in during the half but scored one ourselves. Marden's first was a great goal, lifted fast and hard into the back of the net. BOE then scored, with Paul B nailing it this time (sorry, can't remember the details), putting him in the two goal club and we now had three hat trick possibilities. Marden showed some dilly-dallying in front of their goal after a post shot, and no one was sure if their play led to the ball fully crossing the goal line, but we counted it anyway, because we're super nice guys.

A big thank you to the Marden Champion Umpire and to the various others that chipped in during the game to help out. Paul Baker and Charlie Nelson got Man of the Match but the votes were very evenly spread across everyone in the team. In contrast to Josh (Nathan's brother) making an 800mi trip on a night train to play for us, Toby got DoD for not showing up, bailing at around 8am (8:30 meet time) - "Just woke up somewhere in north London, had a big night".