“I have nothing to declare except my genius” (Oscar Wilde, 1882)

Southwick 1st team were the next team to face the in form BE 2XI team of chieftains assembled by captain Rob Hughes, after 2 strong and convincing wins to start the year, the team had high hopes of pushing for the top spot.

The conditions were forecasted for a nice overcast day with a moist pitch from the previous nights rainfall and my god did it look like the thousands of fans (5 Socially Distanced) in attendance were to witness a spectacle of slick sport. Moods were damped when BE 2’s captain strolled into the meadow dressed head to toe in BE merch 15 minutes late but after explaining himself to the camp were in fine stead for taking on the opposition.

The heath boys started strong playing some slick, hard pressing hockey beautifully choreographed by young gun Chris fowler. Heath retained the ball nicely with minor difficulty with some nice chances from Kent hockey protege Will Lev coming off the bench & Veteran old guard Marly Jones causing havoc up top. Sam Little who remembered his kit this week performed well with Lewis in the middle of the park. Whilst the guys on the rear end worked as a unit quite frankly echoing the famous AC Milan defence of the early 21st century. After a brilliant ball from Skipper Hughes across the D to a Oliver Ivens sat on the back left post who absolutely stunk of Gary Lineker.

As the game developed after a couple of foul balls by O. Ivens he took a breather to remember the famous Babe Ruth “I swing big, with everything I’ve got, I hit big or miss big, I like to live as big as I can” - this clearly worked with Ivens securing a brace, goals then followed from a second from Fowler, James Clarke and a fresh faced Fergus Catmur after a mini sabbatical.

However the BE 2 squadron had a hairy encounter with a loveable rogue, myself. I’ll set the scene... some beautiful transferring in the last 2 minutes of the 1st half having been 3-1 up to run down the clock, I got caught day dreaming on the ball mistaking prime Richard Mantell for myself, with a lacklustre ball gifting their centre forward a 1 on 1 with our James Kelly, however a swift recovery from Skip Hughes and the centre forward hockey stick being made of lead, I got away with it - for now!

As the Heath’s confidence grew, we got a little ahead of ourselves with Ex national league Barford Tigers cult figure and hockey Veteran G stepping up to inject a well won short corner, first he had to mop up his bleeding nose from the altitude sickness. The heath got brought back down a level and secured category 1 ‘village’ status with the veteran attempting to inject from the wrong injection line much to the amusement of his team mates and opposition. He was lucky not to get a straight green card in my eyes.

After one unlucky goal from the opposition and some fine saves from Greenwich’s own James Kelly, the final whistle blew from the umpire and the BE 2 steam train exited the meadow with a 6-1 victory in high hopes of travelling to the south coast next Saturday to keep the streak going.

As DOD rolled round a vendetta was started against me and I felt every excuse I hit was caught by Ian Botham in the slips.

"It was a pleasure to write my first ever match report and DOD, I hope to never do this again"

Babs signing off.