HAILSHAM HORROW SHOW

It was a dull and indifferent morning for most, but still a consecutive week travelling down to the south of England for what seemed to be a walk in the park of a game. With 4 wins to their name, what could go wrong? 

Whilst most travel arrangements were of the norm, one large and tall fellow thought it would be fun to add some spice into the mix by turning up 40 minutes late for the original meet time in London. You are correct in thinking it is the man of the moment and your DOTD winner by some storm, me. As a newly married man, one is still finding the right balance when having a few drinks. Needless to say it was a slow morning leading to a slow departure! Not acceptable from me. After much deserved profanity thrown towards me by our VC we departed. The remaining team arrived to Hailsham with no drama, but bizarrely Captain Rob Hughes and our team over analyser Mary Jones turned up even later than all. Unfortunately stealth is in neither of their nature so were hurled deserved abuse before entering the warm up. Not a good start and the signs that not all would be well were clear. Poor preparation equals poor performance.

As expected, a disconnected warm up led to an indifferent start.

Game commences.

The initial 15 - 20 minutes saw BEHC with some inexplicably tired looking legs, lacklustre pressing and the team looking sluggish. As a result Hailsham began to grow with confidence and found it easy to breakdown attacks and counter effectively. Their two forms of attacks (aerials and smash and hopes through the lines) seemed to be causing BE challenges and it became apparent that Hailsham were here to win, without style. They sensed the poorly prepared visitors were not at the races. So direct but effective hockey was brining them joy.

5 minutes before the break, Hailsham broke and managed to get a shot off. Yours truly tried to deflect away, got it all wrong and ended up scoring probably one of the best goals of his life. BE 1-0 down.

After an inspiring wake up call at half time the lads were ready to get out there and really take it to Hailsham, or so we thought...10 minutes in and little had changed in the mindset. A calamity of errors involving several players resulted in two successive goals for Hailsham. The disjointed and lacklustre BEHC were the makers of their own downfall. They were left perplexed at 3-0 down. To make matters worse this was followed by a card for Captain  Rob Hughes for an ill-disciplined footballeresque slide tackle.

When things couldn't get anymore dreadful, an aerial from the Hailsham 16, created a race between Ziggy and their striker for the ball. Ziggy won this battle but unfortunately was so exhausted when he reached the ball it led to a simple, quick pick from the striker who squared to another player who finished easily. 4-0 down. A sorry affair.

To rub salt in the wound the team finally decided to turn up belatedly in the last 15mins. Although by this point Hailsham knew that they had the match won. BEHC showed a fighting spirit distinctly lacking earlier when it really mattered. They showed some of the qualities that had won them 4 games back to back before this debacle. Two good goals came in succession, another sneaky deflection for Fowler and a touch in through Ollie. Sadly it was too little too late.

Final score 4-2

Needless to say it's a game the team will want to forget in a hurry. Lots of lessons learnt and at this level poor preparation, attitude and application can cost your dearly. The team is much better than this and several people (me included) didn't cover themselves in glory. With us back at The Meadow this week, we need a big and positive response. A return to winning ways and a result to wash away the Hailsham Horror Show.

MoTM - N/A
DotD - Gurpreet