A late one for the M3s this week, as we took on City 6ths in a 4.30pm push-back under the Wilby floodlights. The late start (pushed even later by previous games overrunning) allowed plenty of time for the rest of the team to engage in some pre-match ribbing of JJ over mid-week WhatsApp antics. Well most of the rest of the team. The skipper was oblivious to it all as he uses carrier pigeons as his preferred method of communication, having been reluctantly convinced that the world had moved on from beacon fires.

The befuddlement continued into a warm-up done twenty minutes too early, undertaken with all of the team at one end of the running track apart from one (naming no Simons) who was doing his own thing 100 yards away at the top of the other bend, and reached its apotheosis in a team talk that went something like, “Chris is starting at right-back, which means Neil is centre-back, and Raj… No wait, that’s not right. It means Raj starts centre-back and Dave is on the bench…no, sorry, Dave’s not even playing this week, is he? Oh. Erm…” The side was more confused about the ‘plan’ after the skipper had finished than they had been before he opened his mouth. Everyone was too polite to suggest a hot cocoa and a nice kip might be the order of the day. Even if they were clearly thinking it…

Helping the aged would also have been appropriate for our opponents from City, whose usual balance of vets and whippet-like teenagers was tipped more heavily towards the wise-owl end of the spectrum than previous selections of theirs we have encountered. The call was for passing triangles around them, rather than trying to dribble past or blast the ball through sticks that were simply never going to miss. No-one had accounted for Nev’s ability to dribble one-handed, though, as our centre-forward skipped and pirouetted through the City backline, rounded the keeper and was tripped. Penalty flick. Having won it single-handedly (however you interpret that), Nev seemed the obvious choice to take it. If only we had known that his plan for making sure the very tall City keeper wouldn’t save it was to place it well wide of him. And, incidentally, also well wide of the post… Something of a logical fail there.

Nev redeemed himself a few minutes later as he showed typical coolness on a penalty corner, waiting for the runners to commit before slipping it past them to Joe. Joe used the time and space to apply the finishing touches with a nicely lifted flick that beat the keeper on his near post. If this all sounds very familiar, it was near carbon copy of our opening goal against St Neots last week. The rest of the first half went by with us probing unsuccessfully for a second, whilst being careful not to over-commit in defence as City pushed one and at times two forwards very high.

The second started in much the same vein, with the City keeper the busier of the two. He was finally beaten for a second time when Simon chased after a save from his own first shot, was able to turn on the loose ball, carry it back towards goal and then put it past the exposed stopper into the far corner. At two down the hosts had to push midfielders further forward, which stretched out the game for the remaining time. However there was confidence in the side that our backline had the situation under control, particularly from sweeper JT who installed himself in an unusual libero position camped on the opponents' twenty-five. On the few occasions when the man-markers did not manage to snuff out danger, we had the ever-reliable George to keep things under control. He made two or three crucial saves, including one diving to stick away a drilled penalty corner and another flying off his line and spreading himself well to deflect away a one-on-one counter.

The final word goes to JT’s other half, who watched the last fifteen minutes or so of the game. She said “The purples looked like they were doing better”. Perceptive woman.