Technician’s Report:

Paul Calhoun; Waste Removal Engineer & Part-time hockey enthusiast from Brooklyn, New York.

Called-out by; Neil Sneade, CSHC

I was called out to Long Road Sixth Form College to investigate a problem with their “flow”. As soon as I got to the problem area (umpires' changing rooms), I knew back-up was required! It was gonna take time to assemble the kind of extra assistance needed to clear the blockage on a Saturday afternoon in Cambridge. Fortunately, I was able to watch some hockey outside to kill the time.

After enquiries, I found that the Cambridge South HC 3^rd XI were playing Spalding HC 3^rd XI. They both seemed up for it and for some unknown reason the South players had full names on their playing shirts to easily identify them. Also, there were some lovely folks in the crowd that helped me fill in the blanks!

First Half – South 1-2 Spalding

The whites scored first when they relentlessly kept smashing at the door of South’s purple-shirted goal. They almost double the advantage when they looped a shot over the goalie, Matt Saint-Gower, blinding him with the low Autumn sun. Nev Warren, however, did stop it on the line with a sort of improvised helicopter hit. The midfield of captain “Matty”, “Johnny” and “Joe” started dominating the play for the purples. Using the wing backs, Alex Pashley and Ollie Kenzie, they attacked the Spalding D and won a couple of short corners. Simon Ta levelled things with an excellent effort, but what was strange was the apparent lack of celebration. Who knows, when you score lots of goals it probably gets boring?

Spalding punched a killer blow with the last touch of the half when a speculative ball forward was caught by the bright and pacy number thirteen. After what seemed a nervous game of shooting pinball, the ball was finally dispatched with the last touch of the half.

Second Half – South 1-3 Spalding

The game was played out at a frantic pace with Spalding dominating the play and winning more short corners. MSG was a true hero between the posts, as some of his excellent rearguard action resulted in a fracture of his toe when saving a near certain goal. The purple defence was resolute and held out until a curious change swapped that Nev Warren guy with Dan Loy. Tactical genius or a strange bet: who knows?

South conceded almost straight afterwards. Standard short corner smashed into the bottom corner. Minutes afterwards I genuinely believed that South had scored again as team joker, Joe W, started celebrating a touch from a speculative ball into the circle. What a funny guy!

The match ended just as the emergency crew arrived to help me snake the pipes. What a Saturday I ended up having thanks to someone not eating some oatmeal for breakfast!