An investigation into the effect of Spalding 2s on Cambridge South L4s’ match performance

Hypothesis: wearing yellow on a miserable grey day in a place that is over an hour away will surely brighten up the mood and carry us to victory.

Materials and methods:

• 13 Cambridge South L4s
• 13(?) Spalding 2s
• 1 orange ball
• 1 slippy Astro behind a graveyard
• 2 umpires
• 3 packets of (100% vegan) sweets at half-time

Results:

1. The whistle went and South had about 10 minutes of settling into the game. Unfortunately, this also coincided with Spalding scoring 2 goals that were (questionably) allowed.
2. This 10 minutes was swiftly followed by South playing some really nice hockey. Lots of lovely defending and passing to get up to Spalding’s goal. A couple of shots on goal were attempted but Spalding’s keeper saved them.
3. The good work put in by South soon was rewarded with Claudia scoring an excellent goal - our excitement from this matched the brightness of the yellow we were playing in.
4. Half time was upon us (as was the rain) and we were feeling positive that despite being 2:1 down, we could bring it back or at least get a draw. We refuelled on fruit pastilles, fruit pastilles and fruit pastilles and set up for the second half.
5. South maintained their composure and the score at 2:1 for most of the half. Zoe did some excellent goal keeping and prevented a fair few 1v1s with Spalding’s attackers from turning into any more goals. Go Zoe!
6. Our second half also featured a green card dropping us down to 12 players in the last few minutes. That didn’t stop us and Becky and Katy did some great runs to get us in their D, but unfortunately no luck in conversion.
7. The last part of the 2nd half finished in a similar unfortunate way as the start, where we conceded twice. South kept going until the last whistle, managing even to get a few short corners, but the final score remained at 4:1 to Spalding.

Discussion:

Zoe’s excellent GK performance was reflected in the landslide vote for POM with also Kath, Mo, Ginny and Katy getting a mention. LOM nominations were a tie. The first LOM is Nicole instigating a three cheers to Spalding, only quickly to realise we’d done this 2 minutes earlier by Ginny. LOM nominations also covered players (Laurie, Becky, Kath and Phoebe) who disappeared (impressive considering the sherbet yellow we were donning) from warm up to avoid muddy/wet Astro’s.

South put in an excellent effort of defending well and playing some lovely hockey. It unfortunately can’t be reflected in the score, but as with all great scientific experiments, more repeats are required to make the result reliable. That means our home game is all to play for (and win).