The M7 is off to a strong start.  For a development team, this mostly means being able to get a team out at all, and a number of our fellow clubs are struggling to do just that.  Not so with Sandy, Rob and the CSHC captains on the job, however!  We put out 9 players, and with Wisbech keen to field their equally keen juniors, the match was on.

With lots of teams to field, and lots of keepers to provide for, a plan was hatched for a nifty Cup and Ball trick with the GK kit to get it up to Wisbech.  Nominally, this involved a straightforward pass from Rob to John G, and a final drop to Ben to wear the gear, setting up on-field heroics.  The pre-arranged routine didn’t come off, however, resulting in the kit apparently passing through the hands of at least Nev and Sandy before … not arriving.  We only found this out about 10 mins before pushback, on a somewhat breathless John G arriving at Wisbech to find everyone else already on the pitch.  It turned out fine, since Ben, deprived of GK kit, played sweeper-striker instead (an unusual field position, one probably not to be repeated), and came away with an opponent-harassing MoM award for it.

With only 9 CSHC players, Wisbech kindly lent us Matt and Jerome, who turned out to be excellent, and we shaped up against opponents who were also playing their first foray into Development hockey, with a team largely composed of juniors.  On pushback, the midfield duo of Wilco, alongside Jerome, proved a wall too strong for Wisbech to penetrate, and South produced some strong pass-and-move hockey with goals by John (1) and Dexter (2).  Second half was a repeat of the first, with South absorbing some opponent pressure before repeated breakaway attacks, with final passes between Daniel and Dexter prominent, resulting in three more goals for Dexter (2) and Daniel (1).  Mentions must go to Nuwan and Andy T playing wing-back, with Nuwan repeatedly tackling back along his line; I don’t remember a single Wisbech attack getting through that way.  Along the way, South had three shorts, one of which ended up with a reverse hit by Ben landing in the opposite top corner, a fantastic strike which the umpires informed us had to be ruled out due to a high hit on goal.  Right at the end, a slightly tiring South conceded a goal from a determined set of Wisbech youngsters who badly wanted some compensation for their efforts.

Development hockey is about just that, development, and I think that was achieved all round.  The game was played in excellent spirits.  Wisbech rounded it off with a huge amount of food (pizzas and doughnuts!), with Matt going off-field to cook the food, thus earning double credit, and subbing his own player Noah onto the South team in his place, thoroughly confusing the Wisbech players who couldn’t work out for a moment why one of their own side now had a purple bib; this allowed Noah a few free attacks before they cottoned on.  Jerome won our on-field MoM for a genuinely excellent game

There’s also a condensed version of this match report available from Ben, who briefly volunteered to write it, before submitting this arguably pithier version “I can’t write a match report, I don’t really remember what happened”