Rather than pick authentic M6 and M7 sides the captains aimed for two balanced sides* and play out a purples against yellows.  It also happened to be a great opportunity to try out some emerging talent from the pool of graduating juniors.  But enough of the preamble.  The purple team is stinky.  This is the yellow team’s report.

Anyway, positions were revealed, the teams became acquainted with one another, there was some semblance of warming up and game started.  It was end to end for the first half of the first half.  Proper keepers** kept things tight for a while and purples were first to come close to scoring through a turnover.  Had that sneaked over instead of wide who knows how the rest of the match might have panned out.  Some more balanced play ensued before Dexter pounced to provide a calm and neat finish to break the deadlock.  1-0 to the bananas over the grapes.

After the break, and a few wise words, off we went again.  Purples stepped up their game in the second half and the yellow defence was under siege.  It wasn’t a surprise when James P, or maybe someone who wasn’t James P, tucked home.  Fortunately Dexter, and not someone who wasn’t Dexter, was on hand again to instinctively tuck in from a tight angle after Harry’s ball in was slipped on by Rob's questionable touch first time.  2-1 up.  Yellow had not scored from a couple of penalty corners so Simon decided to slip to Rob directly and his slightly scuffed shot had enough oomph to get over the line.  3.1.  The game opened up towards the end and it was Rob who, with a much better first touch this time, took it around Sandy before reverse sweeping home for the fourth.

However, the goal of the day was still to come.  With a minute on the clock the ball was won back from the yellow defence and played across and up the right side, finding its way from Danny to Jordan.  A weighted pass to the corner was kept in and support flooded forward.  There were options, plenty of options in the D.  The ball was slipped back to Seb who had arrived inside the 23 metre area to support, who took the ball into the D before looking up and calmly squaring to Samit to sweep home.  Now that is one from the training ground.  At least two onlooking junior coaches had rapturous smiles!  There it was: all those cold wet Tuesday evenings made worthwhile through 5 seconds of brilliant team hockey.  A great celebration to finish a cracking game of hockey. 

Man of the match went to Samit for finishing Seb’s composed cross right at the end.  Shouts out to Tommy our other debutant.  All three boys stood up to men’s hockey like they’ve been playing it for eons.  The future looks very bright.  Lemon went to Barton Sr Rob for not subbing off fast enough and some accusation about trying to pinch Simon’s goal which for once wasn’t actually true.

Big thanks to Jack and Steve who umpired the fixture very well.  Teaching the youngsters and not so youngsters how to play in a disciplined and timely manner.  The abrupt start of the second half, which lead to the first awarded stroke was a particularly ice-water-on-the-sun-lounger wake-up call!

* 5-1 might have been a poor reflection on the overall balance.  Actually, both skippers agreed that the player pairings – matching up people who are of similar standard and who play in similar positions – looked about right.  On balance, the purples looked a little stronger and so on Friday night we agreed to swap the two Harrys.  This had a more dramatic impact that we’d thought.  When Harry B was playing the yellow team was midfield dominant but when he wasn’t the purple team were.  There was a marked difference in the middle today.

** Having two proper kitted up keepers really did give the game a proper match feel.  Kudos to both keepers who played their parts in several great saves.  One difference was George who was looking especially sharp between the posts today.  As our regular M2s keeper he was able to keep out many one-on-ones as well as not one but two fairly well taken penalty strokes.  The score could have been 5-5.