Just the 33 goals for the 5 matches the Red-and-Blacks were involved in this week – we’re losing our touch. Some excellent performances are hiding in these reverses, promise!
We had scratch teams out this week – 4 players missing from the 1’s alone – and in the circumstances, we should cut ourselves a bit of slack.
I played in the 3’s, umpired the 4’s and saw a fair bit of the 1’s so know none of these performances were poor – disappointing yes but not poor – and the words I heard on the 2’s and 5’s were encouraging.
Anyway…the 5s played Bracknell Terriers and went down by 6 but competed all game
The 4’s was hard work for a number of reasons – it poured down all game, we had a broadly inexperienced team and were playing a side – Birkbeck - that contained at least 2 players that would be in our first team and most of the rest would be in our 2’s! To only be down 3-1 at half time to a side like this is testimony to the effort and commitment and no little quality of our boys – unemployed male gigolo, Bobby Evans may have broken the world record for giving away penalties – 5 or 6* we were losing count – and we have the claim going into the Guinness people! Fingers crossed for the Bobster!
The 3’s had a really good game against Wokingham 2’s who are a good team – we took the lead with a BigAd whack - he also broke a lad’s shinpad with one of his 16’s - but they were soon back on level terms and were 3-1 up at the break. The second half was very tough for us as Wokingham attacked relentlessly and we defended relentlessly – it was actually good fun! Young Dom has come into the side recently and had a fantastic game – a Triumph for the Hillman Imp! We held them for the half although they probably should have had a 4th right at last knockings.
The 2’s played their best hockey in quite a few games and were 2-all for much of the game against Tring 1’s. Having gone 3-2 down, they immediately had a gilt-edged goal with Fry having a virtual open goal 7 yards out with the keeper prone and stranded – apparently he swung at it so hard (he could have pushed it in) he fell over and they managed to clear. Would like an update from one of the 2’s to better describe this effort – Podge said he had to laugh – anyway we lost 5-2 but they enjoyed the game.
Bit of a scare before the 1’s game against Banbury as Captain Lukey sustained a horrifying foot injury but he was a brave boy and played of course. For much of the first half, we had just as much of the game as the visitors with good forward play from the midfield and Jazz and Rhino up front – with both defences looking loose – but as in previous weeks, they scored and we didn’t though Jazz did net to make it 3-1, it wasn’t enough.

* may not be this many