Ashford Scorers:
Dan Rose (2), Andy Sonden (2), Chris Davies
‘The I.C. is Dead, Long Live the I.C.’
The burdensome mantle has now fairly and squarely passed to Big Amit aka the A-man aka the Amster. On Saturday he achieved something that will someday change the way hockey is played, if they make him the GB head coach, the Olympics in 2012 are in the bag. All it took was 8 words, I’m afraid I cannot repeat them else they lose their magical power. Having passed onto us the universal mantra of total hockey, off the team went inspired by the Big Man’s words. I think we might have forgotten for the first 10 or 15 minutes though.
Eastcote were a mixture of skilful old boys and skilful young boys and there also appeared to be about 16 of them. Man with dodgy headband was causing us some problems at the back and we made up for guile with a lot of hard work. Gradually we settled down and bagged 2 goals through Dan ‘Rosie’ Rose midway through the half. The first was made by Elliot Smith who did a horrendous stick tackle which their umpire managed to miss and the Rosie made no mistake from 3 inches out. Closely followed by No.2 where the Amster got off his treadmill at the back and smacked in a free hit which Rosie managed to get a stick to and it drifted in just inside the post…it probably did help that their keeper was the same size as ‘Private’ Ryan. The game continued to be fairly even and it was not surprising when they pulled a goal back as my cry of ‘mark the headband!’ went unheeded and it was 2-1 at half time.
Half-time our resident cheeky boy, Chris ‘the Arse’ Davies drew on all his tactical knowledge which lasted 5 seconds, Amit murmured the Words Of Power and off we went in a dreamlike state to play the second half. We played really well, defending in depth, breaking quickly and playing as a team and the chances came thick and fast. Shaggy was like a man possessed, the man who spent all season getting 2 goals, he scored 2, had one disallowed incorrectly and Chris nicked one off him when it was going in! I suspect he also won the Lotto and got some serious sugar later…great times for Team Ashford and long may they continue!…
And lets sing it again while we still can…. ‘top, top, top, top, top of the table!!!’
