League: Eastcote 6’s 1 Ashford 4’s 4

Scorers: Big Amit (2), Fat Dan, Gordo

Eastcote are one of the biggest clubs in the country running 11 Saturday Men’s teams - how do they do it? Can’t be the clubhouse or the rather-limited bar, the teas you say! Well they are going downhill - there were only 4 choices Saturday!

Anyway another win for the 4’s! Our ninth in all and cementing our place just outside the Hockey Champions League qualifying spots. It was a lovely day and no hangover to spoil it - off we went and scored after 2 or 3 minutes from our first short - Amit slipped it to Fat Dan (no sniggering ) and his macho top hit the lad on the post and bounced over the keeper. Poor lad was in the wars as our next short was going wide until he deflected it in and then 20 minutes gone - our 3rd short corner - and Big Amit lashed in a perfect third across the keeper and just inside the post.

It was then that Gordo had to tell his beloved skip he had to go off for a comfort break - first time ever for me! I had unwisely tried to break the fried onion-eating record the previous night and off I trundled back to the clubhouse and so it was I discovered Eastcote’s closely-guarded secret…the loo paper is out of this world!! I think it’s got moisturiser in it or something…anyway suitably refreshed I returned to the fray revitalised and somewhat lighter.

The game was keenly contested and a little feistier than normal between us two teams with one apiece being asked to have a rest by the umpires but it was still a decent game - Eastcote scored a short corner rebound with 10 minutes to go but we score a nice fourth to finish the scoring - Adam lifting an aerial into the path of Fat Dan who rounded a defender before unselfishly squaring it to Gordo who swept home! One more game against champions-elect Slough after Easter but we can look back on another  successful and enjoyable season - hurrah for us!!   

ps previous week we lost to Gerrards Cross 3-0 - having only 11 and with Jonno playing up front with an injured knee, it was perhaps no surprise that after 10 mins he was knocked over by the goalie and had to retire. We didn’t play too well after that and conceded 2 goals then found at half time that Stevo seemed to be have been invaded by an alien organism. His hand had swollen and it looked like he had half an egg under the back of his hand and he had to go to hospital (we found out later it wasn’t an alien egg, he had broken his scaphoid) so….down to 9…and we really enjoyed the second half…played  well and GX didn’t quite know how to break us down - the goal they scored was unfortunate and we had quite a few breaks if not pressure. Had  we not played well it could have been double figures so we came off pitch quite positive about the match. Little Stef was a revelation at left half, had a great game though his face was starting to resemble a beetroot by the end!