M2s Shine in the Kettering Gloom

So Nomads M2s answered one question this weekend. That being the "can they do it on a cold December's evening in Kettering?" And in the end, quite emphatically.

It is early December, it is late. Late enough to be dark. At least two of our players struggle to see the length of a hockey pitch in full daylight. Let alone on a stormy December evening with slightly ineffective floodlights. The masterstroke, though, was to dig out the orange kit. Jez played a blinder by actually remembering to deliver said kit, and with it we stood out from the other shadows in the Kettering gloom. And Ben has white shorts.

As is becoming usual, the Skipper gave us a meet time that all studiously adhered to, all of us (bar said Skipper), arriving in Kettering with the temporal precision that is more usually associated with the Germans. Clearly in this day and age we should desist from such stereotyping by nationality.
We will forgive our leader though, he still made it in plenty of time, but these behaviours are not forgotten when it comes to voting on the day's awards.

The game begun with one of the most productive centre-pass routines I have encountered, from our opposition, who promptly marched, untroubled, to the edge of our D. We waved them through.
An omen?
No, as it turned out. Our new look (press-ganged) back 4, including Tim, Ellis, Arthur and (of course) Felix, stood firm, and were largely in control of proceedings in front of them for most of the match.

After weathering the early Kettering storm, Nomads made successively more and more dangerous incursions into their 22. Apart from a couple of keeper interventions to upend successive strikers, we didn't threaten until Mel, fired up West Ham's flukey victory over Europe's finest football team, decided enough was enough, latched on to a loose ball in a crowded D, and nonchalantly dinked the ball into the net.
With the hardworking Nomads midfield gaining dominance, and strikers starting to link up well, it felt like another goal could come, which it eventually did from an unsurprising source, as Lloydy neatly dispatched a very typically precise finish from top-D.

So 2-0 at half-time, but we've been here before against this opposition and come away empty-handed. Pleasingly, the 2nd half performance built well on the 1st half's. Other than one period of Kettering pressure, well handled by our defence, Nomads moved the ball well, kept possession, kept patience, and eventually the pressure told as we dispatched a further 3 goals. The first of those was a delightful ranging move involving most of the team, that eventually offered busy midfielder, Ali, the opportunity to poke home from a few yards. Which he did. Coach Matty (get well soon mate) would have been purring with the build-up - crafted on cold Wednesday night training sessions.

A resoundingly thudding short corner strike from Lloydy and a quite bizarrely executed reverse stick volley from the same player rounded off the scoring. The only disappointment was the clean-sheet being lost late in the game, though to be fair to the Kettering central midfielder, it was a tremendous reverse-stick strike from wide, on the edge of the D, that nobody could do much about. But sorry, it still only counted for 1, consolation, goal.

Chatty-man Will, made some more new friends late in the game, and continued the cordial exchanges from pitch-side. For once though, he was sent there by his team-mates, rather than the umpire. And Arthur went on some mazey forays into the gloom up the left touchline. This was all very entertaining, but it was getting late. When the whistle blew we retreated rapidly to the relative warmth of the changing room, shed the (now favourite) orange apparel, and scuttled home for cocoa in front of the fire before bed-time.

Felix won the only award for the day (DoD) for his now legendary time-keeping, and 2 awry aerials, but we don't mean it really, Felix. It was another good away performance, all-round, to keep us in the mix at the upper end of the table. Having played all the teams in the league we are P9 W6 D0 L3, having scored 34 and conceded 15. Well done chaps!