Men’s 3rd XI: When The Levee Breaks

Ah, Led Zep IV. A mighty epoch-shaping masterwork, with a classic, genre-defining first half, followed by, if we are honest with ourselves, a rather meandering and less impressive second half, before saving itself with the magnificent When The Levee Breaks to round things off. It might be stretching things a bit to describe our first half as whatever the hockey equivalent of genre-defining might be, but otherwise, everyone was commenting in the bar afterwards that it had been a very Led Zep IV sort of a morning at St Ives last Saturday.

By way of a pleasant change we started this match like we meant business, and we were out of the blocks like Black Dog, determined to move and to make the opposition sweat and, er, groove. So well did we do this that after only 2 minutes Sukhi was able to latch on to a loose ball in the D and to flick it neatly past the keeper’s right pad into the corner for a very early 1-0. Very neat shaking of that thing there Sukhi, it certainly made ‘em burn and, indeed, sting. But what a great way to start the game, with an early and maiden Nomads goal for a new player who is still settling into the side this season and, by his own admission, still learning to play. The sheer width of the grin told us what it meant, and let’s hope it is the first of many.

We continued to Rock And Roll through the first half, with goals coming at regular intervals. No fewer than three of these came from our typically impromptu short corner routines, as was pointed out repeatedly after the game by the man who must surely henceforth be known as Sean, Injector Of Doom. I cannot remember whether any of them went to the intended receiver, but one led to Ellis mopping up at the near post, while a second allowed Hoddo to demonstrate that he can be every bit as nimble as Rob, jumping up from his trapping position to take the ball on his forehand, and drilling it into the corner. In between times Matthew put another away from open play for a 4-0 lead.

With the pattern of play apparently set, St Ives then pulled one back from a short corner, followed by enough further chances to have Nomads thinking nervously back to last week’s surrendering of a 3-1 lead at Kettering. Before the game could turn into The Battle Of Evermore though, Nomads restored the 4 goal lead from another corner. This injection did go to its intended target, and the skipper managed to keep a decent strike down on the floor, but sent it straight at the very young keeper. He duly got a good firm foot on it, only to see it ricochet between his pads and up into the goal. A great shame that because it was the only blemish on a very decent performance, but I like to think it is to my credit that I didn’t celebrate like Mick Channon or indeed anyone else. Partly because I was still halfway through cursing myself for putting it straight at the keeper. But if there is one thing I learned from my half-season in goal for Spencer 4th XI in the London League decades ago, it is that shots hit straight between your legs are surprisingly difficult to save.

Ellis added another before half-time to complete Nomads’ ascent up the stairway to a healthy lead, from the landing of which we all climbed a few flights further up the Stairway To Heaven that is the Jarvis half-time team talk. Pretty easy one this week, just keep on winding down the road, our shadows taller than our souls, keep an eye out for that lady we all know, shine white light and score more goals.

It didn’t turn out that way, with the men in blue seemingly losing our way as if in a Misty Mountain Hop. I had wanted us to be ruthless and keep the first half good things going, but just like Led Zeppelin we found that we had set too high a bar in the first half for us to match in the second. The weather was getting nice and warm, the game was pretty much done, the pace dropped and we were unable to find the penetration of the first half. St Ives meanwhile came out determined to avoid a rout, and played at a far better tempo than they had produced before the break. The net result was largely a stalemate, with the ball flowing back and forth pretty evenly from one end to the other.

It was a hockey match so something must have happened involving Four Sticks, but I can’t for the life of me think what it was now.

Then about midway through the half, St Ives broke the second half deadlock with a very decent move right from back to front. It culminated with the Nomads defence all staring wistfully at the man with the ball, perhaps dreaming of Going To California, probably not with flowers in our hair but certainly with an aching in our hearts as the ball was moved swiftly across from left to right and three defenders turned as one to behold a St Ives forward striding unopposed towards the D. Spurred on by a concerted cry of “who the hell is supposed to be taking him?” he advanced across the line and calmly stroked an early shot past Dave and into the backboards. I’ll take that one as a relatively painless reminder of why we lost 7-1 against St Ives 4 and how effectively we have tightened up our defence since then. It would be helpful to take that revision session into the Ely 2 game next week.

Things continued pretty much as before, until we managed to have the last word through Matthew. He picked up the ball in the St Ives D, on a relatively narrow angle, to the sound of the skipper a few metres behind him shouting “Matthew! Matthew! Matthew, here you greedy sod, you’re never going to score from there”. Thunk. 7-2, and the end of the match.

A very good win, quite clearly, so a surprisingly negative assessment from the skipper at the end. Goal difference can be crucial in a small league, and we have had a few matches now where we have run up a healthy half-time lead and then failed to capitalise in the second half. I had wanted this to be the week When The Levee Breaks and we follow up with a ruthless deluge of goals in the second. But, once more, the levee held and the opposition were not left with no place to go. The players who are more used to playing in the 2nd XI were particularly surprised at this, but there are two things you need to learn about playing in this team. One, we set ourselves very demanding standards down here you know, and two, your captain is a miserable old git.

We also have to give full credit to St Ives for the second half result. They weren’t there to make up the numbers, and it was obvious from their second half performance that they were determined to take some pride out of the game, and playing with the energy they did is not easy when you are 6-1 down. So I’ll be happy with the win, happy with the first half performance, happy that we had started the game so well, and very happy that we took enough of our chances to have settled it by half-time.

The day felt rather out of kilter in the bar, with all of us showered, changed, fed and beered all before we have normally started our warm-up most weeks. Dan was forthright in his assertion that the end of hockey marks the start of Saturday night drinking whatever time of day it is, but rumours that he was planning to use the extended time window to eschew sausages in favour of an attempt on John Bonham’s bottle and a half of vodka have thankfully proven to be unfounded, at least so far as one can judge from his appearance safe and sound at training on Tuesday.

It is almost certainly too late for us to win the league now and to advance into the Houses Of The Holy that is Division 5, but so long as it is mathematically possible we will keep pushing and, who knows, we may yet manage to sneak In Through The Out Door. Either way, we will continue to do our best to make our Presence felt.