Teenage Sticks, So Hard To Beat

I had promised myself no more rock and roll references this year, they are just so last season. But such were the undertones to this game I just couldn't resist.

OK, I think I left my coat through there.

An interesting and finely balanced Nomads line-up this week, with 6 juniors in the side and 6 seniors all comfortably old enough to be their parents. A quick scan through the teamsheet made it obvious that the usual tactic of "oldies at the back, young lads midfield and up front" was not going to work owing to our complete lack of any recognised forwards in the team, so it was the skipper up front as an emergency striker, along with George. Credit to George for showing admirable willingness to play out of position and where the team needed him, and credit to the rest of the team for managing, for once, not to laugh openly at the notion of me up front. Hey, I used to be an inside forward you know, though admittedly I could still move in those days.

Other than that, we lined up much as normal and proceeded to use the first 10 minutes of the match as a warm-up. Sluggish all over the pitch, second to everything, and it was no surprise when St Ives opened the scoring thanks to our new tactic known as "slapstick defence". Three missed tackles in the D and a couple of missed clearances presented a St Ives midfielder with an opportunity that he was not about to refuse. 1-0 to the hosts, and a lot of headscratching in the Nomads side.

Thankfully we treated this as the kick up the backside that we so richly deserved and proceeded to roll out a pretty decent performance for the rest of the match. We were moving the ball quickly and starting to find a lot of space up front, resulting in a lot of chances falling to the skipper. Unfortunately the young St Ives keeper was choosing a good day to have a bit of a blinder, while I was busy spraying it around like George Bucknall at the end of season dinner. Occasionally one or two shots did go on target, but the keeper proved equal to them all, with one diving stick stop particularly memorable.

Eventually another Nomads attack got half stopped in the D, the ball broke behind me a little and I was able to run back, turn and duff it well enough that it headed off bouncing and bobbling towards the bottom corner. Those ones always seem tricky to deal with, and so it proved this time, with the ball crossing the line at no great speed for the equaliser. I suspect my aim was helped by the fact that I couldn't actually see where I was hitting it, and to my credit the celebration was appropriately muted. Hey ho, the scoreboard says it's 1-1.

We forced a series of short corners, but perhaps disoriented by MIke's ability to inject the ball within the area covered by Rob and myself, we weren't managing to get any shots quite on target. Finally I managed to ping one nicely inside the right hand upright, at a nicely judged height of 459mm above the turf, but unfortunately a defender managed to deflect it into the roof of the net to leave Kishor with one of those decisions where you have to piss off somebody. He awarded the free hit for dangerous play, and so 1-1 it remained. I have to admit I was hoping rather than expecting that it would hit the backboard, and he's a Level 2 umpire and I'm not so we'll roll with that.

A couple more short corners later though, Nomads were sent into wild celebrations as the skipper this time found the bottom left hand corner with a thunk sufficiently thunkish to brook no argument, and the blues were into the lead for the first time. There was barely time to restart the game so we were left 2-1 up at the interval.

The skipper decided it was time for a spell on the bench with his work here now done him being too cream crackered to get back out onto the pitch again. The rest of the team continued to play some fantastic hockey though, with our younger players coming to the fore and, appropriately marshalled by the steady old hands, starting to move the ball fast, frequently, and wide and high to pull the defence around and really start to carve out openings. Particularly impressive was their willingness to realise that it wasn't happening down one flank, so they would keep possession and come back and round again to try the other. A very mature performance that one lads, it wasn't just about running around all over the place like maniacs, your passing and movement this week were what made the difference between the sides.

Goals came at nice regular intervals as the St Ives defence seemed to tire. Julian on the right got in and around the back of the defence plenty of times to provide telling crosses in, Jude and Chris marshalled the centre of the park very effectively, the Davies twins provided plenty of threat down our left while blocking out anything coming down their right, and George rounded off a fine performance up top by bagging numbers goals number 3 and 4, both from close in where a striker should be. Hoddo picked up number 5 following another flowing move down the pitch, and also added number 6 until Woody chalked it off by pointing out to the umpire that Hoddo had kicked it while picking up the final pass. A fine gesture that, particularly as the video referral equipment had temporarily broken down. The sixth was not long in arriving though, with a fine run from Woody to open up the defence, and a fine continuation of the run to receive a return pass on the near post and complete the scoring.

Not a lot for anyone to complain about with that performance. That was how we want to play, with plenty of very good ball movement, and particularly pleasing that there was no let-up in intensity even once the result of the match had been pretty much decided. This is a fun team to be involved with at the moment, and long may that continue.