Men's 3rd XI: A Fitting Farewell for Rob

After 31 years at Nomads, Rob Furlong lined up today for his final home game in the famous blue and white before his upcoming move to Shropshire. The game therefore began with a short presentation, thanking Rob for his massive contributions to the club, including establishing our Juniors section, all of the formal coaching and the informal encouragement, fathering two of the club's best ever players, persuading the Jarvis family to join Nomads from City (opinion may be divided on that one), and even in his 60's still being the rock around which we build our defence. Thus uplifted, and following a very long and emotional speech from Rob in reply, the skipper urged Nomads to avoid our all too frequent slow starts, and to come out of the blocks playing at the pace we know we are capable of. And to please start without me lads, while I change out of my umpiring kit and get ready to play.

I think we can safely say that for once everyone was listening. I made it 7 minutes in when Will completed his hat-trick, and around about one minute later when Will's Dad strolled up asking if he had missed much. Thankfully he did manage to see number 4, which followed pretty quickly afterwards. The first goal was a deflection from close in, for the second I was putting in my shinguards, the third was very neatly slotted home from a very narrow angle, and for the fourth I was off having a quick wee. But all four scored from close in where a striker should be, and all set up by some fantastically quick passing hockey, with the ball fizzing around the pitch at a pace which our opposition were finding difficult to deal with.

Clearly it was time to bring on the skipper to see if he could change things.

After making a few penetrating leads where the ball didn't arrive, my first touch was a pretty poor one in the D, sending the ball behind me and to my reverse side. No matter. The second touch was a one-handed reverse stick flailing at the ball while falling over, but with sufficient precision to locate the exact crevice between the lower curve of the ball's surface and the turf. Like a Tiger Woods chip out of a bunker, the ball arced gently upwards and over the keeper, and dropped gracefully into the goal some 10m away. Moots paused for fully 5 seconds, lips pursed, while he mentally walked through every rule in the FIH handbook, convinced that surely somewhere there must be something which would allow him to disallow such an appalling combination of bad skill and extreme jamminess. Wondering why the whistle had not yet blown, I tried to help the mental deliberations along by rising to my knees and raising both hands aloft in thoroughly undeserved triumph. Whether this helped or not, eventually Moots decided that the only laws I had infringed were those of natural justice, and almost apologetically raised two arms towards the centre of the pitch. I think it is to my credit that I actually find that goal embarassing thinking about it now. But they all count and it was 5-0.

The best goal of the game made it 6, with a move down the right eventually finding Garth on the goal line. He drove along it towards the goal, drawing in the defenders and the keeper before pulling it back to George on the penalty spot to finish. Watch and learn young players, that is what we train for on a Tuesday night, and it is a lot easier to score from the pull-back than at the near post. Number 7 came from a half-block breaking to the skipper to slide it home, and number 8 was my deflection on the left-hand post from a Woody through ball. "Nice ball Woody", I told him. "Thanks Pete, I thought even you couldn't miss that one". Hmmm, let's be kind to him, he's not played with me very much, bless.

That concluded the first half, and we turned round with an unaccustomed 8-0 lead. It took us a little while to get going again at the same pace in the second half, but eventually George advanced through the inside right channel to deliver a very nice reverse stick finish to the bottom left corner for 9-0. Luke did much the same on his forehand side a few minutes later for number 10, wisely ignoring both me and Garth screaming for it to be played left where we had an open goal. A wise man once said that there are times to listen to your elders and betters, and there are times to trust in your youthful instincts, and the key to wisdom lies in being able to spot the difference. So well done Luke, looks like you got the right call on that one.

The 11th goal came about 20 hours too early, on the 15th hour of the 10th day of the 11th month, but we were nonetheless more than pleased to see Garth break his duck for the season. A short corner, a lot of composure to pick his spot rather than just launch a hurried strike in the general direction, and the ball was soon thudding into that bottom left corner again. Number 12 I don't recall too well except that it was George's hat-trick, but the 13th I remember all too clearly.

It had, I concede, another element of good fortune about it as I slammed a lofted shot across the goal, which I suspect was going slightly wide until it hit the keeper's upraised mitt and looped in. All I will say is that Jimmy Anderson has taken a very great many wickets by hanging the ball outside off on a fourth stump line, and creating enough movement to have batsmen playing at deliveries which they would rather be leaving, and I think that strike was at a very similar level of skill and guile.

At this point, as if in protest against the skipper picking up two of the jammiest goals of his career, the heavens opened. And I mean really opened, if you have ever played hockey in your shower at home, then this was it. Puddles were starting to appear on the pitch and the thought did cross my mind that the game might have to be adandoned. However, underterred, and with kit literally plastered to skin, we pressed on, with neither side particuarly enthused about coming back to do it all again. Two carbon copy goals in this period completed the match, with Mike moving smartly from his PC injection to the left hand post, and sweeping a couple of passes or misplaced shots (take your pick) towards goal but in both cases seeing them blocked by a foot on the line. No-one apart from Rob was going to take these, and with a wily old pro's aplomb he put the first to the keeper's right and the second to his left to leave us with a 15-0 scoreline which is Nomads biggest since, ooooh, I can't be arsed, look it up yourself. But a very long time anyway, and Mike for one was seeing it as laying to rest the final traumatic memories of our legendary trip to Alford in season 2010-11: 5 hours round trip, an 18-1 hammering, and there are still 10 Nomads who periodically wake up in a cold sweat over that one.

A fantastic team performance this week, with no one player standing out. Those goals were set up by a dominant display of quick passing hockey, to which all 12 of us contributed, and a very fitting way to send Rob off to the wilds of Shropshire.

Meanwhile, results elsewhere combined to leave us top of the league by one goal. And so Rob can head off into the sunset knowing that his last act for Nomads was to score the goal which took us to the top of the league. Should we not still be there come the end of March then I am sure that if we listen carefully we will all be able to hear a low chuntering sound from the general direction of Shropshire aong the lines of "well, it was all fine when I left it, don't know what those idiots are doing, captain's got no idea, etc. etc. etc."

But thanks for the position you leave us in Rob, thanks for everthing these last 31 years, and very best wishes from all of us to you and Beth for your new life in your new home.