Men's 3rd XI: Step It Up

A comfortable win over our top half rivals, and welcome revenge for our 7-1 drubbing at their place. Before anyone gets too carried away though it should be pointed out that St Ives turned up with only 10 men, thanks to a club-wide availability crisis. But you can only play what is in front of you, and off we went. We were far too slow for my liking in the first half, and the team were generous in proving my half-time point by scoring on the only two occasions when we really did step it up and play with a bit of pace. We were indebted to our Stereo MCs Will and Garth for this, as from the left, then from the right, they stepped it up, stepped it up and it was all right.

First Will cut through on the left, got a shot away which seemed from left back to have been saved, but just as everything seemed to have broken down Felix signaled a goal. Turns out that it got partly saved, then dribbled over the line by a mm or two before a defender cleared it. Will was a little embarrassed about claiming the goal, and frankly mate, if you want to become a proper striker in the Lloyd mould then you need to sort that out. In the D, off your stick, in the net. Your goal, even if it does a zigzag off three defenders' sticks, two pairs of feet and the keeper's arse on the way in. Geddin!

Then about midway through the half it was Garth's turn to display the turn of speed which he had been carefully keeping in the tank for just this moment. Received it out on the right, drove purposefully into the D, shimmied this way and that, gave the keeper the eyes, and calmly slipped it the other way and in at the far post. The champagne moment of the afternoon, no doubts, and the lead doubled.

It was far from one way traffic at this point, or indeed at any point in the game. We were indebted again to Dave the Cat for a string of good saves, and to some collectively much improved defending from the reverse fixture. OK, so that's an improvement from a pretty low base, but hey, going in the right direction and all that. A real highlight for me though was Rob versus their young centre-forward out on our left: vastly superior skill and experience rendered utterly irrelevant by a yawning chasm in pace. Rob had an East O-60 trial on Sunday, and observed that "it is a lot easier playing against somebody when you can catch them." All I will add is that the rest of the back four were watching and thinking "thank Christ I'm not marking him!" But thanks to some bloody-minded defending and the odd stroke of luck, it remained 2-0 at the break.

14 v 10, you've got to be thinking high tempo to make the subs count and use the full pitch to exploit the extra man, right? It ain't rocket science, but this simple truth seemed to have eluded us in the first period and we began the second determined to put it right. We pretty much did that, and it wasn't too long before some good pressure resulted in a short corner, which Mike Jnr duly dispatched for 3-0. We then proceeded to play some excellent hockey in patches, and some less good the rest of the time. Things also started getting a little feisty with a yellow for either side for dissent and dangerous play. Sean decided for some reason to take a wild hoick at a ball which was already 2m over the side line and with an opponent in close proximity. Missed the ball by a mile and completely lost his grip on his stick, which flew into the air and executed a series of pirouettes, somersaults and triple salchows far more graceful than the action which gave rise to them, but which nonetheless earned Felix's disapproval and an enforced rest.

We scored our fourth during that suspension, which I am going to have to confess that I missed because I was off the pitch talking to Sean, but Mike Jnr tells me that he clinically swept it home and that everyone on both sides, all the spectators and the entire 1988 Olympic Gold Medal squad agreed that it was the most amazing goal they had ever seen.

4-0 then, the game as good as done, but time for one more bit of magic. God alone knows how I found myself in the D from left back but somehow I did, and bless him, Mike Snr looked up and saw me 12m out and to the left of the goal. There I was, nicely poised and unmarked, left foot forward, and stick nicely close to the ground just like Lloydy was training us to do on Tuesday. No need to call, the two old pros looked up, made eye contact, and just knew. Mike pinged it in perfectly, straight at me, and my first thought was wow, that ball has some serious pace on it. I quickly assessed the situation, and decided that the correct play from here was to step forward and to meet the ball first time with a deft flick of the wrists, allowing the pace on the ball to take it fizzing over deep backward square into the roof of the net. Think Jason Roy off Dale Steyn in the World T20. Fortunately, Chris was alert to the situation and realised "oh my God, Pete's about to attempt an Olympic level skill while equipped with only an East League Division 6 North West (South) level of ability". Without a second thought he instinctively thrust out his stick, and jabbed it on the reverse to turn the leg stump half-volley into a leg side wide which, wrong footed, I had no hope of reaching. Will correctly signaled a wide, but while I was stood there waiting for Mike to deliver the ball again, for some reason everyone else disappeared towards the other end of the field and started shouting at me to get back and do my bloody job. It's tough being a skipper sometimes, but the general view in The Brook was that Chris had done a great job of saving me from utter humiliation. Thanks mate!

The much anticipated heavyweight sausage contest failed to live up to its billing, with neither Chris nor Mike Jnr inclined to raise the bar any further despite the bounteous resources available. Lincolnshire as well, you spoil us Mr Gentle. And so petered out an enjoyable and ultimately successful afternoon for Nomads, as we cemented our fourth place and tucked a little closer in behind second and third. Garth was getting a little carried away by the possibilities, before taking a look at Division 5 and deciding that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we consolidated with one more season in our nice local league for local people. But the Cavendish tactic is working well so far: we now wait to see whether we can do that fast sprinty thing that he does at the end.

And finally, a special shout-out for our two umpires, Felix and Will. They did a great job of keeping a lively encounter under control, showed excellent knowledge of the rules, were admirably neutral throughout, and got all of the big calls absolutely bang on. Thanks guys, very much appreciated!