David

David and Goliath were friends. The sort of friends that gave birth to the original joke about high and low, and the kind of friends that found themselves champions for opposing armies. Their plan seemed to go off without a hitch: David launched the stone which went down Goliath’s leg armour as planned; Goliath, as planned couldn’t bend his leg and fell over; David, as planned went in for the symbolic kill….they hadn’t anticipated the slip.

They also had not anticipated just how this accidental blunder would go on to inspire many a hackneyed underdog sports saga including the following hockey tale: where some small league pretenders take on the titan team from the league above keen to return; though perhaps this an impression emphasised by first sight occurring whilst recovering hands on knees from the warm up jog?

The starting whistle went off without a hitch. The opposition’s take of the push back also went off without a hitch, pushing into our half and mastering what we would later find out may be called taking the ball across the ball for a speedy (and in control) pass. This heralded a section of play of heavy defence – anaerobic respiration was initiated. Which is not to say we didn’t get to initiate any of our own military manoeuvres. No indeed we practised duck and roll bear crawl at speed advancements; our long range crack shots – though our target discrimination was not always on point; our short range sling shots; and even managed to find time to brush up on some navigation for those always in need of a side line to keep them straight. There was even enough down time between the fouls to play a game of hot potato.

Half time, nil-nil
The war drums start their slow and heavy beat, tension mounts; Jelly Babies are once again consumed viciously to refuel. No mis-slips with the incisors here -aff wi thir heids!

The second half started much like the first; with a whistle. Then also as before, some running, tackling, some excellent avoidance manoeuvres, some passes-both great and poor, we don’t like to discriminate, (though hoping to cannibalise some of our crack shot practise from the first half), and feet. This time in their D. Embedded in the offensive corner there was no missing the way the clouds parted allowing the sun to illuminate the circle, a pause then the push was taken and the ball that was meant to have gone right went left, left into the stick, which in a bid to echo other successes of 14th October (motorcycle land speed record 2010) smoked the ball through millimetres between the goal post and the goalie’s leg armour. Goal – the crowd went wild (maybe – memory is such an unreliable tool). And we could talk about how shortly after the opposing team took the opportunity to blaze their own way down the pitch, succinctly catapulting the ball into the goal and equalising the score, but instead we will focus on the next three short corners.

First: Attacking, the ball is pushed in, it goes right, time slows as the ball is ever so gently pushed left, there is a breath then the ball is jettisoned so hard into the goal that mothers, not only nurses attempting to draw blood are worried about their children taking up hockey. Second: Defensive, anxious moments, but worries are in vain as the ball is bravely stopped by the heroes in defence not once, or twice but three times before extradited from the circle. Third: Attacking, no real memories exist, the euphoria is too strong – the important thing was it went in. Three successful short corners – an event almost unprecedented in the history of the L3s. It was at some point after this the whistle for end blew, and conserved the running saga of G&D for another day.

A tribute to the Fantasty hockey gods:

Goal scorers: Jo (2), Barbara (1)
Short corners: three out of four - 75% success rate! (imagine confetti)
Umpire: Ness