Men's 4s vs Stirling Wanderers 1s

A beautiful Edinburgh day started promisingly, with Pete turning up at the right pitch, at the right time, having recce’d the area the week before. It seems that this was enough to guarantee him a MotM nomination. Smart.

The game started briskly and it soon became clear that Stirling were keen to blend their athletic brand of hockey with some 1990’s WWF contact. ‘Sonians were grateful for Pete bringing his Walls of Jericho to keep Stirling at bay in the first 10 mins as we built into the game. Hard graft from The Ultimate Sholdis and The Million Dollar Man Rob Stewart saw the home team gain traction, leading to a bewildering miss from The Rabid Wolverine with an open goal – a feat, unbelievably, to be repeated. Hacksaw Arron Gibson added some steel and, indeed, positional fluidity, to the boys in maroon, with Andy The Superfly Foxall keeping the right side of the pitch on lockdown.

All square at the break, and clear that a Royal Rumble was likely to follow in the next 35 minutes.

The second half started brightly with Rob van dam Taylor providing some early industry, and Rich Mysterio confirming that teeth are not necessary to play good hockey. Stirling turned the screw, with some concerted pressure leading Sheamus to bring out the reverse of his cudgel that would have led to a penalty flick had the umpire seen any indication in the previous 40-minutes that any of his actions had looked intentional. Short after short followed, and with 3-successive slip-lefts in a row, our boys were caught out by a surprise slip-left and a deflection into the roof of the onion bag. A quick response was to follow with Ian The Hitman Duncan coming down from the top turnbuckle to tip in mid-bin from 6-inches out for the second game in succession.

It was clear that the game was more likely to be won from an error than an act of individual brilliance. Unfortunately, it was a further error by Ric (No-)Flair Gallacher in the D that kept the scores level. Tempers flared; The Macho Man Rich Booth turned the air blue with words of self-motivation and Rowdy Roddy Stenhouse took a 2-minute breather after some misplaced constructive feedback to the umpire. Andy The Snake Clements took a dive under pressure, and felt he had to go off for 5-minutes to keep up the ruse. Stone Cold Chris Robson was one of the few to keep his cool as the game became more stretched. Alas, the deadlock remained, and a draw probably a fair result.

After the match, Dr Stewart appropriately reminded the boys to be nice to the umpires, who volunteer their time to facilitate our enjoyment, and deserve better than our stinking backchat. “You will never change their minds, so just walk away”. The whole time the author was reflecting on talking himself out of a yellow card for putting the mandible claw on their talented but chopsy right back in the first half….

Same again next week for the table and chairs match against Fidra.

Final score:
WHC 4s 1 - 1 Stirling Wanderers 1s
Scorer:
Ian Duncan
MotM:
Chris Sholdis
DotD:
Neil Gallacher