‘I’m standing right here’

Well, where to start with this one?

After a long and stressful week for Captain Catie who frantically tried to muster together a team for our away game against Preston Lodge, we managed to gather eleven players just in the nick of time.

As we drove up the long driveway to the pitches, I made the following comment - ‘I feel like this is going to be a bit of a war’. A joke that turned into reality.

With ten to start, we warmed up nervously, eyeing up the opposition and their umpire as we ‘opened some gates’ and ‘fed some chickens’ before positioning ourselves on the pitch, ready for the whistle to blow. We held our ground and remained strong in defence. Until, the heavens opened and without any warning, we were being fired at by nature as well as Preston Lodge. It was almost like someone was out to get us. Millions of tiny ice balls pounding our bare skin and making it extremely hard to see. Yes, the dreaded hail. Shielding our faces, our hockey skills were tested as we tried to receive passes blindly. The fight continued against both the hail and the opposition until the sun came back out (which is a coincidence as this was when Judith magically appeared on the pitch). We ran the ball down the pitch straight into their D on a number of occasions but unfortunately for us, they had a very strong goalie, which meant our attempts repeatedly did not make it into the goal.

I could continue on with the details of how much of a fight we put up and some of the outstanding defending we did. What felt like hundreds of short corners were given, but we kept defending like our lives depended on it. Well to be honest, considering we had one man down in the D at one point and PL kept playing, it felt like our lives did depend on it.

Injuries got worse amongst some of our players, to the point Kirstin was told (by me) ‘just don’t move. Just stay in the D.’ Soon after, Judith got chest pumped, but I’m not sure why. The game finally ended with PL beating us 5-0

Thank you to Iain McGillivray for umpiring.