Match reports - March 29, 2008

1st XI 5-2 Wanderers
A welcome win against a team who have perennially been a thorn in our side and having been 1–0 down what a result it would seem to be. However, the scoreline masks the truth somewhat greatly and we could have saved ourselves much half baked effort and taken a 3–0 forfeit when offered it at the outset with the news that the HAC keeper was stuck at Terminal 5 and one other of their players had gone awol. We faced the nine-man opposition and it took us until half time to score and only then because we had gone one down. Nine short corners and shocking finishing enabled the stand-in but very effective HAC keeper to keep a clean sheet until the 30th minute or so when Rippers eventually beat him with a rasping shot from the top of the D.


The second half was not a great deal better but at least we scored four more, a drive from Copleston at a short, two from Smudger from the top of the D as well and finally a Cookiey effort being deflected just under the bar. The last hurrah belonged to HAC who pushed the ball home at the fourth attempt from their last short corner. From the start the game had an end of term feel to it and we were all thankful when the final whistle blew.


Four wins out of four at the start of the season was thrown away in three horrible weeks in November from which we were always going to struggle to catch up. Two matches with 10 men is inexcusable and to be frank it would have been a travesty had we won promotion. Our tenants UCL won the league and Wanderers now go into the play-offs and we sincerely hope they win the match that we failed to do so miserably last season. I, for one, certainly do not wish to play against Wanderers next season as they were the best side we played against by a country mile. We wish Wanderers all the best in the play-off in a month’s time and UCL and hopefully Wanderers well for next season in the league above.


Finally, I must call into question the merit of playing a league match after Easter when an extra game could have been played before the Christmas break or the league could have commenced again a week earlier as I am sure all teams in the various leagues would have felt more comfortable having the leagues wrapped up ahead of Easter. The downside would have been a six-week gap before the play offs !