A mixed bag of results last weekend, a bit like a random assortment in a “Ready Steady Cook” shopping bag…
This week’s lamb chops (rich and delicious)… M1, M2s, L2s, Gary’s Mixed All Stars
This week’s turnips (Useful, full of fibre but not necessarily exciting) L1s
Leaving this week’s dry chick peas (Utterly pointless)… L3s, M3s, M4s, L4s, L5s, M5s
Find out more on who burned their bacon and who spilt their sauce…
Ladies 1s
Waltham Forest Ladies 1s faced Southend 1s at home looking to bounce back from their first defeat of the season last week.
Forest started off with a slightly revised formation and went 1-0 down to a Southend goal from open play. The teams then took turns to score goals in an exciting game for the neutral. Lucy Butcher fired Forest level with a well struck short corner but the lively Southend side came back with another goal to make it 2-1 to the away team.
Half time saw a change of formation and Forest picked up their game. Jenny Field scored twice to take give Forest a 3-2 lead. Southend weren’t finished and fought back to get another goal from a short corner to bring the game level. Final score 3-3.
Ladies 2s
Ladies 2s won 4-1 eventually. An early goal saw us go 0-1 down against the run of play. After a lot of missed chances and Sarah Hogan drew us level, then Fi Pennie shot a bullet from top D to gain the lead. It stayed 2-1 for ages, before Nikki “stripper” Barrington knocked in the 3rd, and girl Phil volleyed in the 4th. Mom: Laura Murray, Dod: Nikki “maybe no one will notice” Barrington.
Ladies 3s
Ladies 3s had an eventful match… 1 trip to A & E with a potential broken ankle… 10 ladies left… 7 goals. Sadly the numbers weren’t in our favour, but we got great feedback from the opposition who said how well we played!!!
A massive thank you goes to Matthew for looking after Emily while we finished the match and to my wonderful ladies! As always they fought to the bitter end!
Ladies 5s
Evidence destroyed or missing.
Mens 1s
Forest welcomed City of Peterborough 2s this weekend to the Academy and produced a fine team defensive performance for the second week running to win all 3 points.
The first half had very little goal mouth action to report with Peterborough dominating possession for long periods but never really looking like scoring. Forest worked on the counter attack but again created very little as players, particularly Liam Radley, dribbled too far and lost the ball.
The second half continued in the same way, Peterborough dominating but rarely threatening Jake Ledbrook in the Forest goal. The breakthrough came midway through the second half when a well worked short corner routines found Luciano da Silva free in front of goal and his deft deflection left the keeper with no chance. Forest went down to 10 men as James Price saw yellow for a deliberate kick but easily held out.
Another good 3 points. If the team can add some attacking flair to their defensive displays then they are going to be very hard to beat.
Mens 2s
The skies were blue and the omens good for another big Forest win (Zetter checked goose entrails pre-match) and as Immy played Webbhead in on goal with 2 minutes gone it looked to be going to plan, however the aging lothario contrived to somehow miss the target and that set the tone for the next 50 minutes. Forest huffed and puffed and failed to play with their usual composure, instead they forced the play, didn’t work hard enough off the ball and gave away possession with loose passing. Thankfully, as ropey as Forest were Havering managed to be ropier. Determined not to have 11 men on the pitch they generously helped out the visitors with two yellow cards for chat and an over zealous challenge on the marvellously sanguine Mills. In fact apart from Rich getting a green for “looking at the umpire” one of the few things the team did well was to keep disciplined throughout a heated game.
The two exceptions to the poor performance was young Toby who seems to have found his best position at right back and looked very solid and assured throughout, and Yogi who was frankly incredible in goal, making outstanding save after outstanding save to keep us in the game.
Eventually Immy had had enough of the deadlock and latched onto a through ball from Kuipers to dance around the keeper and beat the man on the line. Immy again proved the attacking difference as he caught the Havering defence in possession before offering Waz an open goal with time. Waz however, keen on keeping the suspense up to the last, inexplicably made hard work of the tap in (and looked to have completely buggered it) before regain his senses and finding the back board.
If the sign of champions is winning ugly then the signs are good because that was a truly, truly ugly performance. Apologies to Mills’ Mum and Dad who endured the spectacle and congrats to Yogi who is surely making a case for M2s player of the season.
Mens Otters
The Otters travelled to joint top-of-the-table Phoenix 4 and rattled our hosts by taking an early lead through Nate after some fluent hockey. But a physical and experienced Phoenix side went into the break leading comfortably, most goals resulting from goalmouth skirmishes and robust challenges on our keeper Shaun.
With great spirit however, we fought back in the second half, and scored further goals with neat finishes from Nate, Zain and Daniel. Unfortunately Phoenix added to their total and we finished 7-4 losers.
To have come so close to a team that has won all but one of it’s games this season is very encouraging, particularly as our goalscorers are aged just 13, 14 and 15, and great credit to some of our slightly older players, Shaun, Roly and Martin who took some heavy knocks but battled on.
Mixed Match Report
After suffering a disappointing 5-3 loss to East London. Today see our first mixed game of the season at The Academy v perennial adversaries Wapping.
Wapping as always turned up with a very strong team, and as we soon found out had 4 ex-national league players within their ranks. So what we knew was going to be a tough afternoon, suddenly looked a whole lot tougher.
Although we did have our own, men’s 1s players in Liam Radley, James Price and Ed Bear Stubbing and a Ladies 1s player Katrina Hurrell as our secret weapons.
For the opening 10/15 minutes of the game, the gulf between them and some of our players was there for all to see, but with some immense determination, desire, dogged and desperate defending, some superb Goalkeeping from Lee. We kept the scores level 0-0.
At which point we began to start causing them problems on the break, with the lightening pace of our front players and the silky skills and ball carrying ability of our midfield. Wapping were still working us hard, but as individuals and a team we were matching them, in every department, and from a swift breakout Liam carried the ball into the D, and had 3 bites of the cherry, the 3rd bite being a lovely deft little chip, over the GK, against the run of play, it has to be said. 1-0 Forest.
From the restart, Wapping were immediately putting us under pressure. A ball hit from wide into our D and as if our job wasn’t difficult enough, Mr Chairman Ed hung out his stick deflecting it expertly, into the wrong goal, 1-1. That’s how it finished at HT…
As we sat in the goal, in puddles of sweat, and gasping for air, that’s how hard we had worked 1st half, to keep it level, and stay in touch in the game. Time for a Captain Joy, inspirational HT pep talk. :-))
It was all about same desire commitment, determination and hard running we’d shown 1st half, and we were always causing them a problem on the break.
To be honest the 2nd half was a carbon copy of the 1st half Wapping have lots of the ball, us working extremely hard, some bullet proof defending from Kat, each and everyone of us playing our part and doing our jobs. Also Lee again making a string of fantastic saves, and we were still creating chances on the break.
And twice on the break we caught the opposition out first Liam with another confident finish, to give us a 2-1 lead.
Then Finally James, how many chances do you need, got his goal after some very industrious, and good build up play from Liam. 3-1 Forest.
There were some more hairy moments, that we survived in the final 10 minutes. The final whistle goes, a very very hard earned 3-1 victory for the Green Army.
A special mention for Cat Cheshire Doherty who worked so hard today, although she was extremely worried about the level, great work today Cat.
POP Ed, for his superbly taken goal for the opposition.
MOTM GK Lee, for a string of amazing saves.
I’m a very proud WFHC mixed captain this evening, for the obvious reason, of the fantastic performance and win, against all of the odds, and also because my own personal mantra, that I roll out week in week out, is that it’s not what you do when you’ve got the ball, it’s what you do without the ball, and for long periods of the game today, we didn’t have the ball. Also if you work harder than the opposition, even if their technically better than you, you’ll get what your just desserts.
As individuals and a team unit we did both of the above today.
No more Mixed until February 2014.
Thank you to all who have played mixed this season, so far.
Also thank you to all the umpires, who’ve umpired for me.
This match Report is dedicated to Ed, as he said he required some light, Sunday Night Reading 😉
