L2A: Rover Oxford 2 Reading 5

Trysports 3 County League Division 2

Rover Oxford 2 - 5 Reading

We meet at the club at the rather unsitely time of 8am, though when i say we i mean everyone else, like every good captain that lives a mile down the road should i was a tad late!!! But no fear i was in my mums motor so what i lost in being late time i made up for in speed!!! ;o) i mean i kept to all speed limits and all, just reached them quicker…. officer!!! :o)

We (Katharine and I) had a slight disagreement on what was the quickest/best way to get there so we set off in our different directions Katharine choseing the beautiful countryside and more direct route and me chooseing the slightly furthur but defently quicker motorway route! (and may i note they had a head start as i was having boot and child locking issues!!!) Anyway….my car won :o)

All eventually arrived at the ice rink that was Brookes pitch, not only was it a tad slippery/slimey but on walking down teh side line to the dug out Susan quipped “am i drunk or are these lines wavey” haven’t not looked down at the floor i was thinking bloody Austrilian morning drinkers ;o) however she was perfectly right im thinking maybe the person painting the lines where indeed drunk upon painting them! (i had taken a pikture of the lines that i was going to insert here however its come out terribly!) They looked like they’d used a piece of string as a marker but got it caught halfway down and it went all snake like and windey!

Anyroad onto the game….

We started very slowly and certainly acted liek we where half asleep (i think most where) for a good 10 minutes or so, we where putting Rover under lotsa pressure but failing to get anything out of all the attacks we where having! Rover came out very strongly and seemed very up for tha game. Think they where quite keen to get us back after the 9-1 drumming we gave them when they visited us at the Ghetto earlier in the season! SO was no real suprise that after Reading having majority of teh possession Rover cleverly worked teh ball up the pitch and into the back of our goal!!! 1-0 Rover Oxford!

Unluckily for Rover it was exactly what we needed as a wake up call, and it wasnt long before we where celbrating our 1st goal also :o) 1-1 :o) finally!
Us geting a goal back really set us on a roll and the rest of the half seemed to be nothing but short corners, which was handy as i needed the practice at injecting with the mighty Louisa being moved up a squad!!! :o)

Although we where incredibly strong and back to playing the champagne hockey we became acostomed to before christmas we werent quite the finished arcitcle yet and left wayyyy too many gaps, which Rover managed to sneak through on a few too many occasions for my likeing!!! We went into the break at 1-1 with things looking far more promising, we just had to really want it, which as teh score line will now reflect we soooooo did!!! ;o)

The second half we came out like a hurricane rushing through the Rover defence and bringing utter devistation within minutes of the restart! :o) With our Aussie duracell bunny back to almost her best firing in 3 goals and taking a few tennis shots for good measure. :o) Midway through the second half Nikki went down after slipping on the pitch and had to be carried off which was a massive blow to us and for Nikki, Izzy moved into her poistion and played very strongly indeed (but then doesnt she always) :o)

Then completly out of nowhere i trundled up for a short corner which went wide to Lucy who pushed past the goalie only for me (NO you don’t need to bok an appointment at Specsavers i said ME) to take a massive sweep at it and send it into the bottom left hand corner!!! What? i dont score goals, what was i thinking!!! ;o) GET IN i scored wahoooo!!! THe fact it was from maybe all of 2 yeards and the ball was probably heading in anyway when i poached it from Lucy im chooseing to blank out my memory!!! ;o)

Sadly after all the excitment of my first goal Rover did mange to coem back at us witha few worrying moments of play, 1 of which sadly made it into the back of the net which i initially stopped from crossing the line but unfortunatly cudnt quite reach their second atempt!!! ;o( 5-2!

and thats how it stayed, brilliant game, so pleased we are finally playing a lot beter hockey however we are taking far too long to get going and its almost liek we need to conceed a goal in order to actually start realising we need to play some hockey! Rover Oxford where strong, certainly a lot stronger than i remember, they played some good hockey and had some nifty players, especially their goalie who was awesome (and only 12 years old apparently) and certainly kept them from having another land slide defeat! So all in all a great game :o)

Squad: Jen Sawyer (GK), Katharine Evans, Gem Notman, Karen Weekes, Sue Newman, Nikki Jones, Izzy Dodds, Emma Westacott, Abi Clarke, Nadia Amin, Bev Thompson, Susan Castley, Lucy Scott, Laura Mulcahy

Goals: Susan ‘Henin-Hardene’ Castley x 3 :o)
Nadia Amin :o)
Gem “OMG” Notman :o)

Man of the match: Susan Castley :o)

Doughnut of the match: Gem Notman (not only was i late, i forgot my shin pads, mis calculated and was a tad suprised when i had 14 turn up at the game instead of the 12/13 i was expecting, then completly forgot to collect in match fees and do man of the match i had to be prompted, what a doughnut!!!)

Laura’s specialist moment of the day: Nikki asked Laura “could you get me a cup of sugary tea please” Laura came back with a cheese and Onion Pie and some curly fries!!! hehe ;o)

Nikki Update: On forcing her to the Royal Berks shes just badly sprained it and with the rest she no doubt had over the weekend (you’d better had missy or else!!!) she should be back in not time :o)

Umpire: the lovely Alan Wade :o)

Coach: Izzy Dodds….”Bosh it on girls”

Crowd: actually was a few as we had quite a few subs!!! ;o)

Next weeks game brings us to the The Lane for another bright and early start against Windsor @ 10.30am, supporters always welcome :o) (cheesy grin, bats eyelashes) ;o)

xxx Gem xxx