Sages 5 - 0 Old Cranleighans WO45s (A)
By Philippa Lynch
Berated for putting safety first and tying my shoelace before I tripped over it, I am holding the pen on this week’s editorial for the Sages!
On a murky afternoon the Sages gathered ready for a local derby with OCs, mostly on time I hasten to add. Not personally being familiar with the full warm up routine, we were close to exhausting ourselves before the match. Big boo for the Surrey traffic delaying Mandy and Fee. But thumbs up for their admirable warm up running the distance from the car park to the pitch.
We started strongly – incredibly strongly in fact with 12 on the pitch. Oops – bit of a communication issue! After the initial hilarity we soon settled down to some serious hockey. There was some beautiful play from the off with lots of passing the breadth and length of the pitch. Clairee had clearly had her Shredded Wheat for both breakfast and lunch and put in some sterling action down the right.
After a play of advantage by the umpire Taryn snuck in the first goal, and we were off. OCs were no pushover, but with a great team effort using the whole of the pitch for some fantastic passing forwards, backwards and sideways, we were never in much danger.
Two more goals from Ruth F brought us to 3-0 at half time. There was a bit of a sloppy start to the second half – possibly a sugar rush from Ruth S’s legendary supply of wine gums. But we kept a clean sheet and soon got back into our stride.
A flick awarded saw Ruth F step up and cooly stick it in the back of the goal and put us 4-0 up. And somewhere between there and the end Taryn brought it to a close with the fifth.
The shoelace incident was part way through the second half. In my defence:
- I’m always the first to tell off the kids when they have their shoelaces undone.
- It was tactical play by Ray from OCs who pointed it out.
And a learning point – don’t try and tie your shoelaces with a pair of full finger hockey gloves. And look up before passing - whoever passed to me when I was on the floor didn’t look first!
A great team effort from all – Val, Taryn, Ruth F, Anna, Fee, Mandy, Clairee, Philippa, Sinead, Debs, Louise, Ellie and Ruth S. And a big shout out to Sophie R for hanging out with the older gals and keeping a safe goal and clean sheet. And a well-deserved MOM to Clairee – hope you have recovered!
A good fun game, and an impressive score line. And we are sitting pretty at the top of the table! And just remember, the wisdom from Debs – ‘You’re not late until you get there’! See you at Ashford for the final game – on time!