WON 11-6
Leo, James2, Gareth2, Nathan2, Jason3. And Alan2.
After last week's ignominious defeat - a 10-0 first half capitulation, coupled with a 3-3 second half respectability - the recriminations and remunations of our p**s poor first half performance could be levelled at a lack of effort, lack of fight, lack of spirit, and Robbie getting turned over more times than pancake batter on Shrove Tuesday. Gareth was losing the ball in stupid places; James was signposting his shots and hitting the first defender; Alan was striking the ball with the power of a powderpuff; Leo was performing mop up duties like a wet flannel; and Robbie was apparently on the pitch somewhere.
It all led to a shocking semi-cricled stand-off at half-time with everyone but Robbie seemingly to blame. Matt was animated like a man waking from a coma "What year is this?". Leo needed to shake the lethargy, and get his head out of his hands, and our attackers needed to get their proverbial s&&t together. Our personal pride seemed to get the better of us though, and we didn't get whitewashed, nor did we concede into the 20s, so well done us.
This week saw an extraordinary line-up of Molly players for this re-arranged from the snow fallout fixture. The lack of Matt, moving house (I could've sworn he lived on a wall) was a real disadvantage to the side. Because there's no better time to move stuff around then in the darkness of seven pm, and then perhaps catch a netball match afterwards, before partaking in a 2-4-1 cinema deal.The loss of Richard and Steve to holidays abroad would be felt too, as it left the only qualified defender, Leo, manning the space between the sticks, and our outfield line-up bursting with too much sickly attacking goodness. And Alan.
With James, Nathan (who despite having a 'hormonal' partner back home managed to come play), Gareth and Jason. And Alan all in the side, this was going to be the mother of all ding-dongs. Who could attack more? Who could pass better? Harken back to the Ossie manager days of Tottenham, when a five man attack was the only form of defence. At least Leo would have options for throwouts, if he didn't have to constantly pick it out of the back of the net.
Father figure And Alan had instilled some discipline into the side, and the team would rotate their defensive responsibilities with their lust for shooting, scoring and dribbling through an opposition side equally as youthy. It didn't start according to plan, as Leo got wrong-footed by a weak deflected shot, and then a dragged shot into the far-corner as the Mollys went 2 down relatively early. However, temprorary gaffer Leo was actually unphased, because sooner or later, the young hard bodies (And Alan) in front of him would have to stop poncing about, and do some damage to the opposition net. And boy did that happen. Leo kept his end of the bargain by flinging himself all over the D to frustrate a consistent Stratten attack, and allowed the symphony of destruction to flow through his conducting.
Everyone in the outfield was comfortable on the ball. It showed that these guys had played with each other before. The passing was crisp, the touches were deft, the movement ball-sucking, as the opposition got dragged out of position, and the shots rained in on their keeper from angles all over the shop. Thankfully with this bunch of archetypal glory-baggers, the shooting, after a initial flurry of up and overs, calmed down, and was never gratuitous. The boys, And Alan, played the better pass, rather than take the extraneous shot, and we reigned the opposition in, like Tess Daly reigns in her sextextpest husband.
For all the flashy footwork, it was the directness of And Alan on the left, and the continued tracking back of the outfield, that constantly occupied the opposition, tackles went in hard and safe, and rarely did Stratten have a free run at goal. Leo was offered more choice than Tiger, to throw the ball out alarmingly quick, either short to the likes of Jason, mid-range to Gareth or Nathan, or further afield to And Alan and James. You couldn't accuse any of our players of not covering sufficient ground, as every attack halted by Leo, resulted in an equally swift rebuke, as the opposition were kept on the toes, and hurtling back toward their own goal line.
The first half finished with the Mollys 6-4 up, which would've surprised a few naysayers, but the pitch 5 graveyard was holding no curse. It wasn't all perfect - Nathan's shooting from long-range was guff, and just dragged play back into our own half. And James missed at least three sitters when presented with the opportunity to smash the ball anywhere but straight at an exposed keeper. And some of our more fanciful moves particularly ambitious long cross field balls through the heart of the pitch got snuffed out.
Second half we dominated. We were totally up them. They may have hit the cross bar a couple of times, but that was a result of exceptional positional defending by our keeper, and it was the very top of the bar. The opposition became frustrated, and they clearly developed a sense of tiredness, as Gareth rallied the troops to continue to whip them red raw despite us being 3 or 4 goals to the good at the time. Mercy is clearly for the weak. Nathan continued to laugh off challenges from little midgets, and Gareth and Jason combined with some superb twitch wingplay. It was just as well the outfield were all wearing different variations of blue, as it would've been hard to distinguish them based on skill and passing alone, as all rose to the challenge. Even And Alan. The white sleeves of Jason, the yellow shoulders of Nathan, the white sash of James, allowed Leo to call out names, throw the ball tight to their feet, and then hurriedly shout out "Manon" as the opposition attempted to smother the threat.
We did concede two in the second half, but only after Leo had fallen awake after ten minutes of daydreaming of a second half clean sheet. Nathan attempting a long pass from his own corner, ruthlessly intercepted and smashed home, and a short pass, after Leo had triple saved a close range shot/spike/chip, which spilled away to another Stratten player. One could only imagine the Stratten players wondering why they'd been hit with a tidal wave of such attacking magnitude, but were probably saying in the bar afterwards how "their keeper kept them in it". Sure we were operating a tight and fine line, with passes flashing in front of Leo's D with alarming regularity, but once suckered in for a teasing turnover, we then punished them with relentless breaks through their backline.
Jason rounded off the scoring with a perfect flying groundless volley from so far back, even Leo could've reached out and touched it, and a superb high impact team effort ended with a nothing less than fully deserved 11-6 victory over the team just above us in the league. Even Don had a grin on his face, having watched the match through the bar window, thankfully not pulling his hernia prising himself up onto a high stool.
So we traipsed into the bar for our free £30 worth of booze to celebrate our win, and throughly enjoyed a couple of rounds - in fact owing them £2.30, on a tab with Matt's name on it. Someone on our team got the MOTM award, and free beer, but it wasn't our superb keeper, so it didn't mean jack. Leo said it would be great to text our absent gaffer with the result to show he wasn't missed, and should've been here defending his box instead of moving one. Gareth decided it would be fun to text Matt to tell him we actually kept a clean sheet, and won comfortably without him, and whilst a ridiculous 26-0 was considered and dropped, there was much to be said for Nathan's "an intense 1-0 victory" suggestion. In the end, 11-0 sounded plausible, despite the second choice keeper, and no dedicated defenders (although Robbie and Steve only barely qualify - one's more absent from his own half, the other from the pitch entirely), and Matt fell for it (heartfelt but gracious in his disappointment at not being the first to keep a Molly clean sheet).
We finished fourth at season's end, with five genuine victories, and with line-ups that fluctuated with diverse personnel, and that should hold the expanded squad in good stead to drive forward next season, and get one of those little silver stars next to our name, like wot they do on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Or in Matt's case, Call of Duty: Moving Wardrobe.
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