Brooklands Poynton 2s 3 - 2 Wakefield 2s

It’s always a good start to a Saturday morning to find the sun shining and a decent-sized squad chilling in the bar for a change. The Barbarian had obviously been up all night ‘helping’ the boss, and Jonesy was on nights (has she ever mentioned that? She’s a nurse, don’t you know? Saving lives and stuff…), so they rocked up in their sexy shorts and backwards skirt just in time for our rather weak warm up.

We weren’t exactly complacent; quite the opposite, in fact, as we knew that Wakefield would be a strong and physical team, but somehow it didn’t feel like our heads were in the game. Nevertheless, with the added luxury of actual subs on the bench, and Georgie ‘Martin Luther King’ Green back from her jollies, we were ready to go and get our first win.

Having won first pushback, the Yorkshire lasses came out hard – obviously determined not to suffer another consecutive defeat at the hands of a Mancunian side following their three-nil thrashing by Didsbury Northern the week before. What they probably didn’t know is that we hate losing more than we hate DNHC, so there was no way that we were going to let them within a mile of our D. Obviously this plan of action had to be amended slightly, given the usual constraints of a hockey pitch, but you get the idea – we weren’t going to stand for it. All over the pitch there was more hunting in packs than a BBC wildlife documentary as we worked together to break them down and secure the prey, er, ball, time and time again. The midfield had a blinder with expert link-ups eliminating players left, right and centre until eventually Nikki the Tip-In did exactly what it says on the tin and got a fantastic touch to send the ball right into the roof.

This relatively early goal did wonders for our performance, and before long we had secured some eagerly-awaited short corners. First up was a bit of sneaky left-slip, and although El Cap’s shot was saved, MLK was ready to pounce on the rebound with a well-placed flick into the corner. Just what we needed coming up to half-time, yes? Wrong. As the whistle blew and we huddled into the dugout, Rickroll made it quite clear that this was the worst possible position to be in. Surely not worse than, say, 6-0 down, but no one wanted to ask. It’s annoying when people are right though, and although everyone was up for recreating our fantastic first-half performance, everything just seemed to go downhill.

If we had to pinpoint a moment that triggered our decline, it would probably have to be when Mel ‘The Hulk’ Smith’s shoelace decided to snap, leaving her to run around for the remaining 33 minutes with a flappy trainer to match the flappy skirt she was wearing for leaving her skort at home. Ideal. And true to form, you wouldn’t like her when she’s angry, as more and more people on both teams began to find out. Word on the street was that the umpire feared for her life too much to even get out a card. Still, it gave us an excuse to aggravate the opposition by wasting time on short corners in a series of fruitless attempts to tie said lace back together.

There’s only so much time you can waste on a shoelace though, and before long the White Roses managed to get one back. It seems that we respond well to conceding goals, as we went straight back into the game with another short which saw Tip-In smash the ball straight through the backboard (not literally before you go and check). Ever the voice of reason, she wanted us to spread the word that we were still winning, so what did we have to worry about!? Probably the fact that our poorly Humph was not feeling it and another goal trickled in against us, but let’s not dwell on technicalities. Ever the value-for-money side, the Brooklands girls decided to go out with a bang on a last defensive short before the whistle blew and we had our first win in the bag. Finally. This anticlimactic ending to the tale sums up how we felt as we left the pitch, but we all know that if we can pull it out of the bag despite a grim second-half, we’re going to absolutely smash it when all aspects of our game EVENTUALLY come together – which will be next week, just so you know.

No prizes for guessing Dick of the Day so we’ll move swiftly on to Man of the Match, which went deservedly to Nikki the Tip-In for her motivational attitude and awesome skills. Same again next week ladies? Yes please :)