Stevenage 7 - 2 Southend 1st XI
Another long treck into Hertfordshire for the first team began at Halfords early on Saturday morning. The team started in high spirits following last weeks hammering of Old Boys, and the magnificent full page spread and report confirming which is the best team in Southend, including pictures, in the Echo (what paper was it in?) for all of Southend to read.
For everyone who didnt see the article it will appear on the website sometime soon and for those of you who did I will just clarify a couple of points. Firstly we will be launching a new game to raise funds for the club called "Spot the Cawcutt!". Details will appear soon. Secondly, star youngster and Essex player Stuart Jones will be signing autographs of his pictures at the clubhouse on Saturday for anyone interested. Stuart is also available for modelling / acting / escorting and details are available on www.stuartjones.co.uk
Anyway, off we went. The team split into three cars, the kids (Stuart, Stress, James, Lee), The committee (Keith, Puppy, Strawbs and Chucky) and the tarts (Steve, Christian, Rich and Johnny 5) and after a brief stop at the worst service station in the world we arrived in Stevenage.
The team was missing last weeks 6 goal hero Gareth Ingram (dropped to the 2's for scoring too many goals) and back came Paul Mellish and the worst player in the first team, James Lockwood.
We started brightly and dominated the early exchanges taking an early lead when Stuart finished a nice move with a reverse stick hit. The game continued but the team failed to capitalise and even manage to miss yet another one on one with the keeper (I'm beginning to lose count of how many of these we have now missed, and can anyone remember who was the last person to score one!?). Then it all seemed to go wrong. The team was lethargic and Stevenage began to get into the game. Eventually they scored and we went into half time level at 1 - 1.
"On the plus side we can't play any worse than that and its only 1 - 1. The second half is ours for the taking". Yeah right!! Suffice to say we were rubbish and they scored six to hammer us. We did manage to get one goal back with Stuart getting yet another reverse stick goal.
There we are. Lets hope this was our one bad performance and this was just a one off.
Goals - Jones 2
Man of the Match - Casting vote went to Rich Hill who manage to nominate the person who was level with himself which meant the glamour boy Stuart Jones won.
Burberry - Johnny 5. Evidence of the trousers being worn in the Student Union required.
PS Having made up the website for Stuart (How many of you have looked it up?) I thought I would check to see who else had their own website. I particularly liked www.leestyles.com (Did you know he offer virgin consultations and for $50 you can have a touch up? Click on pricing for details) and I never knew that james was so arty. www.jameslockwood.com Nice portfolio james!
Southend & Benfleet 0 - 3 Old Loughtonians
Well what a shambles!!!! Although not necessarily with us, we just got the brunt of it all!! Loughts had all the good luck and us all the bad. They showed up 20 minutes before the start with players missing, no umpire and no away kit. So being the really nice team that we are (sometimes too nice!!!) we gave them our away kit, waited an extra 20 minutes for an umpire and their players, let them change umpires in the second half and then let them beat us 3-0. Oh and I helped their captain out with a very serious cruciate ligament injury. Thinking about it all now i conclude that I am stupid and should have taken the points when I had the chance. It won’t happen again. Promise!
The game itself started off ok, we pretty much camped out in their half and just couldn’t get a goal. Not for want and desperation of trying though. We could have and should have been 2-3 goals ahead when loughts got theirs before half time.
The second half was much of the same, except for the new loughts umpire blowing her bloody whistle far more than was really necessary and changing the whole tempo of the game, it had originally been a good strong performance by both teams and the then turned into a bit of a nasty game when both teams were blown for the most minor of things causing a stir in both camps. I’m quite sure neither team appreciated the tone in which this umpire governed the game.
Loughts got 2 more lucky breaks and ended up 3-0, 10 minutes before the end of the second half. There wasn’t really much any of us could do except finish the game with dignity.
We truly believe that the result does not reflect the game and the efforts put in by our team and we hope that the story will be different when we visit loughts next year, hopefully our goal scorer will be well enough and our goal keeper will be back on her feet (literally), we wish them both a speedy recovery, and yes we missed you. x
Team: Sarah Brooks, Sandy Revell, Anne Johnson, Steph Gregory, Nicola Coleman, Nicola Bryant, Lora Sharples, Kendal Colman, Adele Cole, Charlotte Rose, Chloe Harris, Sarah Watkinson.
Southend ladies 3's 1 - 3 Southend & Benfleet ladies 3's
We were short of players through illness and ended up with 10 players against their full team plus subs. We went on with a positive attitude and wanted to win to boost ourselves up the table. In the first half we passed well and mostly played up their end of the pitch and within a short time Caitlin scored a goal that was well executed. We carried on playing looking for more goals and did well defending our lead. In the first half Verna did pick up an injury and at half time we all agreed that I would just stay up front and goal hang, as I was unable to tackle or hold my stick, but we only had 10 girls and did not want it to be 9 so we carried on. The second half we started off well and Southend did break a couple of times and then we came back with another goal that resulted from excellent passing and I scored. Then Southend had a good shot, but missed, we then got a third goal again by Caitlin. Overall great play and great passing, the team is really settling in well and working well together.
The whole team pulled together and did very well.
Southend did manage to get a goal in in the second half, but we kept our lead.
So well done everyone a very good game let's keep going!!
|
