Lichfield freeze as Sils turn up the heat

Sils started the game with great energy and pace in the midfield. Skilful and robust play by Alex Willetts and Simon Russell set the scene and as they began distributing the ball to the wide players and the forwards. This was a very promising start.

All this effort was soon rewarded around ten minutes into the game when John Harrison picked up a pass and scored with a cracking shot from the right hand edge of the D into the bottom left corner of the goal. Just the boost we needed in the bitterly cold conditions.

Sils were playing well and completely dominating the play. It wasn’t too long before a pass from Harrison found David Higgins in the D and he banged the ball into the back of the net for our second. Great stuff.

Things were going well until all of a sudden Michael Bettridge started doing a Hopalong Cassidy impression and after making a lame excuse he limped of the pitch with a leg injury. Fortunately Matthew Lyons arrived in the nick of time after having spent over half an hour trying to find the ground. He loped on to replace Mike and all was well.

Lichfield had some very useful players and they mounted several attacks but they lacked any serious penetration. Shaun Bates directed the tracking back and channelling of their forwards with great effect and the Lichfield forwards were well contained and frustrated by our well organised defence. With the defence playing so well it came as something of a disappointment when they managed to break through and get a good shot on goal. It was stopped on the line with a well-placed foot and the umpire correctly awarded a penalty stroke. Their centre forward converted it with a very well taken flick. This seemed to ‘fire them up’ and they began using all sorts of dubious tackles and shenanigans in an attempt to unsettle us and get them back into the game.

Andrew Rush dribbled into the D on several occasions and looked very likely to score. He was prevented from doing so by a rash of what seemed to us to be illegal tactics which included pushing, barging, blocking and stick tackling, all this with little or no serious attempt to play the ball. We got the odd penalty corner but mostly the umpires let the play continue until their defence eventually cleared the ball.

Despite the opposition's robust tactics Sils continued to play really good flowing hockey. Shaun, Alex and Simon continued to dominate the middle with great tackling, movement and passing. It was a joy to watch and if we can do that every week we will be hard to beat.

John continued battling away and towards the end of the first half he dribbled the ball into the D along the byline. The keeper rushed out to meet him and John calmly pushed the ball between his pads for Sils third goal. Great composure.

At half time the general feeling was that, given the circumstances, a two goal lead was not enough. All they needed were a couple of lucky breaks to bring them back into contention. We needed an early goal in the second half to put the game beyond their reach.

From the restart Lichfield came out with renewed vigour. There were times when they looked strong and began to pose something of a threat. One of their midfield players made several clumsy tackles on John. Despite the provocation he just about managed to keep his composure which was important. Going down to ten men would have been a self-inflicted wound which was the very last thing we needed. So no cards for John, whatever next!

Midway through the half we got the goal we needed. A well-rehearsed short corner routine went like clockwork and Russell hammered the ball straight into the back of the net for goal number four, such a memorable moment.

The threat from their attacks diminished significantly and on the few occasions that they did get through Yogi, immaculate in goal as ever, kept them out. The game was looking more secure now and our midfield dynamos had regained control of the centre ground.

Mick Lane and Craig Ffitch were both very solid at the back and it was encouraging to see them both pressing high along their respective flanks when the opportunity presented itself. Not only did this help to close the gap that sometimes occurs between the midfield and attack, it also forced the opposition to bring players back. Matt and Dave both played really well linking up between the midfield and forwards to support our attacks and also tracking back to support the defence and spoil their attacks.

Andy was unlucky not to score from another short when their keeper made a good save. However he failed to clear the ball and Keith Willetts hammered it between his legs with a reverse stick shot.

With about ten minutes remaining Russell came driving into the D from the 23 with ‘I’m not passing this to anyone’ written across his ample forehead and with good reason, he smashed the ball into the back of the net for number six!

The score line might suggest that this was an easy victory but nothing could be further from the truth. This was a hard fought game from start to finish but ultimately it was the quality of our play that secured the win. It was a very impressive performance from the Mighty 4s.

Man of the Match: John Harrison

This result puts Sils into third place but only by virtue of the fact that we have scored more goals than Edgbaston 7 who we play next week.

Now that is a game to look forward to.

Post Script

With none of us having played at Lichfield before there was some doubt over how to get there. Fortunately I had the privilege of road testing a new Sat Nav to rival Tom-Tom called John-Mike. What could possibly go wrong?

The prototype is a little on the large side in that it occupies both rear seats but it self-installs and requires no input from the driver. Also being in the back means that there is no up-front display to distract the driver either. Despite its size it has a shared intelligence that can be stored on a pinhead - how cool is that. Another innovation is that it sometimes doesn’t tell you where to go until you have passed the junction you want - how very novel. Particularly impressive is the simultaneous dual-voice feature which offers the driver a choice of directions, for example, “Take the A38 north/Take the A 38 south.” One really irritating feature was the lack of a ‘mute’ button but I have come up with a quick fix, I’m loading it now!