The Mighty 4s draw to home with top of the table Hampton 4.

Match Report by Yogi, a man of few words!

This is a week we shall never forget (almost the line from the November the 5th nursery rhyme!!) but I wanted to concentrate on matters elsewhere and draw some conclusions and comparisons to it.

Up North in Manc land, the “special” one reverted to type and in a post-match press conference he said the following…

"For the team, you have to do anything."
"Smalling doesn't feel that he can play 100% with his pain. Shaw told me this morning that he was not able to play.
"There is a difference between the brave, who want to play at any cost, and the ones for whom a little pain can make a difference."

This, for any of you that follow football is him reverting to his methods of management. In his successful tenure of Chelsea first time around he took all of the flak from reporters adopting a siege mentality and protected the players from criticism, allowing them to thrive and indeed he got a tune out of each and every one of them and they won things.

In stark contrast in his 2nd spell at Chelsea, he turned on them and singled out individuals when they made errors in games and ultimately he “lost the dressing room” (football speak for nobody wanting to put in a shift for the team or him) and consequently he got sacked as the team suffered bad results.

Well the above shows he is doing exactly that at United already and is basically questioning the commitment of his players.

This my friends is the tenuous link I would like to make to our team and our game. In the past 2 years now, if there is one thing that can be levelled at our bunch of players, it is that for the team we do do anything. There are no prima donna individual players. The work ethic that goes into every game week by week is evident and slowly but surely we are now getting close to doing everything for the team. We have people who could easily be watching the television on a Saturday afternoon and yet they are there on the side of the pitch to give us the benefit of their wisdom. We have people who could easily be forgiven for being on a wet platform in Clapham Junction listening to horns and taking the serial number down of the Flying Scotsman, yet here they are instead with whistle in mouth. We even have players who could easily have retired this year but the draw and the allure of this bunch of players is far greater (thank you Murray great game this week).

We don’t have players who cry off on the morning of the match (a regular occurrence elsewhere in my past!). We have players who are well ill and yet they not only turn up but also play most or all of the game as happened with Tony at Stratford. We have players who take what they need to in order to be out on the pitch be albeit legal substances and drinks (no names there then!!).

And the bravery/play at any cost/pain making no difference can be seen in abundance when we see the state of Shaun’s hand, Aylin’s face, Ffitch’s thumb etc etc.

So it pains me to name names when I say that Tony made the tackle just inside of the D that led to their first goal and John could not gather his feet sufficiently in the D right at the end to give away another corner from which they scored!!

BUT I do so in jest!

For it was with that much effort that our players gave in that game that they not only found themselves in our D trying desperately to make a difference and hold on to what we had got, but they also in the same game found time to be at the business end of the pitch, Tony, with his inadvertent reverse stick shifting of the ball that not only completely bamboozled their keeper, but also led to Rushy collecting the ball and scoring our 1st goal) and John, countless times marauding down the right and getting in telling crosses and dribbles. Tony will tell you that he was making his trademark reverse stick pass but we all know he was trying to get it onto his strong side and lost control!! (a bit like the Indian bowler who got Root out!!)

And so to the game. We scored (9mins), we scored (42 mins), they scored(55m),they scored(57m),we scored(66m hurrah!),they scored (68m boo hiss) – end to end 3-3 draw and handshakes at the end. End of report…

Well not quite.

My mock diatribe cannot be quite complete without special mention of all the people that made a very pleasant day.

Umpires – first class – without being “miked up” we would have had the wrong end of 2 decisions for goals that were rightly overturned.

Opposition – a very enjoyable game – not always the case with our noisy neighbours but in this case it was!

Supporters – Buoyed by not only having the usual crowd of 3 (Mrs Lane, almost Mrs Rushy and Master Higgins), we actually had 2 Pats outdoors and the crowd was 5 as my nipper and wife were present (albeit only for the first half {boo hiss – missed all the action in the 2nd!!}, but found the first half very enjoyable – which begs the question, why didn’t they stay??

I’ll be honest, I’ve lost Pat’s match notes hence I have had to make all this up… but from what I can remember although Hampton had the lion’s share of possession, Sills had many chances and whilst we snuffed out a lot of their chances we made our own and went 1 nil and then 2 nil up and could even have put the game to bed had a couple more chances gone in and then when we got pegged back we managed to go ahead and just could not hold on. The opposition were relieved to have got a point in the end and we were disappointed not to have got the win and who could have believed that before the game started!!!!!

Anyway, to a man we were Brilliant. – my thoughts of performances as follows:-
Rushy – usual 2 goals handed one by Tony mis-control – great for fantasy – always a menace to play against and gives us a threat against ANY oppo – needs to smile more.

Willetts senior (Buddha) - found an extra yard of pace from somewhere this year (AGAIN), great stick speed to score the best goal of the match BY FAR.
TD – disciplined left side, up and down the pitch from start to end – usual effort from one so short, imagine if he could use the correct side of his stick!!

Harrison – right side equivalent – always available and kept going right to the end and was there at least to try and stop the aforementioned cross rather than being on the half way line. PLUS – no Harrison-hacks – hurrah!

Willetts junior – another midfield box to box performance gives us our attacking option when breaking from deep which is different for this team – green card to boot – red mist – red hair – nuff said! Brilliant – how is Keith your dad??

Creed – polished performance, always has time on the ball and gets us passing short – needs to watch less trains or associate with people who do!

Tabb – a calmed assurance came into the team this week (albeit late!) – unexpected for the 4ths! Broke from deep very well (again something we don’t do very often), excellent passes and “Wilkinsoness” boots to the corner.

Higgins- very disciplined position wise this week, meant that we kept shape much better – often versatile to fill in wherever!

FFitch – brave as an ox, telling interceptions - one off the line and many others – thankless task playing LB against speedy wingers but exceptional performance.

Lane – another brave as an ox and keeps going regardless of the opposition – often now becoming the starting point in our 7 pass theory as we look to pass short and go down the right.

Aylin – can there ever have been a reverse flat stick tackle masterclass than this one – made every tackle – often the voice of reason – starting to look too much like an American hard liquor rocker for my liking (even though he does not imbibe!)

Yogi – convinced himself all week he was going to have the game of his life – and he did! But at what price – maybe out for 1 to 3 or 4 weeks (so the hospital says! … but what do they know – don’t they know I got fantasy to think about!!)

MIA – Shaun – great comments before/during/after, come back quickly.

Simon – nabbed by Thurman so he cannot score as many fantasy points as himself, always obliging to play for anyone but you know where his heart lies! Sorely missed.

TJ “Frank” – understandably MIA due to children duties – great addition this year even if we don’t do much with his passes!

Foamer Bettridge – you know where his heart really does lie – come back all is forgiven I won’t take the mickey honest guv!

Yogi is far too modest to mention it so I will: Man of the Match – Yogi. He made some fantastic saves, head, boot, stick, gut, err midriff. Well done Yogi.