Lytham 7 - Bowdon Killer Bees 3

I don't know - you give the kids some simple homework to do & they let you down. That Gary Campbell... Tsk!

So, the Bees had broken their previous record before they even set foot on the pitch on Saturday! I refer, of course, to the Guiness-accredited 'most number of drop-outs between Monday & Saturday'. This week we peaked at an all time high of 8 players having something more pressing to do. Happy Christmas, one and all!... (And thanks to Yokker for switching teams at short notice. He might be ugly and a virgin, but he's big hearted. Awwww...)

We started the game at Lytham with no keeper, but a full compliment outfield, thanks to Lytham kindly lending us a player & summoning a second umpire from the ether. We immediately found ourselves fumbling around somewhat on a fairly wet, bumpy pitch, and the oppo scored 3 goals within the first 10 minutes. It became apparent that the skipper (that'll be me then...) had made a disasterous tactical decision by electing to have a kicking back rather than 1 less man outfield & a proper keeper, and so the situation was remedied by Trigger donning pads & prowling the D. Mind you, Lytham scored 2 more goals while he was actually kitting up. Doh!

By the way...

Trig's got tattoos!!! What's going on?!?! (They're cool ones too!)

Ooops, where was I? Oh yes, the hockey. Well, with a keeper in tow but one man down outfield, the Bees were starting to settle down a bit & find each other with the ball. The chap that Lytham had lent us was haring all over the place doing the old human dynamo jobbie; things were looking up. The Bees scored a goal before half time & were feeling a bit happier about the whole game, when, oh calamity, IT HAPPENED!... 'IT' of course being my halftime speech, in which I made the (weekly) fatal mistake of hinting that we were pulling things back & just had to continue playing like we had been for the last 20 minutes. Cue over-confidence, complete absence of concentration, focus out of the window etc, etc. You get the picture...

Initially it seemed that my pep talk had had the desired effect, with us pulling back another two goals & dominating the play totally for the first 20 minutes of the second half. Lytham squeezed one more goal past the valiant Trig, who was finally overwhelmed in a 3-on-1 attack when he managed to save the first two shots before their third one went in. The Bees were buzzin', with some great 1-2s from the midfield & forwards, and it all seemed to suggest that we had just been gathering momentum in the first half, and now was the hour of Lytham's discontent...

But... naahhh!.

...we lost focus and the last 15 minutes of the second half were humdrum mishits, shelling the ball to no-one (guilty, your honour!...) and not really capitalising on our dominance. Morale was lifted again after Fishwick Snr showed us how it's down at Uni level nowadays, and kicked a penalty corner off the line (fair enough); the subsequent penalty flick was saved with lightening relexes by Trig (so fast, we didn't even see him move!). Alas, a second identical incident did not have such a happy ending, with Lytham electing someone different to take the stroke (shame!), which flew past our valiant keeper with the speed of... er... um... well, I don't actually have any players that fast, so never mind, ok? However, Lytham matched their game to ours, and even a sudden burst of quiff-denting hail stones did not sting us out of our apathy. In the end, a nearly scoreline which accurately reflected a nearly game i.e. we nearly won. Then again, we nearly had as many players as them...

Good performances from Swithenbonk, young Mr Campbell (who, although he doesn't do his homework, did a superb job of marking their left wing off the pitch), the boy Yokker and epic work on the goaline from evil biker-boy Trigger. That geezer John from Lytham who we 'borrowed' wasn't half bad either, and if he ever wants to come & play for us... Heh! Heh! There was a tangible air of 'what could have been' as we walked off the pitch.

After the match, the Bees did a classic starburst manouver, leaving a chosen few to risk their all with the butties supplied by Lytham. So, have the Bees become an astro team at last? The answer has to be a resounding... YES! At least, until we lose on astro, when we will revert to being a... Well. You know what I mean.

Olly