West Derby 3 - Bowdon Killer Bee's 4

'Some say it was like watching Brazil, I say it was like watching the Bees...'

The destination was a sunny astro-turf pitch in Merseyside close to Alder Hey Hospital. It seems strange but we actually had 12 players although the luxury of a sub was robbed when we had to provide an umpire. First up to take the whistle was Jonny Grant, it was either to punish him because he was late or that he wanted to stand in the shade and recover from his hangover.

It was a usual Bees formation to start off with, I think we should patent it, but it had a new star player here for the year and paying taxes, that was myself Mr Philip Fishwick starting at centre forward. The first half went down as expected giving the opposition a false sense of security, or was it that we hadn't picked up our hockey sticks since the festival. Any excuse is acceptable because we went 2 goals down, due to some tasty stick work by their players (or ringers).

A new half, a new optimism, a new formation. Our skipper, Yokker, rang out the changes and moved myself back to defensive centre half to be the play maker, as it never works having Yokker and Richard Armishaw darting up the middle with a centre forward. The changes worked straight away with Gary Campbell and David Phillips putting darting runs up the wings being supported by the halves Chris Clark and a recovered Jonny (The general concensus seems to be that JC has a lot to answer for... - Ed) . Within the first 5 minutes we had a shorty, move number 78 was used this time, developed in pre-season for more goals, the ball was passed to Jumbo who struck the ball at the goalie. Some confusion happened after the shot as the ball hit the keeper and came to yours truly and was belted into the net. A revival was happening. Not long after the re-start a lazy ball was played by the oppo and picked upon by myself driving forward and passing to Richard who drove the ball into the net, we were on level terms. The sight of victory was there, we had completely upset the opposition. Further champagne hockey was being played the team interconnecting like they were playing in the Commonwealth Games. The defense was holding strong now with Nick and Brian as the full backs and Jumbo in the centre, possibly being helped by the added security being employed in the centre of the field. All the time there were darting runs by the forward players with balls to match them from the rest of the team, and Yokker getting on to one of these goes round a defender and fires the ball home from an acute angle. The final nail in the coffin was to come from Brian Jones who received the ball on the outside of the dee, and with a firm strike hits the back board, the opposition were destroyed. They managed to get a consolation goal with a few minutes to go, but that was due to them drafting on first team players because they lacked the hard-core fitness of a rampant Bees side. Credit goes to Harry the Cat who played a blinder in net with some crucial saves taking place in the final minutes.

The winners on that fine day were the Bees and Yokker who finally learnt how to use his cruise control on the motorway under the tutoring of Jonny.

Philip Fishwick