Match Reports
03/10/08
Crawley 3s 0-4 Men's 4th XI
Brighton 4s needed to get their season off to the best possible start in their first game in Sussex Division 1. A good start they did get with a comfortable 4-0 win over a plucky Crawley side.
Brighton 4s had a fairly new look with some new joiners to the club Andy “Wrighty” Wright and Will “The Dobson” Dobson together with Will “Selby” Selby and Matt “Bananaman” Bennathan stepping up from the 5s. Please note some serious work needs to be done on some of these nicknames!
Brighton started their usual rather pedestrian selves no doubt put off by Matt Harding’s atrocious prediction of the weather. He had confidently claimed we would miss the rain; he was positively incorrect as the rain poured down.
Despite this slow start Crawley found the way past the defence less than easy and it was Brighton who took the lead. Good work from Tosh set up Will Selby to open the scoring. More skilful running from Tosh ripped open the Crawley defences once again and this time our own Michael Fish was equal to task and more than equal to the floundering ‘keeper.
Around this stage the legendary Steve Mooney was introduced to the fray to give some experience to the back four. The defence never looked under threat and Mooney dealt with any Crawley breaks with consummate ease.
Brighton extended their lead further with a goal from the prowling Bondy. Not sure he broke into a run during the whole game, but then again we don’t want him peaking too soon if it isn’t needed.
The second half followed a similar pattern with Brighton continuing to press but the second half curse endured from last season and Brighton’s forwards missed more chances than they would have liked, training boys training!
In an effort to make things more interesting Brooksy began to introduce his own random form of goalkeeping. This resulted in him diving full length and at full stretch to stop a ball going over the backline, passing it to the Crawley forward to give them another chance. Luckily they were as sharp as the Brighton forwards and an open goal was missed, phew.
With time ticking away there was barely time for Mooney to lose it, but briefly lose it he did. It must have been because we were playing at the school that Steve decided to give a stern finger wagging to a little urchin who had clipped his ankles one too many times. The look on the poor asbo candidate’s face was enough to put the boy on the straight narrow for the rest of his days. I have already written a letter to my MP and the Minister for Education. Mooney will soon be farmed out to schools across the country to give the worst tearaways and school bullies a firm finger wagging and the offer of simple home truths. That’ll sort this country out!
After the mixture of fear and hilarity that was Steve’s rant there was barely time for Will Dobson to do what new boys do and not understand the rules. With seconds left on the clock he did what was unheard in 4s hockey and that was rifle an absolute scorching short into the bottom corner and score a blooming goal in the second half! Whatever next!?
Job done; Top of the league and the perfect score if not quite the perfect performance.
Team: Brooksy, Wright, Ready, Sheff, Bananaman, Captain Dan (he isn’t the captain), Bondie, Tosh, Dobson, Selby, Harding, Mooney