Match Reports
24/11/09
Hampstead & Westminster 2-1 Men's 1st XI
Sober and Out!
Brighton Men’s first team paid the highest price when going out of the HA Cup yesterday as they missed a great chance to get drunk on the mini bus after their league game away at Oxford University.
Skipper Turner said after the game “I love a good drinking session on the mini bus after away games it reminds me of playing at University” He also offered team drunks (and legal advisers) Hore, Forster and Langston the chance to drink as much as they wanted on the bus but could not touch a drop afterwards. “I have the highest respect for the boys they declined my offer and showed a real respect for the team, club and competition, they have really matured from students to young professionals”.
Rumours that Turner wanted to get Langston drunk so he had another case of the mystery illness that he suffered in the last round so Alex Coyle could play were mocked as Langston put in a Man-of-the- Match performance against the National Premier Side. Langston said “I was gutted about my illness in the last round I wanted to make up for it; I think it was my best performance of the season.”
Langston also managed to be credited with the Dick-of-the-Day award for trying to play without his stick for a couple of minutes. “I felt sorry for their Spanish player he was getting no change from Si (Turner), Dickie (Baker) or Rusty (Perkins) so I thought I would play against him without my stick to give him a chance”
The game was a magical occasion as the Brighton support turned up in there 10’s to witness the biggest game in the clubs history. Hampstead and Westminster looked serious with a warm up that included jogging diagonally across the pitch. It is thought that their warm up was changed as Langston, Hore and Baker tried to start a stand off situation with the Hampstead team while both sides were warming up along the side line. Baker Chuckled “I have lots of experience in these situations and a bit of gamesmanship is good for confidence, I think it put them on the back foot.”
At the starting whistle Brighton played aggressively getting the opposition heads down and chasing ball that was moved around the pitch at a great pace by the visitors. Vice Captain Perkins was very impressed “We made it hard for them, we knew they would like to play nice hockey on the floor but we left everything out on the pitch – they knew they were lucky to get a result.”
The second half started and Brighton had the best of the possession, the first half was more about the defending but the first 15 minutes of the second half Brighton pushed on looking to get something from the terrific work they put in during the first half. They were rewarded when a free on the right hand side of the dotted line was slapped towards the D by Hore and Turner made a great lead away from the D to deflect the ball to Davies who managed a machine-like turn and strike in the character of Ex Brighton superstar and compatriot Craig Carolan. “Once again I didn’t spend the night pleasuring Kate (Gales) and it paid off I had lots of aggression and used it at the right time.”
The next 20 minutes was very tense and Brighton had a few chances to finish the game but could not take them. A few mistakes started to crop up and Brighton stopped playing to the game plan. Striker Deller-Merricks commented “the guys knew the game plan; we should be hitting the ball away from danger, just to get it out of our 25 it must have cost our coach thousands of pounds in cigarettes”
The Brighton crowd were getting upset, chief vocal supporter Pete Smails complained “as the game went on we couldn’t see anything, we had to climb on each other’s shoulders to see over the mountain of Lambert and Butler packets that McSalter had smoked his way through” A Lambert and Butler representative who turned up to the game In a brand new Jet thanks to a recent surge in Sales in the Preston Park area apologised to the fans but reassured them that future games would not be ruined. “McSalter is a great customer of ours and we know the next couple of weeks Brighton have some massive games so we have decided to produce a clear packet. We have hard Benson and Hedges have already got one in production and we can’t afford to lose McSalter’s revenue.”
Aside from the mountain of cigarette packets, which at this point Brockett-Pugh had hoped to fill up the goal with, there was two minutes left and when Brighton failed to clear the ball a short corner was conceded and then expertly finished by Eakins, the Hampstead and Westminster top scorer. To this point, their short corner routines had been foiled by Langston who did a great job of running to the striker and making some great interceptions, anything that did get passed him was dealt with by Brocket-Pugh.
With golden goal extra time to follow the Lambert and Butler representative had managed to procure a JCB and moved all the empty cigarette packets to a waste site on Cockshut road, Lewes – no good hockey ever gets watched there.
In the first period of extra time neither Brighton or Hampstead and Westminster created a chance, the defending was superb. With four minutes gone in the second half of extra time Brighton conceded a short corner and the game was over. Eakins dispatched another good drag flick and the national league side had won on golden goal.
The way Brighton’s first team have performed in the league and cup this year Coach McSalter has started to be compared to Manchester United Legend Sir Alex Ferguson but, unlike Ferguson, he refused to comment on the decision the umpire made when giving the winning short corner. “I don’t want to get in trouble with anyone; at the end of the day exotic decisions is what makes our sport a great game and we need to just hold our heads up and smile , we could have won the game way before the golden goal.”
The goal left the crowd (even Smales) silent, something that has not been done for over a decade. Skipper Turner had the last word and although greatly disappointed that they were so close to a historic victory he reflected to the team “guys we are stood hear p*ssed off at ourselves that we lost to National Premier Side on golden goal – it was a great performance”
Brighton are out of the cup but can now concentrate on Saturdays and getting really drunk in the hockey club as they are definitely National Premier standard at that.
Thanks All,
Dan Hore