Two non-weddings and a stomach ulcer...

High on the back of a good win last week, 11 Ladies 2s set out for Richmond in two matching silver Seat Leons. Well, 7 set out and we were just hoping that the rest would meet us there; including Ali K and Rennie who were wedding dress shopping. All assembled, warmed up and ready to go, the word of the day was ‘Girls! (They rule the world!)’, a la Beyonce.

Again, we were a bit worried that no subs might cause us problems so as soon as we heard Freya was feeling better, we told her to jump in her car and head up. A very good job we did in the end as poor Stacy got hit in the cheek towards the end of the first half and couldn’t play in the second.

We have had a few interesting games against this Richmond team and reminisced on the way up about the bruises. This gave us some additional impetus to beat them. We weren’t disappointed as various Richmond players tried to push us off the ball, wrestle us to the ground or just raise their sticks a little too high. There were also a few questionable umpiring decisions, such as pulling Stace and Bridge up on a hit straight into the D… when Bridge was still about 2m out. We did let it rattle us in the first half but were the first to score with a great run up the pitch by Reenie. We were the better team but weren’t playing to our strengths.

Annoyingly, the next two goals came from Richmond – one from a good run up the pitch and a slip to the far post and the other off a short corner (I think, I can’t really remember). So we were going into half time 2-1 down and needed to regain our composure quickly in order to play our game.

With Stacy off, we had a radical reshuffle with Kaz moving into centre mid and Bridget coming back to defend with Jess (moi). In the second half, we took control. Kaz ruled the centre ground and caused problems for the Richmond attack, taking the ball off players coming through countless times. Hetti continued her excellent form with drives up the right wing, earning her joint man of the match, admirably supported by Karen. Woolfy was feeling a bit out of position on the left with me but did a cracking job of supporting Ali K and Freya. She also did a lot of shouting, most of which I can’t repeat here. We were rewarded with two goals that came from good passing hockey with everyone working well together and communicating - one for Freya and the other from Reenie. At points we looked a bit static and can definitely work on that, along with more confidence to go around the back. Nevertheless, the defence kept a clean sheet in the second to help give us the win, and such a sweet win.

Bridget got a bit flustered as she thought we were drawing at 3-3. The rest of the team couldn’t really work out why she was shouting for people to push up, poor Rose. A last throw of the dice was Ali K nearly scoring with a beautiful strike, floated in by Rose, which only missed the goal by a fraction. It didn’t matter as we’d done enough.
Freya looked in a lot of pain as we neared the end as her stomach ulcer started to flare up. She was voted joint man of the match for a) playing a blinder and b) turning up!! Good availability this week across the club means she can have a nice rest and, hopefully, come back even stronger the week after. As well as the ulcer, there were a record number of injuries: Stacy (cheek), Camilla (neck), Reenie (ankle), Karen (elbows, stomach and chin) and Bridge (toe). Tough it out girls!

After a game that saw the real heart of the 2s coming to the fore and battling back to win, some Prosecco was called for on the side lines. This was to also celebrate a lucky escape for two players that had originally planned to get married on 12th October - now that would have caused a bit of a problem for availability!