Today’s match was away from home…. a long way away from home! A drive over the Pennines to Sheffield Hallam University for what was always going to be a difficult match with so many of our regular players away, including our Goalkeeper Frederick. We also had Miles Q making his debut with the team, and what a debut! But more of that later.

With Fredrick away we had to have volunteers to go into goal. With none forth coming, John and Andy had to pressgang four players, one for each quarter. Noah was the first in goal. Hoping his experience as a GK in football would see him through, he quickly found using your body as a block for shots, had its disadvantages! Sheffield were quick out of the block in the first quarter slicing through our defence forcing three saves in quick succession from Noah before a brace of goals were scored. Jake returned the favour pulling a goal back but to be fair the majority of play was with Sheffield who scored two more before Miles P managed to fire one past the Sheffield GK. Jake pulled of a fantastic shot but went just wide leaving the first quarter 4-2 for Sheffield. Noah ran off the pitch stating “Thank the Lord for that!”

The second quarter had James P in goal striding forward as if to the firing squad!
This period of play was much more even, with play going from end to end with Ellis scoring with an assist from Finn. Finn was also in the mix with several shots before Jake assisted him in scoring, who then returned the favour assisting Jake with a goal. Sheffield managed to put two past our defence making the score at the half time point 6-5 for Sheffield.

The next victim, sorry volunteer for goal was Jack who was quickly put under pressure making a great save deflecting a ball wide. James P managed to pick up a loose ball in the Sheffield area and fired it past the GK to put us 6-6. An assist from Ellis put Miles P clear and a superb shot to put us ahead 6-7 at the end of the third quarter and with a clean sheet for Jack!

The final quarter saw Jake in Goal and quickly under the cosh as Sheffield rallied and fired four successive goals but would have been much more had Jake not stepped up making some great saves. Noah and Finn fired several shots at the Sheffield goal, but without luck. With two minutes left on the clock we were 10-7 down. Noah, decided to change tactic with the face offs and went for the man rather than the ball allowing us to take possession. The ball was played up field when a pass was intercepted and pushed out of play. Miles Q took possession and ran forward finding a gap and shooting through the defence and scored in his maiden match. Noah won the face off again allowing Ellis to assist Sammy score taking it to 10-9 for Sheffield. With seconds on the clock, the face off was again won allowing Sammy to score the equaliser. With barely enough time to restart the game, it was over with a score of 10-10.

I think the game showed two important points:

1. Never give up. It’s only over when the whistle blows.
2. Much respect is to be given to Fredrick and all other GK’s!!!

Man of the match today was Sammy.