In Hoose Entertainment

So that was a decent enough weekend.

On Saturday I got up early only to find out that the hockey match had been cancelled, but that the 6’s were “A couple of men short” so the three of us (Rosy, Jon and me) decided to go anyway.

The match was in Ormskirk, which is just north of liverpool.

When we got there it turned out that the team was definitely *not* short of any players (we had 15!) and the opposition, who intially requested a couple of our players, ended up padding out their team with some ringers instead - they were a bit good.

Rosy, Jon and I were all substitutes, this being only my second week and the other’s first. I didn’t mind, particularly, as long as Rosy and Jon got on the pitch for a fair whack, and I got 10 mins or so to justify the journey (I’ll be expecting a full game next week for the 7’s though!).

The first half none of us came on.

and the opposition overran us into a 4-0 lead. The main problems seemed to be:

1) The defence failing to clear the ball with any haste, thus leading to losing the ball within our third and therefore never easing the pressure
2) The keeper losing heart when it went to 2-0.
3) The midfield playing far too deep, mostly due to (1), meaning whenever the ball went up we only had 1 or 2 men forward and they were quickly surrounded by 4 or 5 defenders, thus giving away the ball and putting us straight back under pressure again.
4) the oppositions ringers, who were damn good players!

the third and fourth goals were particularly poor :/

We were 5-0 down by the time Rosy and Jon came on, and I made an appearance 15 mins from the end, shortly before conceeding the 6th (I went on at Left Back, which is not exactly my natural position (I’m a striker) but I still made a good stab at it I think). I almost saved it too, after he beat our two centre backs I came in to cover, but he got the shot off a microsecond before my stick intervened. Got a nice astro turf burn as a result.

I went to left wing and shouted my head off for some attention, but the ball generally drifted out to our right, which was irritating. I played alright though. We generally pressed for a goal, but they scored on the counter for the final one.

a slightly unrepresentative final score : 0-7.

Pub after where a rumour quickly developed that there were no sarnies for us. unhappily we work at a few pints and make to leave… actually going into the car park and opening the car before Rosy rushed out to inform us that the sarnies had arrived!

Gleefully we tuck in and then rush back as Ads is late for the last-night-performance of Kiss me Kate.

Some food at home is followed by Jon, Rosy and I moseying down to the Scu for the KmK After show. Which was pretty good fun I think.

We played twenty-one for a bit - Jon is very bad at it - and talked and drunk and got home about 3, bed about 4.

Sunday started around 11am and before long we were on our way to adrian and Emma’s for Emma’s sunday lunch. Which was very nice!

We headed back to ours to watch the football and have dessert. Adrian brought Risk with him so about 530 we started playing.

Before starting we had a straw poll “World Conquest or missions?” Adrian didn’t care, I said “Missions” though admited I didn’t care, Rosy said “Missions” and Emma said “Conquest”. We played “Conquest”

It lasted for 5 hours and 20 minutes.

Rosy was out within the first hour and what ensued was something of a stand off between me (N.America) Adrian (S.America, Africa) Emma (Most of Asia, Australia) until I finally instigated a bit battle between Adrian and myself, leaving Emma to pick up the pieces and win.

watched Gladiator and some footie, finished off fridays wine and went to bed.

that’s it!