Today’s report brings you the excitement from two games!! This is not because I am lazy and haven’t updated the site, more to do with actually having some work to do….. NAAAAATTT

Oct. 24th Stats

The first game saw us fall to a 16-12 defeat to Watford 2’s. It also saw the exciting return of Dan “El Ginge” Bedford. I will let you decide how exciting that return actually was… Dan contributed 6 goals to our total and was swiftly followed by Oggy with 4. Nick and Phil have struggled recently on the goal scoring front, only picking up one each in this game.

Against Watford, the Man of the Match went to Oggy for his hard work and battling in the pit. It was decided Dan couldn’t have it because he turned up drunk – classic scot… Having said that, Dan was awarded Moment of the Match for bouncing a shot off Oggy’s head on its way into the goal. Who doesn’t like a trick shot? Finally, Fluffer went to Nick “I Love Wood” Shute who began a deep and passionate love affair with the woodwork.

The second game disappointingly saw us lose again, but this time 13-10 to Beckenham 2’s. Having led 5-0 after the first quarter, we massively let ourselves down. Fitness was a massive factor in this game and we just couldn’t keep up the intensity for 4 quarters. This was a very winnable game, and it is only if we train that we are going to start turning the L’s into W’s.

Man of the Match went to Tim “Bicep Canon” Young for his 2 goal haul as well as a few assists – despite trying very hard to miss on his first goal… Moment of the Match went to Tadija “waggle hands” Popovic for his 2 attempts at scoring before getting the all important goal on the match sheet (and avoiding that maddy). Unfortunately, Fluffer also went to Tadija as he gave away a penalty by jumping in the pool whilst the game was in play. Schoolboy!!

That being said, Fluffer was a close run thing!! Finch nearly won it for not telling the oppo we started at 9… and some of our passing left a little to be desired!! Tom “Shouty” Burridge also gets a shout out for his rubbish attempt at being angry at the referees.

In the stats chart, Nick continues to leads the goals, but Oggy has now over taken Phil, moving into 2nd. It seems everyone has taken on the challenge of knocking me out of 4th place, with Dan, Tim and Burridge all close behind. We now have a new leader in the Catas Trophy, as John “Punchy” Holah moves into top spot with a huge 3 major against Beckenham. It really is hotting up at the top!!

Next week is training – make sure you all attend. Our fitness is awful – almost as bad as our passing and shooting!! A big turn out will let us get some decent work in before the Thameside league starts in a few weeks!! Until then…

Volo ego egam aptus!! (Forza Narwhali!!)

Thursday 8th October saw us playing Reading in the “London” League… The enjoyable trek from Paddington or up the M4 allows me to present you with this weeks stats report:

Oct 9th Stats

Following a slow start (3-1) in the 1st quarter, we battled back, winning the 2nd 5-2. In the 4th, with the scores tied at 8-8, we were feeling confident of being able to win the game. Unfortunately our fitness once again let us down – with us struggling to form any meaningful attack and too often over-crowding the pit. With a few decisions not going our way, we ultimately lost 11-9. Despite this, our performance in the 2nd and 3rd quarters was very good – we just need to make sure we can maintain that performance level for the full game!!

Man of the Match this week was hotly contested between Andy “Pit Fighter” Ogg and Phil “Pre-Match Poo” Richards – with Oggy narrowly edging it by one vote. The competition for MoM matches their fight for 2nd and 3rd place in the goal scoring stats – a close battle and personal rivalry!! I think the best way to resolve this is a see-off at the next social…

The game also saw the long awaited return of Tom “Hey fatty bum bum” Bummage who has been doing manual labour on an army base in Surrey…. Despite showing up and providing 3 fans and his customary one goal and one major, Mr. Bummage was awarded this weeks fluffer. Most of the votes were due to his lack of fitness and solid 20 seconds of watching Oggy drown – but also because his paunch has got bigger. I voted him man of the match for taking the F-anter (fat banter) away from me for a change!!

There was no moment of the match as we all seem to be quite disappointed with the result… There was one vote for Nick’s poo on the Paddington train, and another for Phil’s goal at the end of the game – but the overwhelming vote was for Mr. A N Other. To be honest I’m surprised I didnt get more votes for winning TWO swim offs!!

In the stats chart everything seems to look very similar. Nick is away at the top, with Phil now opening up a 5 goal advantage on Mr. Ogg. John closes the gap for the Catas Trophy following my Maddy last night whilst Finchy continues to earn the reputation for the most aggressive goal keeper in the league. In other news, Chris Mann needs one goal to push the Sheikh into the danger zone, and time is running out to stop me finishing in the top 4… if I am still there by the end of the year, all those below me will be doing a pint at the Christmas party…

Forza Narwhali!!

Monday 28th September saw a ragged 8 travel to Putney to play Avondale II’s. We normally have fairly close games with Avondale, but Monday was not the case, our first quarter performance echoing that against Enfield, shipping 5 goals and scoring none. Final score was a 16-5 defeat.

Oct 1st Stats

We were not helped by some interesting refereeing and some even more interesting table work, but to complain about this would be to lose focus on the fact that poor passing, poor shooting and a lack of fitness was our ultimate downfall. The majority of the Avondale goals came from a poor shot, that then resulted in an Avondale counter. This is not including the times when Matt “wayward” Finch forgot to pass to his own team and/or forgot to save the ball…

For those reasons, Matt has been unanimously voted Fluffer of the week (even by himself). The coup de grace being a pass straight to the opposition whilst horribly far away from the goal, resulting in conceding from about 15m out…

Man of the Match went to Phil for his 3 goal haul. He is now pulling away from Andy with 9 goals in 3 games since returning from his finger injury. On quite the run of form!! Honourable mention goes to Chris Mann for picking up another goal, and being the main threat from our Man-up situations.

And on that note – Moment of the match goes to Chris Mann for finishing off a man-up attack where we actually passed the ball around nicely for a good 20 seconds before Mr. Mann cooly finished with a shot into the far corner!!

Points of note in the stats this week… Mr Ogg picked up his first Maddy of the season – we are all very disappointed in his lack of effort. Of our “regular” players, Mr. Shute is the only player not to disappear this season. Chris Mann’s run of goal scoring leaves him one goal away from pushing Abu bin Harwood into the red zone. Phil is closing in on 50 goals for the season, whilst I am the first to reach 30 majors for the year. It seems Brutal Holah may be the only person to catch me as we head into the final 3 months of the year!!

Until Next time!!

Forza Narwhali!!!