Witham (4) – 0 Brentwood Academy – 2

The Academy secured a much-needed victory against the struggling Witham 4’s. I’m always nervous when before a match chatter goes around as to how the opposition are struggling or are lowly in the league table – can lead to complacency. As the more observant among you will see we did get the win, but it was a strange old match.

The match started as it was clearly destined to continue, in an odd manner. Witham pushback, work the ball to their right back, as happens regularly, Max does the right thing in applying pressure, ok maybe he is approaching from ‘the wrong side’ but this isn’t exactly an unheard-of event on the hockey pitch and isn’t in and of itself illegal or dangerous if you are aware of what you are doing. The right back (number 55) seemed to think it was worthy of literally stopping the game. So, then we have confusion, delay, umpires involved before the whole thing can restart. The number 55 looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else then on a hockey pitch, something I did note to him later in the second half. He was so grumpy it was as if a storm of discontent had settled within him, manifesting in a perpetual scowl and a demeanour that repelled even the most optimistic attempts at conversation. His grumpiness was not just a fleeting mood but a seemingly integral part of his being, transforming his countenance into a living embodiment of gloom and irritation. You get the idea.

The fact of the matter is we made heavy weather of this win. We were clearly the fitter side, we had better movement and a shape that was well suited to taking on our opponents, but we never got out of second gear. Now at times we were presented with an opposition that were actually playing walking hockey and I think we just found that tough to match up against. It’s been so far removed from what we had been playing against and training for. The opposition simply didn’t react in expected ways. It was a spread throughout their side. Even when they did get a couple of short corners, we were able to charge them down from either the 1 or 2 runner.

Patience was what we clearly lacked. We got our first goal after 27 minutes. But even this came around in slightly strange circumstances. A Witham player twisted his knee and took a few minutes to get to his feet. In that time, we had a bit of a debrief led by coach Anderson calling for passing and patience. From the long corner that followed I played it to Chris, moved and received back, who then moved into space for me to pass back to by the baseline right of the goal, he then fed it into Rob Sanders who picked up assist number one by playing it across goal for Jake Sanders to knock in. Very simple pass and move hockey with attacking players located in the right position. I think we all thought more would follow. But it didn’t. Similar messages at halftime. Only one up and that’s not enough in these conditions.

Funnily enough the second goal, whilst different in being scored followed the same pattern. Rob Sanders getting his second assist but this time Ian Anderson, up from left back, applied the finishing touches with a flick into the net from a tight angle on the left.

The game played out and really the calls in the Academy were for us to hold the clean sheet. Whilst if Witham had of scored there would have been nervousness, aka squeaky bum time, I think we were confident that we were the better side. Boothie had to make one save from a good breakaway effort but overall, we retained a good level of control. The most note worthy incident coming from captain Minor who put in one of the finest slashing stick tackles I’ve every witnessed. I swear Monty Python popped up and sang the lumberjack song in celebration of the event.

A good win and a decent size contingent back at there club that outnumbered the home side. We won off the pitch as well as on it.

Team: Richard Boothe, Fraser McLauchlan, Simon Roofe, Ian Anderson, Sam Anderson, James McKay, Gary MacDonnell, Chris Minor, Dilshan Gandhi, Jake Sanders, Rob Sanders, Doug Muncey, Max Bakal.

Man of the Match: Max Bakal. Lot of spread of votes but Max picks it up as he had his best adult game yet. He’s had a hard few weeks but had more space to operate in and generally made good decisions in terms of positioning and using the ball.