Man of the Match: Ben Huddlestone. Match Report: Chris Huddlestone
To clear up the obvious questions early doors, no the final score is not a typo, it wasn’t a rugby game and yes it was a sporting achievement greater than Emma Raducanu's recent win in the tennis! The summer had seen some significant rearrangements to the league structure and the M6s set out to start their season in Div 5 with a win. An injured and therefore unavailable Chairman Cormac had to ruthlessly trim his squad due to the M5s needing more players, but his expert whittling left a fine tuned mix of young legs and wise heads.
The squad were blessed with the club legends that are Malcolm Emmerson (Emmo) and Rich Baylis (Nobber) with a special guest appearance for Paul Davies (Shaggy) in goal. After the longest warm up in club history Emmo was finally ready and a stirring team talk from our supreme leader was delivered. With his very best Kevin Keegan impersonation he advised we needed to win and in order to do so we had best score more than the oppo and that he would indeed love it, love it if we did.
Broxbourne were either feeling very confident or had rather carelessly left their GK back at their clubhouse but a 10 man team wandered out to face the might of the People’s Republic of Cormac army. The tone was set early when Matt missed an open goal in the 1st minute and one minute later Dan Baylis (on his final pre Uni appearance) showed us what we will miss for the rest of the season by expertly stopping the ball with his foot after it rudely evaded his stick. He made good just 60 secs later with the opening goal and as the score line suggests more followed……… Broxbourne were no doubt delighted to see both a goal keeper and one of their 2s turn up at half time but this relief would prove to last less than 60 seconds once the 2nd half began.
Although each St Alban goal was obviously taken with great prowess and skill and it would be easier to say who didn’t score it’s probably best to let the stats do the talking:
Half time score - 13-0
Full time score - 23-0
Average minutes per goal - 3.5
Mins spent retreating to halfway to start again - 12
Mins played before 1st goal in 1st half - 2
Mins played before 1st goal in 2nd half - less than 1
Goals score without an oppo GK - 13
Goals scored with an oppo GK & ringer in midfield - 10
Number of different goal scorers - 8
Scored a hat trick or more - 3 ; Ben, Dan, Chris
Scored a double hat trick - 1 Ben
No of Nobber rollickings - quite a few
No of times Dan hit the post - more than quite a few
No of times Dan shovelled the ball directly
at the keepers pad when through 1 one 1 - more than he hit the post
No of times Dan & Chris kicked the ball - Cormac lost count….
No of runs Emmo made past the half way line - 0
No of times Shaggy touched the ball - 0
Honourable mentions must go to:
The post match chat was understandably jubilant and although the oppo had been somewhat outclassed it was also very much due the continued work rate and passing from all the team when it would have been easy to take the foot of the gas. A number of players had done well but Ben H deservedly got MoM for some great runs, positioning and passing especially when inside the D.
With DoD up next Dan was a clear and worthy winner but sadly someone had angered the Chairman and as is the case in all good democracies a free and unbiased vote followed. A closely run race between Dan B and Chris developed, with a little help from our Supreme Leader and Rich who really didn’t want to write another match report on behalf of Dan (even as a leaving present). Between them they sneaked the vote over the line in favour of their chosen candidate.
So, it’s a sad but fond farewell to Dan and we wish him all the best, our oppo GKs will breathe a sigh of relief we just hope the rumour is true that his University have strengthened their goal posts to cope with the battering he will no doubt give them!
P.S. If we are not top of the league on goal difference the Chairman will demand a recount!