Mens 1 vs Old Loughtonians 2

05 October 2024 | Matthew Rees
Mens 1 vs Old Loughtonians 2

Dairy Milk is Blue

As I heroically arrived a bit late to the Old Loughts ground, I had a little groan in seeing the colour of the Old Loughts strip, as some bright spark had decided for us to play in our royal blue away kit. Old Loughts' home shirts are "purple" and white, and the shade of "purple" is equally dark/light as the blue in our away kit. Now what's the issue and why the quotations marks I hear you pondering? Well the issue is I'm red/green colour blind deficient. And the quotation marks symbolise how I simply don't believe the colour purple exists... let me explain. Some people believe in a deity, or deities, that's fine but personally I have never seen the evidence to prove existence. Equally, I personally have never seen any evidence for the colour "purple", so I don't actually believe it exists and am therefore totally perplexed as to why we played in the same colour...

What this sartorial debacle meant was that whenever I pre-scanned before receiving the ball, I just saw 19 players in "purple"/blue and without much of a clue who I should pass to (unless there was a clear call for the ball) I thus figured I would give the scores of fans in attendance what they'd come to watch and just chuck aerials.

As it turned out chucking aerials was about the only option against an effective press, Old Loughts 2s were a team of young, fit and skilful players, but at least we have grown out of acne. This week our injury list was extensive, Tom Bunbury acted as team manager, Nick Kimberley showed the resilience of Batman and played after being forced off the pitch last week, Durbs' evening groin injury was still stiff but manageable, and Singer knocked himself out playing a non-contact sport midweek and is going through the club's return to play protocols. All this meant that Russell was on the pitch.

The first half was a battle. Old Loughts were basically on top for all of it, our attacks were few and the one shorty we earned the Sonic Boom went despairingly wide. We had a bit of a shuffle around in the formation: the duracell bunny (aka Rob Walker) was put to right back, Freddie was brought in to left back, Dom played "the singer role" at defensive centre mid, and Danny clearly has got bored in defence and being skipper he can do whatever he wants and played in the middle too. Up front next week?

Talking of the forward line it was all a bit far away from me to figure out who was playing where, but Henry was running about a lot. George was up there too, as was Mox. Todd was running the most - were you midfield though? Skills was definitely midfield.

As I said above, we were under the cosh for basically the whole half, possession stats were probably something like 90-10 in favour of Old Loughts but there was plenty of fight in us.

With 2 minutes to go Old Loughts scored from a short corner, boo.

Half time: Old Loughts 1 - 0 Harps

Dom was very nice to us defenders in the half time team talk. I figured out a new tactic which I think was clocked by Mox - if I open the bag of squashies and hold it but offer around, I have an easy way of consuming more the a fourteenth of the bag.

We aimed to have the midfield sit a little deeper, dribble (the ball) less, and see if we can make shorter sharper passes. The feel in the second was definitely a bit more even, Old Loughts definitely had the upper hand though and we needed to nick a goal. A shorty was won, the stop however was a bit bobbly and unworthy of a sonic boom, Dom goes bibble bobble with some 3d stick skills past their floundering runners and flicks the ball over the logged keeper. I really could have given him a hug.

Old Loughts 1 - 1 Harps.

What I hear you ask was I up to: well Rob Walker was in acres of space if I could chuck a cross field ball to him, I couldn't and gave it straight to the centre forward. I also failed to foul an attacker enough in order to stop him getting into the D, but the foul was enough to get a green card, but hey I needed 2 minutes rest. I also panicked and dug out a reverse stick aerial because, well, why the hell not?

Full time: 1-1 (but when Reesy was on the pitch it was OL 0 - 1 Harps !!!)

A real gutsy performance from the whole team to dig out the draw. We definitely earned the point against a team who I would expect to be fighting for promotion.

Also I've written this without mention Andy King in goal saved our bacon a number of times: Kickers, gloves it was all put to fantastic use.

Ones: Andy, Freddie, Nick, Durbs, Reesy, Rob, Skills, Dom, Danny, Russ, Mox, Todd, George, Henry.

Unused sub: Bunbury

Our Partners

East Hockey
Stevensons
England Hockey
Plough and Harrow
East Hockey
Stevensons
England Hockey
Plough and Harrow
members nameclub role
FIRST NAME *
SURNAME *
EMAIL *
PHONE
MESSAGE *
harpendenhc
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thanks for your message!

We will do our best to get back to you as soon as possible.