A dry day – yes a dry day saw us travel to Ely.
Our quick starts have been a recent positive for us and proved again, when a D scramble saw John pop the ball to me, and somehow I managed to squeeze it under the keeper from a yard out.
A short came to nothing and so the next short Paul (injecting) decided to shake it up by dribbling the ball to about 2 feet in front of him, luckily Ethan was switched on, grabbed the ball took it out then played a 1-2 with Shaun and buried in to score his first senior goal.
With Tom and Stu P driving out of defence we were on the front foot which came to fruition with a few minutes to go until half time as Shaun scored from a rebound off the keepers pads.
After the break, and maybe a bit of complacency saw us exposed on the break, a good save from Baz but unfortunately we didn’t learn and the same happened again and this time there was nothing Baz could do and Ely scored. Our response was immediate and saw the evergreen Paul drive to the baseline and cut it back for me on the spot to slot home.
Seb was having a tricky day with their fast and skilful new player but was excellent not only holding his own but winning the overall battle. Again, a break by Ely resultant from us stepping to far up and losing the tackle brought out another save from Baz. Bruno then went on one of his trademark mazy runs and found Shaun in front of goal who calming place the ball into the top corner. Shaun then spurned a chance to get his hattrick.
A short saw me score from the top of the D, yes not from 1 or 2 yards as normal, to my surprise and realisation that that was my hattrick and it was my round….now I know why Shaun spurned his chance.
Ed then scored to made it a magnificent 7 for the team and for him 2 goals in 2 starts for the 4s. This time Shaun providing the assist.
Our unbeaten run continues with only 3 games left of the season, with a double header next weekend.
So the curse of the captains hattrick, a round at the bar, luckily most were under 16 or drivers so cokes all round!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Player of the Match – Ethan – A great goal for his first senior goal and a constant threat with the ball.

D0D – Shaun – for missing a open goal to avoid scoring his hattrick and for leaving his stick pitch side at the end of the game…..not like it’s not neon pink!

Champagne moment – Selfishly me! The reason I inject or stop on short corners is because I can’t hit, 9 times out of 10 it’s an air shot, the other 1 is normally endangering the side lines, so no one was more surprised than me when having dragged the stop too far to the right I had no option to take the hit myself, and somehow buried it in the bottom corner. Even the opposition in the bar later said the look of surprise on my face was hilarious…I think that look was more a realisation that it was for my hattrick and therefore was my round!!

Captain’s mention – Despite the goals, actually want to highlight our left and right backs. Youngsters often think I don’t want to play defence (most just want to be forwards it where the action is) yet we have 2 great young defenders, whose performance today was rock solid and also very contrasting. Tom constantly was stepping into the tackle stealing the ball and driving down the left with attacking intent and being the catalyst of everything good going down our left side, whereas Seb had to deal with their trickiest (and very fast) player and won that battle about 80% of the time, constantly either getting the ball off him, holding up ply enough for the rest of us to get back or getting past him with ball to start an attack down the right..