4-2W
Report by Mitch Read

Saturday the 12th of March, oh what a day. The 4s were playing away to Wayfarers, down in lovely South West London. Unfortunately, England rugby were also playing at Twickenham, which potentially could’ve played a part in a few people being fashionably late.

With 8 of us, including our keeper, which is always handy, doing one of the best virtual warmups, I’ve ever participated in, we were nearing pushback, without a single ball to use in sight. Captain Kabir, one of three who was late & was our designated ball bag man, rocked up with 10 minutes to spare, meaning we finally got to use his balls as 2 o’clock was edging ever closer.

The whistle blew from their two umpires, who I shan’t go into too much detail on, as you won’t have enough time to read it all, we began. With 9 men, in the blistering heat, playing a style Jose Mourinho would be proud of, we parked the bus in the hope to catch them on the counter attack, from our Usain Bolt like strikers.

After 15 minutes had passed, our tactic worked, with Lik picking the ball up just inside the Wanderer’s half, using Joe Kelly’s decoy run to his right, opened up a path to Kabir who was sitting just outside their D. A crash ball which found him perfectly, left him 1 on 1 with the keeper, who he calmly slotted the ball past, made it 1-0 to Southgate.

Wayfarer’s applied a little more pressure having the two man advantage, meant we had an awful lot of defending to do and Veysel having to make a few saves. However, they couldn’t hit a barn door if they tried, which was a blessing as chance after chance, they went wider and wider.

With 5 minutes to the half, our last 2 players made an appearance, the Garner brothers. 11 v 11 meant we could go back to how we have been playing and look to boost our goal difference again. Wrong, we conceded, 1-1.

Second half got swiftly underway and Southgate had Wayfarer’s pinned in their 25 for the first 10 minutes. Winning a short corner, we huddled round & tried to execute our plan. Ben BC’s initial drag flick was charged down, with the rebound falling to Kabir, who had a keeper bearing down on him, rounded him sending him to SW20, walloped the ball bottom left making it 2-1 to Southgate.

As the minutes passed, Mitch picked the ball up outside Wayfarer’s 25, spotting the run of Lik in behind, through on goal, playing a bobbled ball over two flat sticks, leaving him with the goal in his sight, powered his shot home to make it a comfortable 3-1.

Not long after, Mitch found himself down in the corner flinging a ball into the D, finding Kabir, who controlled it nicely & on the turn, pinged the ball into the onion bag, to extend the score to 4-1.

Tired legs started to kick in as every single player put in a top quality shift, Wayfarer’s managed to score a consolation goal with a minute left on the clock, obviously making it 4-2 to Southgate.

A very good team performance from every player meant we took home the 3 points, keeping us second in the table, having to play first this coming weekend.

MOTM was Kabir. DOTD, seems to be a reoccurring thing, not sure why, was Mitch, therefore this match report was written by yours truly. I hope you all enjoyed the read as much as I did playing the game. Much love x