Attendees: DC 1, JH 2 (MOM), RH, TK, AW, Guido

Result: Nannas 4 plays Kent Brockman 10

Well, the Nannas are still having trouble putting a full team on the court. At the start of the week, we were a good seven brave Nannas willing to do battle. But by Thursday, first Tao went down (with flu), Tommy became unavailable because of
his beloved, and Cocky was 50/50 because of his lower leg.

So we brought in some cover in the form of Guido, our Brazilian super sub, who was only too keen to fill in for us.

Our opposition didn’t care for our troubled team line up. In the first five minutes of the game they must have put four passed us in quick succession. It has to be said that this is becoming all too familiar for the Nannas, mainly because we are continually coming up against some very quick, very skilful and very young opponents.

At this point I saw another familiar sight for the Nannas; the look of resignation. Yes, the Nannas over the last year or so have had to put up with being a bit outgunned and playing in the knowledge that we will be on the end of another loss. And tonight it looked like it was going to be a slaughter.

I do think this has had an effect on us, and has affected our form.

And so it was on this night, they put those first four passed us, our heads dropped and we had nothing to look forward to except another massacre. But then something happened. Guido came on, with his first two touches he went round two of their players and then buried his shot in the bottom left corner.

The fightback had begun. Guido was playing link man in the middle (apart from having a lot of pings himself) and laid on the second goal for me. Guido had the ball about ten out with his back to goal. I went passed him on his left and slid the ball to me. The angle was acute but I didn’t have anyone in the middle to pass to so I just tried to bang it into the top of the net. Well, the keeper just seemed to fade as the ball went above him and bulged the top of the goal.

We got two more goals, Guido one and me one too. I don’t remember Guido’s but mine was another good one too. I got the ball in mid court, went passed one of their players and the toe poke slid in at the far post.

There were a couple of moments when I was almost out on my feet but we ran and ran and competed and competed and won the second half two, one. Looking forward to the next game. We just need to start a little better.