The squad woke up to a glorious morning. The wind blowing so hard tree roots were scrambling to find more depth and the rain looked like it took pleasure in defeating the best waterproofs and wellies Gloucestershire dog walkers had to offer.
The journey to Wotton Under Edge (WUE) was delightful. A beautiful blend of rain, wind, misted screen and puddles only seen in a famous ‘The Vicar of Dibley “episode.
Spirits were high upon meeting and that wasn’t just because we were given the ladies away changing room. After a brief team talk and squad agreement to play our short passing game, we headed out to warm up.
Dropping our kit at the astro we observed that two dug outs was not enough and waterproof bags and a paddle board would have been useful. Regardless, we jogged off to the carpark to warm up. Don led from the front and showed us where the deepest puddles were – always a Team player. We warmed up in the rain, convincing each other that the temperature was better than earlier in the week and other total crap chat. We returned to the astro soaked and fatigued from the weight of soaked kit. Our bags and change of clothes now soaked too. Beautiful!
Collecting our kit and making our way to the dug outs we noticed four scaffolding poles with small lanterns illuminating the pitch and two guys in yellow. The driving rain and the winter darkness set an idyllic Saturday afternoon that screamed ‘should have gone to spec savers’.
Our warmup went well, but we were a little unsettled for the first 5-10mins. Despite our less-than-ideal start we settled into our game and started to find opportunities up front and our passing game across the back and midfield gained in confidence. WUE kept looking for the straight pass through the middle. We kept having to reset our defence, press and mindset to counter WUE’s game plan. All credit to the squad, everyone took ownership and kept working for each other. We kept evolving our individual games and working off the ball to play our game. WUE couldn’t capitalise on their breaks.
WUE couldn’t live with our (on loan) striker – Westie or Richard West as he’s known to his friends – despite retuning from injury WUE thought their best option for defence was a ‘smack in the face” for Westie
Adam put in a goal saving flat stick tackle in the second half only to be rewarded with a short corner. I did say earlier that the light was bad, apparently two guys in yellow were on the pitch and the floodlights had Amazon basic batteries in them.
The squad put in a solid effort and were deservedly rewarded with a 5 – 1 victory. Small beer compared to the ladies away changing room showers. Wim Hof had prepared the showers especially for us.
Apparently, we are now top of the league……are we sure this is what we want?!