Quiz night

After being thoroughly soaked in torrential rain during our 1-1 draw, yesterday evening I attended my first quiz night for some years at the clubhouse.  After stocking up on drinks and recapping the day's results (a usual mix of wins, draws and losses), the 9 or 10 teams settled down to await the first questions.  As is usual, I had no idea what some of the questions even meant, although others seemed trivially easy.  The secret of any winning team is that what is double-dutch to one member is clear as day to someone else and most of your angles are covered.  The winners had obviously got more angles covered than us, although we were only a couple of points behind at the final count.  Most impressive was Dave remembering not just the required two but all six of the names of the Thundercats, who I had never even heard of.  My 'O'-Level Latin from 30 years previously did come in handy at one point to get the Latin letter for 500.  Some excellent debates were had about some of the answers in the team, with blame enthusiastically apportioned when the correct answers were read out to groans.  An entertaining evening with our President's Numero Unos team winning (incidentally our President is also the organiser's Dad).  Thanks to Rowie for the questions, fish and chips, organisation, prizes and bar-duty.  The only thing she delegated was the question-reading to Davey, sitting on his stool by the bar recovering after being run ragged earlier (as I hear) by a 13 year-old, who did a fine job, barring the odd mispronunciation.

And so we'll now have to wait until next year for our next club quiz, where having learnt the names of the Thundercats, the question will instead be to remember the names of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or some other forgotten or obscure cartoon army.  Looks like I may just need to be in a team with Dave again.

Chow down at 4pm

Today I was reminded of how it used to be by my old colleague-in-arms Neil versus how it is now.  When I first started playing adult hockey at 13 for Letchworth (and I was the smallest boy in my year), we all started outside the clubhouse on the grass pitches (weather permitting) at 2.15.  At 4pm, matches finished, we washed the mud off in the showers, and convened in the clubhouse for teas and a beer, or in my case a weak lemonade shandy.  At 4.30pm, the clubhouse would have Home and Away sides from 3 Men's and a couple of Ladies matches in it.  Sometime around 7pm, our away teams would arrive, and the clubhouse remained heaving until at least 9pm, usually later.

Sadly, those days are no longer with us, as with astro pitches being in use throughout the day, we rarely have more than two matches worth of teams in the clubhouse at Chalfont Park at any one time, and with the pitches no longer being by the clubhouse, we often only get half-hearted attendance back at the clubhouse.  I think this is a huge shame, as for me, win or lose, the social element is a key part of Hockey, and even if sometimes a little bit inconvenient, I would always encourage players (and supporters) to go back to the clubhouse.

Saturday was a rare example, despite the late 4.30pm start time, of both my team and the opposition returning to our clubhouse for teas, and finding a few of the Vintagers still there drinking some Rebellion (which I can thoroughly recommend).  Of course, it had taken our opposition a little while to find the clubhouse, as they had failed to follow me down Rickmansworth Lane and had taken a sat-nav route via Denham.  When they eventually arrived, baked potatoes and topping, tea and Rebellion were consumed.  My son and I partook, even though we were going out for Moules Frites within the hour (and I still had room for a pudding).

A clubhouse by an astro is still the ideal, and I was reminded of this when umpiring the 4ths morning match in Newbury, where a new clubhouse has just been built next to an existing astro, and everyone from both sides stayed for tea.  And of course, this is what our astro project is all about, and why we are seeking the funding pledges and all the hard work is being done by many people to help us get there.  I look back fondly on the 4pm chow down, though not the muddy pitches, but if we keep pushing our vision, we can have both astros and a co-located clubhouse and the best of both worlds.

One win is all it takes

After our huge loss a couple of weeks ago, last week we were looking forward to playing a team at a similar level to us.  It was a generally even game, but we lost 3-0 in the end as the opposition centre-forward, normally in a much higher team but returning from injury, scored a hatrick in 10 minutes.  Yesterday we faced a team that had convincingly beaten us 7-0 earlier in the season, so we were philosophical about our chances.  At half-time it was still 0-0, but then it had been the previous week and we had lost.  The second half started and after 15 minutes we won a short corner and to our delight, the ball was scrambled in by Steven and we were ahead.  5 minutes later, and Steven was put through to go one-on-one with the keeper and calmly scored the second.  I couldn't quite believe it.  Finally the opposition got into gear and started to apply the pressure.  Our defence was becoming a bit untidy and with 10 minutes to go, they bundled one in (I think actually it barely made it over the line).  The pressure continued to mount, with several last minute clearances by Tom, but the minutes were ticking away as we grimly held on, and suddenly the final whistle went.  The backslapping, excitement and grins on everyone's faces, including our very surprised spectators, were priceless.  Our web site lists wins in green and losses in red, and this season, with many younger players new to adult hockey, we've been mostly in the red, but all those losses were forgotten with our unexpected win.  In my last post I suggested that hope springs eternal, but what a great feeling is hope fulfilled.