Men's 5th XI vs Witham 3

Match Report

Saffron Walden Men’s 5s vs Witham 3s

Result: Saffron Walden 2–0 Witham

The second half of the hockey season began with some cast-iron, robust bids for Dick of the Day before the first touch of a hockey ball.

Alex Shutes set an early benchmark by announcing, pre-pushback, that he’d just completed his first ever 45-minute spin class and was mildly concerned it might impede his ability to play. This prediction proved impressively prescient, as Shutesy was unable to start the second half due to simultaneous quad spasms in both legs. A strong, textbook DOTD entry.

Despite this solid gold effort, Shutesy was pipped to the title by Ollie Puxley, who once again didn’t quite manage to arrive before pushback, explaining on arrival that he’d forgotten his stick and therefore had to drive himself to the game. This caused widespread confusion, as many present believed him to be under 17. Consensus was reached that it was probably wisest not to check.

Strangely, in the Dick of the Day voting, Mike Gaughan pushed Puxley very close despite having done nothing especially comedically awful. His sole crime was receiving a green card, which was apparently viewed by the rest of the team as a grievous moral failing.

One brief moment of concern for Mike arose after George took a direct blow to the crown jewels. All eyes turned to Mike, expecting the obligatory “Well, it’s a big, easy target,” but the line never came. Mike looked fine, but something was clearly wrong.

Failing entirely to register in the DOTD voting was Paul Birch’s diving back-stick interception of a ball that the opposition were sportingly returning to Walden following an umpiring decision they themselves believed had gone the wrong way. Birch styled it out regardless, before shortly afterwards succumbing to one of his trademark sniper-versus-calf incidents.

The Man of the Match award was a three-horse race.

The Murdoch brothers were a force throughout, with Lockie intercepting everything in sight, harrying Witham relentlessly and winning 50–50s all over the pitch. Had he managed, just once, to thread the ball through the left-foot space of the Witham left back, it would have been an all-time performance.

Ultimately, however, the vote came down to the two goal scorers: Campbell Murdoch and Charlie Birch.

Campbell showed real bustle and power down the right and capped it with a glorious goal, running along the baseline into the D, continuing until it became clear he could simply run the ball into the goal, and then producing an extravagant dive purely for theatrical value. The voters were swayed by the swagger, and Campbell just edged Charlie, whose earlier goal was finished in adept but less dramatic fashion.

Overall, not the finest performance by the 5s. A bit lacklustre. The off-ball running was limited, first touches rebounded roughly 20 metres, ball pace was slow, and the shape was, at times, flaccid. For those over the age of 45, you might have thought it would have become apparent over the last 35 years that moving the ball from one 23 to the other with a single pass is rare. The 5s, however, remain committed to the experiment. Likely Christmas rust, and certainly nothing that won’t be solved. We’ll be back at the races next week.

Man of the Match: Campbell Murdoch

Dick of the Day: Ollie Puxley