Mens H 5 - 2 Police B...Pouring rain does little to dampen H Team fire power!

HKFC H's 5 v 2 Police B - match report

This was a pleasing routine 5 – 2 win against a Police side that had good individual players, but lacked organisation.  You can only beat what’s put in front of you and the Police were poor at the back.

At the scheduled pushback time of 6:50pm, there were some youthful Valley players training in the sudden downpour of rain.  A calm and calculated Chappie asked the Valley coach to slowly clear away the bibs and training cones, whilst we waited for reinforcements for our 8-man lineup.

Q Burrows and then Guy Higgins turned up to allow us to start with 10-men.  Mark Kan and Randall Arthur followed allowing us to move “Goal Machine” Robbie Collins into the striker’s role for the first time.

The early exchanges were cagey.  Robbie made some good progress attacking down the right before Mark’s inclusion, whilst Martin Lane mopped up a couple of dangerous opposition attacks.  With a full eleven, we broke through.  Q, slotting comfortably in his new role on the left wing, baffled the opposition with his clever running all game.  Together with Andy Dale, they created an opening for Guy at the top of the D who made no mistake.

Our team settled down and capitalised on the Police’s muppet left back that had no answer to Mark’s wingplay.  A free-hit on the dashed line was cleverly (!?) played all the way to Nick Hunsworth at centre back.  Two passes and a split second later, Mark was crossing to Robbie into the D who calmly slotted home his first of a brace.

Five minutes into the second half, Andy and Guy, our new short corner double-act (with a 66% strike-rate), combined for our new “money” shot and a third goal.  This was quickly followed by another goal that was conjured through some fantastic off-the ball running.  Guy and Mark zigzagged their way through, whilst Q pulled defenders away leaving Robbie clean through with only the goalie to beat.  The goalie dived at Robbie’s feet, so Robbie promptly flicked the ball over him cool as you like.

At 4-0 up, we took a well deserved 15-minute holiday during this second game in 3 days.  We allowed the Police to pull a couple back, but time was running out for them.  One of the Police kids could not contain his disappointment at missing from a yard out and yelled out the strangest swear word Happy Valley has ever heard to the amusement of both sets of players and the benches.  To avoid a booking, the expletive changed midstream to something that sounded like “flunky”.

We stepped through the gears one last time in the final few minutes.  Nev Watkins proceeded to walk a bizarrely uncontested dashed line free hit to the edge of the D and said “thank you very much” to the invitation to score our fifth.

These last two wins were an extremely pleasing way to end 2009.  I thank everybody that worked so hard in what was the wettest game in years last night; I thank each and every squad member for their sacrifice over the past calendar year in the face of disapproving wives, kids and girlfriends that demand so much of our time and I wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.