Men H 3-1 HKCC C - "Criminal Hockey"

 HKFC H's 3 - 1 HKCC C, 9 Jan 2010 : "Criminal hockey" 

We racked up more crucial points on the board after a difficult win against

a physically tough HKCC C team.

We went one down early on against the run of play to ostensibly a soft goal

that came about through an unforced error committed by nobody.  It was more

a failure, collectively, to deal with the situation.  There was still a lack

of urgency in the remainder of the half and we only went into the break on

level terms after Tim Loh's goal of the season candidate before the stroke

of half-time.  After a neat interchange with Andy Dale, Tim Loh found

himself on the left hand touchline with the ball running away from him, a

defender coming across and impossible angles for any type of meaningful shot

or centre.  In the blink of an eye, Tim dummied the defender, dragged the

ball back and flicked a shot that whistled straight into the far corner.

We ground the opposition down in the second half and finally made sure of

the points after Chris's go-ahead goal, tucking in a sweet effort into the

corner after good work from Mark Kan on the right wing.  The final goal came

in the dying minutes when we had four guys bearing down on the goalie with

no defenders in sight.  "It was criminal", exclaimed one of the strikers,

for the ball carrier to shoot when three of his teammates were queueing up

unmarked in the centre.  The rebound off the goalie's pads luckily fell into

David Lloyd's path, who had the easiest of tasks of putting the ball into an

empty net.

There was the usual weirdness in the game.  Cyrus Law did a great impression

of Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance when leaving a loose ball to run out

for a sixteen halfway through his kicking motion.  The result was a hop,

skip and a somersault that had the bench in hysterics.  Speaking of letting

the ball run for a sixteen, we had Alan Powrie casually letting the ball run

to their lone striker when he obviously did not get a call that the striker

was lurking behind him.  Hearts were in mouths.  

Lloydy typically wrapped an arm around the back of a defender's neck.  The

physicality of the fixture didn't end there.  David Smyth's H Team debut was

marked by him hitting the deck about four times, obviously wanting to test

the robustness of his IT band.  An indication of the quality of his debut

was when the opposition, for the first time ever, asked to check our player

cards mid-game - for the player registered with shirt No.4.

Cheers,

Louman