After a feisty game last week at Old Sils where Dal Sokhi squared up to 20something giant. A return to a more friendly but competitive style of hockey with a home game against Stratford 5s

The game started with us in control playing some lovely hockey moving the ball around and not just head down go forward hockey!

Josh Ingram stepped up in the absence of Denzel scoring lovely strike from the top of the d to make it 1-0.

Still controlling the game a slip of concentration led to Stratford’s rather lethal striker levelling the game. A minor blip, well we thought.

Before the game I’d joked that we needed to score a goal like Lamine Yamal did in mid week. Well the team did not disappoint with Josh Ingram feeding a lovely through ball to Will Dowsett where a smashed finished or a lift over the keeper would’ve been the logical choice, but no, a reverse flick across the keeper whilst running away from goal just like Yamal did mid week gave us a 2-1 lead.

We were back on course. Continuing to dominate, Danny Noor took a quick 16, where yours truly wasn’t fully paying attention and had the ball nicked from me for Stafford to make it 2-2.

We continued to press but our 16s were becoming a problem, and that’s how their 3rd goal was scored. 3-2 down in a game we were dominating, Stratford had 3 goals from 3 shots!

Heads dropped a bit but then just before half time young Josh Ingram stepped up with his 2nd goal, 3-3 at half time.

A good team talk at half time and Stratford came out of the blocks. We weathered that early storm well, and the turning point came when the younger, shorter better Vas decided to break the pressure by running from his half, past four players, then pirouetting past a 5th, only to be stopped on the edge of the d by Stratford’s best player.

From that moment on, we took control. Aarav put us in the lead from again a well worked move, followed by Kavi scoring our 5th in a similar manner.

With 5 minutes to go I finally convinced the younger, shorter better Vas to go into attacking midfield. He reluctantly agreed and within a minute had taken control of the attack and assisted Will Dowsett for his second.

6-3 win and a lovely game.

At the hand shakes a Stratford player wanted to talk to me about three issues.

The 1st was he wanted me to talk to the the younger players about coming in from the wrong side when he was taking a slow long wind ups for hits, I scratched my head and thought “am I speaking to Robbie Gordon?”

2nd was issues with the EHS floodlights and pitch, completely agreed with him on that one.

3rd was a complaint about the 4s match report from last week where they reported that both teams compared the umpires to visually impaired celebrities. You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve told off Phil Pagani. A note to the Stratford Stalker on here, we’re on to you (Jayne Slaughter ?)

MoM went to Josh Ingram for two goals, especially his 2nd when we were frustrated and actually behind.

DoD was me for not being alert for the quick 16!