Our intrepid 7.5 were tasked with venturing into the wastelands of Mordor, to seek out the legendary Mt Doom leisure centre and do battle with the Orkish hordes of Sutton and Cheam. Our spirits were initially buoyed by the absence of Gimli son of Weeble due to a business trip to the Iron Hills. However our hearts soon dropped when we spotted our arch nemesis, Alex “Balrog” Lenkei, who had taken a break from holistically healing himself to inflict his own very special brand of refereeing despair upon us…
Initial omens were not good. Despite specifically asking for instruction on how to get to Mt Doom, re-known lover of wood, Phil ‘Legolas’ Richards, turned up at a different lava spewing mountain, primarily it would seem to have a poo in their disabled toilets…. The rest of our intrepid bunch soon realised that Legolas had done us a massive favour and taken one for the team, by taking the Fluffer award before we’d started allowed the rest of us to play with a gleeful abandon, without any risk of the dreaded Fluffer award.
Our journey did not start well, and we were two down in the first couple of minutes, playing a tight drop against the Uruk – Hai leader, ex GB Chris Evans, we unfortunately left lots of space on the top of the ark which the orcs took advantage of. Dan “Pippin” Bedford kept us in it with a quick fire goal from the pit before a quick one / two between Tony “Frodo” Popovic and John “Boromir” Holah released Boromir for a one on one with the Orcish keeper. Boromir duly beat the keeper much to the amazement of everyone in the pool, including himself. 4 – 2 down at the end of the first half we still had lots do….
Two quick fire goals from Nick “Merry” Shute at the beginning of the second quarter brought us right back into the game. A penalty save by Matt “Gandalf” Finch was followed by another Pippin goal and a speculative backhander from Rob “Aragorn” Loveless, giving us a two goal lead. Alas at this stage Frodo was struck down with cramp and our emergency reserve, Zach “Samwise” Finch had a much earlier introduction than originally anticipated. Two conceded goals at the end of the quarter brought the game neck and neck at the end of the half (8 – 8)
We began to take control of the game in the third quarter, our man down defence was strong and we were successfully marking Chris Evans out of the game. Boromir scored a screamer from 9m out and Merry got a tap in from 2m out. Two up going into the final quarter (11-9).
The final quarter was a frantic affair. Frodo was still suffering from cramp so Samwise started the quarter and dutifully took an arrow for his old man, getting himself ejected after I’d made the rather rash decision to clatter their pitman. Our man down defence held firm once more. A wobble during the middle of the quarter saw the Orcs come within one before Frodo, having re-found his inner strength, nonchalantly bounced a shot into the top corner to ensure us of the win. The game ended with the some Portuguese policemen desperately searching for Gimli and a hard fought 14-12 win for our heroic 7.5….
Man of the Match: John “Boromir” Holah for a hat-trick of goals and two exclusions
Moment: Boromir’s attempt at a push shot which ended up being palmed into his own net by the opposition keeper
Fluffer: despite us all thinking that this would be unanimous, Boromir’s wife got a vote from Boromir for locking him out of the house and turning her phone off thereby forcing him to sleep in the car, with hindsight I probably shouldn’t have texted her and told her that John’s ‘strong’ display that evening made him favourite to retain the Catas Trophy, ooops! Floater obviously still takes it though for his ‘roadtrip’.
This weeks Maddy Club:
