LEAGUE HOCKEY
PLASHET HOCKEY CLUB

Plashet Vs Redbridge & Ilford 2

7 - 0

As we move from winter to spring a new optimism has borne its roots within the the plashet camp. The returning blossom of free speech fairness and equality returns to add colour and happiness superceeding the dark winter days of forced rule and non unity. The new found flourish began during the warm up with the predictably unpredictable East MC’s non-presence being remembered through a series of rather unflattering reminiscent stories about the aforementioned. The official party line is that he is in America helping his sister settle in with her new family. After more team bonding during the stretches a game of chase with match intensity ensued, Indie P having a great chase of Himmat Sio, passers-by could have been mistaken into believing that 'butter wouldn't melt' Himmat had said something about Indie P's girl given the intensity (say my name whats my name?) of the chase.

So to the game, with Redbridge turning up featuring a number of former and future stars and Plashet with their army of fans a hot contest looked on course. As the battle commenced Plashets usual pattern of play developed. Mintu (Desi Vibes) picks up the ball, passes it to Indie P (Bump N Grind) who proceeds to dribble the ball into 4 players gets tackled and the whole team runs back cursing him. This continued to happen until Indie P brought on the explosive Saleem in place of himself, with addition of late arrival Sukh to the fray Plashet won a series of short corners, where the usual of habit of wasting goal scoring chances re-emerged. Fortunately after the 4th attempt the ball was switched right to be converted by some unknown good looking guy. 1-0 and enter Indie P(Inside the party) who actually saw the value of passing to his team-mates from the side. Unfortunately he had passed on his virus to the young (not so saintly) Sant who decided not to pass to anybody except the Redbridge players, fortunately for him the Redbridge players in succession all got confused by his generosity and continued to pass the ball back to him and somehow he managed to bundle the ball across half the pitch to set up Sanj who smashed home the ball.

At 2-0 Plashet actually began to move the ball and a series of chances falling to Himmat, Vee, Saleem and Sant were well defended by the Redbridge defence with the cross bar coming to their defence when all other defensive lines had been penetrated. One move of note involving 5 different players and great team movement resulting in Himmat Sio picking the ball up in space inside the D only to shoot agonising into the side netting. The half time team talk was a more relaxed affair, a return to smiles and banter, democracy is definitely a game of numbers.

The second half started in the same way as the first, a series of plashet chances, a series of passes by Mintu to Indie P a series of tackles on over exuberant players and a lack of goals. It must be noted however that the rearguard performed admirably well, unsung heroes Jazz and Parveen often go un-noticed for their endeavour and hard work but performed with such high standards that it enabled the Plashet goalkeeper Rafi to have enough confidence in his defence to lay down for long spells of the game. Plashet did however manage to go 3 up when Himmat Sio made the most of a misdirectioned push out by Sandeep and Sanj put away his second of the game to make it 4-0.

The 5th goal of the game deserves its own paragraph. The man so often on the fringes of games this season came to the party in a big way. Like an eagle swooping for its prey, Super Vee latched on a loose ball that had been fired into the area and deflected into his path, reacting first, Vee seized his moment with aplomb and with a clinical touch finished from 2 inches out to register his first goal in plashet colours. The roar from the crowd was deafening, and Vee was subsequently congratulated by all his team-mates for his moment of magic.

With the comfort of a five goal cushion Plashet rung the changes, Parveen was moved to centre forward where he continued to suffer from the curse of the plashet centre forward by loosing the ball nine times out of ten, missing open goals getting abused by his own team and then substituted. Sandeep (Wheres your guti at?) then decided that being moved from right back to right half meant play centre forward, and continued to suffer the same curse loosing the ball everytime because he ran into 4 players thinking the direct route is always the quickest. Thankfully Wacko Jacko wasn’t on hand to tell him he was man of the match and his teammates subsequently let him know their feelings about his best position.

With ten minutes to play Manmohan Singh intered the fray, the Godfather of Plashet hockey club. His impact was immediate a goal resulted as Himmat latched onto a ball fired into the D to deflect past the impressive Redbridge Keeper. As the final whistle approached there was still time for Saleem to try a zero angle shot and for Vee to forget to run onto a killer return through ball from Jazz as he was too busy admiring his own pass. The biggest shock of the day was saved for the last minutes of the game, Indie P picked up the ball with one man to beat and to the surprise of all including the Redbridge team he passed the ball to a screaming superstar who rounded the keeper and finished from an acute angle to finish the rout and this match report.

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