Team | Mens 1 |
Opponent | City of Bath 1 |
Date | February 1, 2025 |
Result | Win |
Score | 2 – 1 |
This was it.
The most anticipated game in Mens 1s recent history.
LHC M1 Vs City of Bath (COB)
The two clear title contenders, head to head. COB were a point behind but with a game in hand.
As everyone knows, there’s only one promoted from West Men’s Division 2 East.
Everything hung in the balance. It was crunch time.
In perfect conditions, the game exploded into action.
Luke was immediately dangerous down the left flank. Beating his man with ease before a perfectly weighted ball to release Bloggy charging into the D. The defender didn’t react well to a delicate bit of 3D skill and shoulder charged – earning himself an early green card and a short corner for the Lions.
One from the training ground, back to injector Kedgey in acres of space. The goalie tracked across well to save – this time.
Immediately after, Luke had beaten his man, again. He released Bloggy in the D (again). More 3D culminated in an attempted lob of the 6’5″ keeper. Embarrassment was avoided as Luke latched onto the rebound, threading it through to Sam VV on the back-post. A tidy finish struck the right side of the backboard.
COB showed why they are title contenders: reacting with a strong spell of possession resulting in a couple of short corners. The first was a straight strike, successfully saved by a logging Nick. The second was a nicely worked routine – setting up for a straight strike then deflecting over the logging Nick. Hats off.
1-1 and 10 minutes in.
We were in for a goal fest.
Or so we thought. The abnormally high standard of hockey forced the umpires to (correctly) penalise stick tackles and disruptive play more harshly. We had a card fest.
After weathering the storm of being down to 10 men unscathed, COB had their turn on the naughty seat.
In the 30th minute, we capitalised. A short corner. When the initial drag flick was charged down with a foot, Josh O was quickest to play the advantage. His shot struck the keepers foot but remained in the D.
Luckily, the rebound fell to the best possible player, the in-form Luke. Although in a very similar position to the earlier ‘back to the injector’ chance, he took full advantage of having the second shot – rifling a tomahawk into the top of the net. The keeper wasn’t able to track across to save that, I doubt two keepers could have.
Special mention to the umpiring for allowing the rebound. Thanks for making it very enjoyable and relatively well-mannered game.
After restoring the lead, the phrase ‘game management’ was repeated, and the avoidance of cards was heavily discussed at half time. Two minutes into the second half we were back to 10 men.
We defended as a unit, setting the press from the forwards and limiting them to half chances. Huge shift from the lads.
Josh O architected a few chances to extend our lead, but (somehow) we couldn’t convert. This included him winning the ball high in the press, combining beautifully on the baseline, then wrong-footing the keeper in no man’s land with a deflected shot.
As this trickled towards the near post, it seemed inevitable that our player (who had combined so brilliantly on the baseline just before) would be able to turn it in. However, having played most of the season in screen, he still had his defensive hat on. Despite being behind the helpless keeper, he only managed to roll it across the line of the goal. COB then cleared the danger.
At the other end, a drag-flick was just about kept out by a combination of Nick and Johnny, with Johnny somehow losing a facemask in the process. I’m happy for Nick to punch Johnny every game if that’s what it takes to win the league.
Ultimately, the rest of the game was dominated by the two keepers. Nick had a (literal) highlight’s reel worth of saves, keeping us ahead.
Despite a late (and completely needless) yellow for LHC, we battled to earn a hard fought 2-1 win.
The title is now entirely in our hands, and unequivocally ours if we win our remaining games.
A special mention to Jules H and Tom C for accepting the call up in such a big game, then for working so hard on and off the pitch. We couldn’t have got the result without them.
Big thanks to all who came out to support, our next home game is against 3rd placed Corsham at 10.15am on 15th Feb.
MOTM & Champagne Moment – Luke (by Landslide). For the second consecutive match winner on the reverse, plus the assist. Generally just being Lansdown’s answer to Lamine Yamal.
Honourable mentions to: Nick and Tom R, who managed to get some votes off Luke.
DOTD – Although multiple nominations, the clear winner was Jake. Mostly due to making a big deal about someone being late last week then being even later this week.
Match report written by Jake (thanks for doing it this week) but then very heavily embellished by me (as it is one for the history books).