Bowdon Killer Bee's 1- Goldborne 2

Crimbo's over and the infamous Killer Bees are back in action ! There's no change to Plan A - which means we're out to demolish the opposition, both on the pitch (playing champagne hockey) and, in the bar....drinking (ahhhhhhh!). Anyway, Goldborne 1st X1 (only!) came out of the fixture book as being our first victims of the New Year. The venue for this home game (first surprise) was the Lymm astroid (second surprise).

We rolled up at Lymm a couple of minutes before push back to find that our oppo had turned up half an hour earlier - to practice! This is most unnecessary. The Killer Bees never get the urge to practice - we prefer to rely on our natural ability and flair. The only bad omen was the fact that our most hallowed leader, Olly (although he does have and use other aliases), was missing. In the million to one chance that someone out there is concerned with Olly's wellfare I am happy to report that Olly has made a full recovery from that near fatal condition - the mild cold. (Oi! I was at Ben & V's wedding you lanky mtf - Ed)

But back to the game....

The Killer Bees started by playing 'keep ball' in our half of the pitch. This is only possible by using the 'pass and move' style of play (invented by the Killer Bees of course). Goldborne were unamused. Subsequently, Goldborne tried the same tactic - regretably with a fair amount of success. Beginners luck ! The long and short of it was that for the first 15 minutes the ball didn't leave our half of the pitch.

At this point the Killer Bees moved in for the sting! A lightening strike up field led to a short corner. The well oiled (literally) short corner machine moved into top gear....Andy Marshall injected to Jimmy. Jimmy, having stopped the ball dead, slipped the ball left to Yokker for a shot on goal. The shot was cunningly mis-hit straight back to Andy who then cunningly mis-hit...straight to Sticky...who drilled it past the stranded keeper and into the far corner. One nil - now that's how to play hockey.

Goldborne were even more unamused than before....and to avoid the toys coming out of the pram we decided to give them a couple of goals. Now that's what I call generosity (part 1).

So went into the half time team talk two-one down. No need to panic - after all we've been in more commanding situations than this and still lost. Nevertheless tactical changes were required. Andy Marshall was sent up front and Yokker to drop back into central midfield. This had the required effect. The Killer Bees looked far more balanced and were soon moving the ball up field and thereby created chance after chance. All were regrettably spurned.

At the other end Goldborne had one particularly good chance to go three-one up. Let's face it - its doesn't look good if the oppo centre forward has the ball a couple of yards out and is faced by an open net. Luckily for us Richard, our keeper, accidently fell over himself (or was is it a deliberate dive) which allowed the save to be made. Ole!

A few minutes later the whistle blew. It was all over. We had narrowly missed out on a glorious win.

Ciao. A.Comic

ps MOTM - Rich Higham (goalkeeper) for keeping us in it !