Captain's Report: MK City vs Oxford Uni 2 (4-4)
MK City went off to Oxford to play Oxford Uni 2 in the OKA 2nd Division. It wasn't a great start, City has been blighted by injuries and sickness, and then found ourselves locked out of the sports hall for 20 minutes. It would have been wise to use that time to discuss tactics instead we discussed other ways of settling the tie with Uni eg thumb wars and whether or not Father Christmas is real, (which he obviously is).
Lacking any consistency the Captain was uncharacteristically indecisive and chopped and changed divisions to take into account Chelsie's City debut and the 'new' girl Amanda's wholly unnecessary nerves.
First attack was impressive, despite the 2 year break there was no dust on Amanda's shoes, and we would welcome her into City on a regular basis with open arms. The pace was fast, very fast, that's what you get when you play students. First defence worked hard blocking all short shots and running in but then against the run of play Uni scored a long shot. Michael must have been watching for tips as he came back with an equally impressive long shot. Darren scored a running in shot to take us 2-1 but then Uni equalised for 2-2 at halftime.
The half time talk was challenging as City was playing well but the ball was not dropping. The game slowed down but stayed tight. With both teams defending well and neither team having any luck it finished 4-4. City goals from Tim on the rebound and Cash running in.
4-4 was considered a good result on the day. It takes Uni 2 to the top of the league after 6 games. We are joint second with Isis 2 with a game in hand and we can't lose sight of Oxford city 2 in 4th place (3 points behind us) but with 2 games in hand. Next weekends match v Isis 3 is our last chance to bag a spot in the top half of the table before the Divisions splits in two. It's not clear if that's still within our control (no doubt the coach knows), so we can only do our best to take maximum points from the final game.
Finally, I do again have to thank Amanda, Chelsie and Tim for turning out at such short notice.
First attack - Amanda Williams, Emma Cash (1), Michael Blatherwick (1), Pete Staffell
First defence - Emma Green, Chelsie Brown, Tim B (1), Darren Gray (1i