Team sheet; Kraus, Jaimin, Marcus, Hall, Chandi, Lewis, Haslam, Clayden, Roche, Platt, Livesey. Subs; Clobber, Walton.
Amidst the torrential downpour caused by Storm Simon on Saturday evening, the UWMCCFC took to a flooded Tarkett to play Michael Kynaston’s HistSoc. With the UWMCCFC players preferring to hide in their cars before the game rather than warm-up in the rain like HistSoc, Platt hoped that the conditions would not lead to a lack of desire come kick-off. In an odd turn of events, Platt tried to inspire his troops by using a broom to disperse the standing water on the pitch, leading to Jonny Hall commenting that he had “never been so proud” of his captain. It must also be said that Platt was confident of a convincing win given that Kynaston had divulged many of the HistSoc tactical secrets under the influence of purple on Wednesday night. However, for some unknown reason, a large contingent of HistSoc regulars had turned down the opportunity to play in the game, leading to some ringers being placed in the starting XI – including the all-too familiar Andy Parsons (see last week’s report).
The UWMCCFC began the match quickly, controlling much of the early exchanges and looking by far the more threatening of the two sides. The occasional gusts of wind and the consistently heavy rain from Hurricane Herman led to quite a few loose touches, but our boys seemed to cope a lot better than the HistSoc players. In what was to be a very tepid affair, the first real chance fell to Clobber who received a pass on the edge of the area from Livesey. Both Clobber and the HistSoc right-back slid and met the ball at the same time which luckily deflected it towards Platt who tapped in from about eight yards. Cue angry shouts of offside from Parsons, Kynaston, etc. and a complete denial of any wrongdoing from the UWMCCFC players. Our next chance came from a David Luis-esque run from none other than Jonny Hall. Hall stole the ball off the toes of a HistSoc player and burst through midfield before playing a one-two with Platt and then laying the ball off for Livesey to shoot. Livesey’s shot went straight to the keeper who fumbled it through his own legs and into the back of his own net (Cam Newton eat your heart out). This gave the UWMCCFC a 2-0 advantage going into half-time.
The second half followed in much of the same vein. A run of a few dangerous attacks from the UWMCCFC kept HistSoc pinned in their own half. From a failed UWMCCFC corner which was cleared by HistSoc, Roche won the ball back just outside the box and gave Platt a chance to put it back in the area. Platt’s attempted cross luckily caught a gust of wind, from what was now Tornado Terrance, and nestled into the top corner of the HistSoc goal. A few substitutions followed with Clayden moving into CAM with Walton and Clobber either side. HistSoc began to work their way back into the game, gaining more possession in midfield and causing a few problems for Chandi, Hall, Marcus and Jaimin. However, true to their current rich form, none of these problems fed through to Kraus in goal. With seven minutes to go, Roche came back on to replace Chandi. From yet another UWMCCFC corner, Roche positioned himself in his regular goal scoring position (within a yard of the goal-line either side) and, according to Kynaston, kicked the ball out of the goalkeeper’s hands to make it 4-0.
At the final whistle, the UWMCCFC shook hands with the defeated HistSoc players before quickly making towards their cars to get out of the rain. Little was made of the result until a congratulatory tweet by the UWMCC club account incensed Kynaston who replied with: “one offside goal, one keeper error, one cross and one kicked out of keeper’s hands – the way the beautiful game is meant to be played.” This led to the ever professional reply from the UWMCC of “chat shit, get banged”. In summary, this was a very good win for the UWMCCFC with crucial clashes to come against Engineering, Maths/Stats and Physics in the weeks ahead.
Goals scored; Platt (x2), Livesey, Roche