On the 17th of March, the uni 1sts faced the national league team from city (the Cods, who City Scum played for). With Divall having his birthday celebrations with Emma and consequently not attending, and our ‘vice’ captain and next years 1sts captain, Connor, off serving drunks 1p pints; we had a strong team of 9. Also Walton had a case of Waltonitus of the most severe form, injury from too much… I don’t know. Being Tim.

The day started off with me forgetting that we needed hats and balls to play polo. I went and found our friendly Malaka, Will, to get some hats and balls to warm up with. This sorted, the coin toss decided that we would defend the shallow end first.

The first quarter was a strong start for our nine, with Charlie scoring the first goal of the game. Cods equalised at some point, I probably was looking the other way. We then had a man up with and the ball ended up in Derulo’s hand, and the net some time after. The quarter ended 3-2 to City. Number of attempted lobs, 1.

In the second quarter some things happened. Charlie scored one. City got 3. The game was very equal, however we weren’t clinical enough in attack to make our presence felt. That, and I am sure I remember someone throwing the ball over the goal in a one on one, somehow not managing to notice that they were attacking the shallow end and the goals aren’t exactly small targets. Number of attempted lobs, 3. Number scored, 1.

The third quarter was evens, however a bit unjustly so. From playing in goal, I can confidently that there was a goal given that bounced off the post. The city player ended up in the goal instead of the ball, and looked as shocked as I did when the goal was called, remarking ‘that wasn’t a goal, I am in the goal, not the ball!’ This was reacted to by Derulo, who put another past the city keeper. Number of attempted lobs, 2.

The fourth quarter was a strong bit of play from one player in particular, Perry. He fought off several vicious challenges by lifting them clean out of the water using his huge legs, then slotted an exquisite top corner shot into the back of the net while the opposition team sat in awe, to which the whole crowd gave a standing ovation**. We basically gave up playing then, since there was no point: Perry had shown us the way. It was at this point, someone pointed out we had let 2 more goals in, so Andrea and Derulo both scored one a piece to make up for it. Number of attempted lobs 2.

The final score, 11-9 to City. We played well, but just lacked in team as well as intensity. We are looking forward to playing City again at the Lady Richmond Brown tournament this coming Sunday.

Match Stats

Number of Lobs, 8. Percentage scored, 12.5%.

Man Ups Utilised, 66.7%.

Man Downs Saved, 75%.

Goal Scorers

City Boy – 4

Derulo – 3

Ricci, Perry – 1

Major Kings

Horlock – 2

Derulo, City Scum – 1.

**Note: for those who were there, yeah that shot that came off 2 opposition players that barely made it over the line. A quote from the crowd ‘It rolled over the line like a handicapped 3 legged chinchilla’. (Title image shows ‘Oscar’ the 3 legged chinchilla for clarity.)