To give needed context to those of you for not reading this thrilling 2-part series in chronological order, this match took place a week after the home game against Bournemouth, a thrilling, tight game that saw both teams on top at different points and was up in the air until the 2^nd half of the 4^th quarter, when we crushingly conceded 2 goals and lost the game 7-9.

We were very proud of this performance, we’d put up a strong side and every man played well – even Mr. Teng, who spent half of it playing dead.

We went into this game buoyed by the belief that if things went our way, we could walk away with the feeling of victory we hadn’t felt in months. That isn’t of course to say that we were confident, we had I think two substitutes – thanks to Phil for allowing us this minor mercy – and if we’re honest far from the strongest team we’ve put forwards this year; we didn’t even have our captain which is rather poor in my opinion – despite the strength of his excuse.

I would like the record to show that I’m writing this report on the 12^th of July, the match was played on the 6^th of June and the match was neither recorded nor was a match sheet made (get it together please girls), so please buckle in for some raw freestyle from yours truly.

The eight boys from Soton rocked up to Bournemouth’s pool bang on time as per usual and were very gratefully met by a certain Mr. Phil King, an alumni who helped stop this game being even more of an abject failure.

We were lead into the facilities and met by a dreary changing room and a pool that made Jubilee look like Winchester, but not quite as bad as Bart’s diabolical pool. We then met the 2 refs who were described by one of Bournemouth’s number as one actual ref and an old bloke which was a surprisingly accurate description and the girls were shown to the ‘table’ area which was some steps on pool side with no clock and score keeper which was just one of those where you flip the cards over – I obviously can’t remember what they’re actually called, again please bear with.

Due to this, I can’t blame the girls too much for not writing a match sheet, but I don’t even know who scored the 5 goals we scored so when I say I’m freestyling I mean I’m mostly guessing.

I’ve waffled an awful lot, but a basic description of the game is that they kept scoring goals and we didn’t, they beat us on counters mostly and rarely set up arcs whereas we tried to set one up every time. We – or more accurately Magill – decided halfway that we were being idiots and that we should modify our tactics because the pool was slimmer than Scott, but gratefully not as long – I really don’t have the cardio for that. 

Following adjustments we scored a few more goals, I’m certain Luke and Alex scored at least one a piece and I’m pretty confident Phil got himself 2, but as to the last one Vinny’s a decent guess.

This game wasn’t our best, but its not like we fell apart either, we still played our best, but clearly struggled adapting to the pool, and without a few familiar faces, plus Bournemouth brought a decently stronger team than the week prior which was a bit of a sad discovery.

Following the game, we all went to this tiny Canadian pub and had a singular pint of some rather lovely ale – a fitting end to our last game of the year – before piling back in cars and heading home.

Man of the Match – Phil King

The man, the myth, the legend, who turned up when we most needed him and (probably) scored two goals.

Dick of the day – The girls for not writing a bleeding match sheet, there were like 6 of you or something (apologies to Ratledge, I know I’ve sort of given you DotD, but thank you for helping me when I got punched in the face).

Match report written by Ed Wilkes.