One fateful evening had finally come around. The boys entered Jubilee Sports Hall for what could possibly be our last competitive match of the year. But with nerves of steel, Soton’s biggest boys showed only smiles and excitement on their faces- our rematch against Surrey was surely going to be a battle to remember.

Donned in white caps, and after an intense warm-up, the starting 7 lined up poised against the wall. With a swing of the arm and a blow of the whistle, both teams pushed off from the wall and raced towards the ball. To no surprise, Southampton won the first swim off, but possession of the ball changed a fair few times. Eventually we found our chance and the ball was passed cleanly around the ark. Clearly intimidated by our skillage one of the Surrey team grew impatient and won himself a quick exclusion. This man up opportunity was not to be missed and the ball was slammed into the net by Mr. Graham, gaining Soton their first goal. The game was reset to the centre line and Surrey, determined not to be left in the dust, scored a goal of their own. Surrey pushed their luck in front of the ref again, giving Soton another man-up opportunity- but we were unsuccessful at capitalising from it. However we weren’t going to give up that easily and the ball was once again passed to Graham, and his unlucky defender was span into the corner of the ball, and yet another goal was scored bringing us to 2-1. The last minute of the quarter was the most active minute of the match so far, with a goal from Surrey, followed by another Graham goal, followed by another Surrey goal. The first quarter ended on 3-3. Who knew what could happened next?

The second quarter was a fresh slate starting, of course, at 0-0, and with another pep talk by Mr Teng we readied up to swim again. The ball started off in Southampton possession after winning the swim off, but sadly we didn’t keep the ball for long, and Surrey seized their opportunity to nab the first goal of the quarter after just 45 seconds. Ed Wilkes was itching to get on the match sheet, so he committed an egregious major in front of the referee to win his first exclusion. The ball was calmly passed around Surrey’s arc, and they won their second goal of the quarter, 3-5. Now, desperate to prevent Surrey from running away with the match, the ball was passed to Alvarez. Surrey were trying their best to push him back and just as it looked like Alvarez was going under, an arm swung up and scored a goal which had no business going in, closing the score gap. The next few minutes showed some brilliant defensive capabilities from both teams with plenty of swimming from end to end of the pool. Until Graham was passed the ball once more with another Surrey defender being hurled across the pool, followed by a cheeky goal. We were even once more. Surrey became desperate after our attack started to look very menacing, and they committed a major at the last second, giving us a penalty. Our president Finn listened out for the whistle and the ball was hurled right into the net, we had taken the lead. Until 20 seconds later when a Surrey lad scored. Mr Teng then also got a major giving the lads an opportunity to show how much we had practiced our man-down scenarios, and we just did that as Surrey was unsuccessful. After finding our rhythm, 2 more goals were scored by Wilmshurst from Pit, and another from Graham. We ended the 2^nd quarter on 8-6, or 0-0.

With another inspirational team talk, Southampton readied up again and won our third swim off. 20 seconds in and Graham obtained the ball. Poor Surrey ☹. We readied up again and the ball was swiftly confiscated from Surrey and the ball was passed to Mr Graham. Poor Surrey ☹. The next few minutes were relatively uneventful, until one silly Surrey player committed a major, and as part of our man-up attack, the ball was passed to Graham. Poor Surrey ☹. Surrey consequently decided to pull their thumbs out and gained their first goal of the quarter. They then provoked Alvarez to the point of exclusion, which the Surrey team capitalised on and scored another. Excited by the major just minutes before, Mr James threw some spice into the game and got kicked out and Surrey gained another goal from their man up, silly Pit D. Thus the 3^rd quarter came to an end 11-9, still anybody’s game.

The ball was placed into the pool for the final team, and to show good sportsman ship we let Surrey win this swim off for a change, regrettably they scored from this – but no matter, we still had almost 8 minutes of match time. To get our revenge, Mr Graham swang another Surrey defender around like a makeshift baseball bat and scored another goal square at the back of the net. This success didn’t last for long as Surrey quickly scored a goal of their own. 12-11, it was very close. Surrey were getting cocky and one of their team was wrapped instantly, giving Graham the space to score again, and again. The ball was repeatedly taken from Surrey at this point as it was clear to see they were getting tired battling the stags themselves. Teng saw his chance and took a shot at the goal, Teng out of 10 aim and the ball was in the net, for our final goal of the game, was the lead enough to defeat Surrey? James was curious so got sent out, but Surrey didn’t score so it started to look promising.  A second player from Surrey was subsequently wrapped but our man-up proved unsuccessful. 1 second left- The ball left Surreys hand, the shot clock blared over the Southampton cheers, and landed behind our fantastic goalkeeper, netting another goal for Surrey… But it didn’t matter as we won 15-12. SUWPC men’s have made it to the quarter finals, and more importantly, we have one more match with Howard as our captain. The spirits were indeed high and demanded a healthy celebration in stags and eventually Jesters, and the whole team slept well that night.

Written by George Lea

Most Valuable Player – Jacob Graham because he scored 11 out of our 15 goals.

Dick of the Day – Mr Wilkes due to shooting from the wing at a defender’s chest in a man up. I personally couldn’t see the vision, but I respect the confidence!

Goals/Majors:

Sam Ellis 0/0

Fernando Alvarez 1/1

Jacob Graham 11/0

Finn Thomas 1/0

Daniel Ammon 0/0

Noah Boelmann 0/0

Ed Wilkes 0/1

Jack James 0/2

Alex Wilmshurst 1/0

James Popple 0/0

Elliot Oldham 0/0

Howard Teng 1/1

George Lea 0/0