A ding dong thing

As Jacob Zuma (ex South African President) once stated in a 2008 interview to Al Jazeera, “As you know, there’s been almost a Ding Dong Thing in this game, they’ve been scoring and we’ve been scoring all the time . I don’t think it effects the situation, it is unprecedented that a game has been pursued in the manner in which Orca II vs WT Narwhals has been pursued”, and he was of course right, the Orca II vs WT Narwhals was a back and forth affair with neither team able to pull away but the glorious Narwhals came home winners by one goal in a “Thirty Three Goal Classic”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t_Bof50Yrc

What drove this excitement you may ask? Well in a word (two words??), goalkeeping, or the lack thereof to be honest. Missing our first choice keeper(s) messers Winterbotham and Adam, both of whom annoyingly decided they’d rather do something else with their Tuesday evening than schlepp up to Stratford your brave and dedicated author volunteered to tread water for an hour with maybe a little light shouting, certainly very little in the way of shot stopping! We were expecting a rather easy time against Orca II who are not generally known for scoring goals. However, this was more of a Orca 1.5, with three strong members of Orca’s first team surprisingly making an appearance. With Shute and Weeble no-where to be seen two minute before swim-off the omens were not looking great.

Shuweeble turned up just as we were lining up for the swim off and thus the first quarter got under way. Within a minute we were two goals down. Defensively a shambles and passes going no-where near where intended. Goals from TJ and Gary Bowen (his third in three games which we think is a first for this Millenium?) briefly pulled us back level before brutal refereeing awarded Orca a penalty for very minor goalkeeper infraction* and Orca scored another sloppy defensive goal, we also had time for a penalty save and numerous missed Narwhals chances. 2 – 4 down at the end of the first.

The Narwhals made the drastic decision to change goalkeepers at the end of the first quarter, buoyed by the hopefully improvement between the sticks we managed to concede within thirty seconds of the re-start. However, we then proceeded to score the next four goals without conceding, goals from Finch (Ma), Ogg, Shute and Mameli taking the Narwhals into a lead. With nine second of the quarter remaining the score was 5 – 6 to the Narwhals before the craziest 8 seconds of polo ever seen. Finch (Ma) scored a buzzer beater with 8 seconds to go (5 – 7) only for the Orcas to score directly off the restart, Gary Bowen apparently inspecting the ceiling of the LAC rather than watching the ball (6 – 7). Three seconds left and Shute decides to also try his luck. As it happens the Orca keeper was also inspecting the ceiling and so another goal was scored from half way. Score at the end of the quarter 6 – 8 to the Narwhals.

Unfortunately the third quarter saw Orca realise that they could pretty much score from anywhere in the pool and they began to pepper our goal with shots, despite two almost identical Finch (Ma) breakaway goals and goals from Shute and Weeble, Orca managed to score six in the quarter (the majority from a different postcode) seeing us go into the final quarter tied at 12 – 12.

Thankfully the Narwhals superior fitness (no sniggering at that back!!!) shone through in the final quarter, that and the realisation by Gary that if he a) moved and b) waggled his arms a bit he could actually save some shots. The Narwhals quickly took a three goal lead, goals from Finch (Ma), Shute and Weeble x 2 took us to what we thought was an unassailable lead, however a another flurry of late goals made it a lot closer than it should have been, despite late goals from Finch (mi) and Shute. After a better quarter, Gary, in a fitting tribute to the overall standard of goalkeeping across the board in this game, managed to concede from 15m out with the last throw of the game. A truly “Ding Dong Thing” ended 16 – 17 to the Narwhals and we all went off to The Cow for a well deserved gluten free beer

Everybody on the score sheet, so no one way tickets to the Algarve this week. MoM was Finch (Ma) for not missing any of his many one on ones, moment went to a well worked Weeble goal, despite him moaning at me apparently getting in the way!. Fluffer went unanimously to Gary. Please come back Mr Winterbotham, pleeeeeeeaaaseeeeee?!?!?!?!?

Forza Narwhali

*Editors Note: It was attempted murder