Sheffield Uni Bankers M1s 5 - 1 Durham City M1s

What a long day. The return fixture saw us head to Sheffield – a long journey at the best of times – to play Bankers, who gave us a rude awakening during our first game of the season all those months ago, beating us 0-4 at MC. A 10am meet saw Mason fill his bus, the Gateshead Massive jump into Matt Kettley’s car, and Will Orpin make his way to Sheffield from Derby. After a cheerful journey that involved a whole-bus effort to solve the Telegraph GK crossword, the voyage soured as the bus couldn’t find the venue. As it turns out, we went to the wrong car-park of the right school. Not knowing that, we assumed that we had gone to the wrong school and drove ten minutes down the road to a different one. That was also wrong. Some frantic phone-calls and a brief attempt at parking at a hotel saw us eventually return to the correct school, finding the correct entrance this time. We were about thirty minutes late, barely had a warm-up and were not in the correct headspace at all – not an auspicious start. We agreed to try to enjoy ourselves against such a tough opponent.

For the first ten minutes, it was a tight game. If we could have kept up that intensity, Bankers would have been exceptionally worried. Admittedly, they did score first thanks to a slick short-corner routine. We quickly fired back with our own well-practiced short-corner routine. Iain Mason slammed the ball into the bottom corner from the top of the ‘D’ to make it 1-1. It was a great game for a neutral. Bankers’ youth, greater fitness, and consistent ability then began to grind us into the ground. A Bankers forward found himself on the left edge of the ‘D’ with only Matt Coe to beat. From a tight angle, he found the far side of the goal. 2-1. Bankers then made it 3-1 after winning a penalty flick after the ball hit a foot en route to the goal. We totally collapsed, but managed to get through the remainder of the half and all swore to do better during the next thirty-five minutes.

We didn’t. The half began with our push-back being passed straight off the side-line. Bankers got their fourth soon with another good short-corner nestling in the bottom left. 4-1. We were on the backfoot for the entire half. It was a tough day to be a forward. Banker’s final goal was a beauty: with a young and skilful Bankers forward receiving the ball on the left shoulder of the ‘D’ quickly being closed down by the keeper. He bounced the ball up and attempted a lob on the half-volley. It sailed over our entire team and into the goal. We couldn’t even argue. It was a pearl of a goal. Throughout, we turned over the ball too often, frequently lacked structure, and our basics were not good enough. We are better team than what we showed, but we remain relatively unbothered and look forward to an upcoming stream of games that are very winnable.

MoM: Matt Coe (‘good logging’)

DoD: Matt Kettley (dodgy directions and perplexing postcodes) and Matt Coe (flirting with the umpires who praised him for ‘good logging’)

#ShortForks #LoggingAndLobbing #AnybodyKnowFifteenAcross?