Well, writing a match report sure as hell beats doing any work, so buckle yourseves in kids, this could be a long one. The sun has gone in and this is the only thing stopping me from working now…

After months of Dobbo going on and on and on about the fact that it was ‘next round Milton Keynes' we had finally made it. Well to Bowden at least.
Having cunningly contrived to lose in the first round of the Mixed trophy in order to concentrate on the more important Plate competition, we brushed aside some mediocre resistance on the way to the Finals weekend. Well, it must have been pretty bad, because we certainly hadn't played much champagne hockey on the way there. Drunk too much the nights before games on occasion (and that wasn't going to change now, much to captain Dobbo's chagrin).
Full marks to the lad however, for managing to get a squad together willing to make the trip up to the frozen wastelands that is the north. I certainly wasn't dressed for the temperature shock! Dobbo had obviously been talking tactics with Daley about the weekend and thought he had pulled a masterstroke in keeping Sandy, The Fool, and Fluddy and Kiwi apart for the Friday night, thus ensuring that we would be on top form for the game on Saturday.
Shame it blew up in his face come Saturday evening… more of that fateful evening to come.

First the semi final against Harborne. I think we were all a little concerned that the standard of the first semi was some what higher than we had witnessed in the previous few rounds. Funny that. Despite the fact (or perhaps because?) several of the team were somewhat more sober for the beginning of a game than they had been for much of the season, we managed to go behind to the Brummie outfit before equalizing through one of the most bizarre goals I have ever seen from Sandman, looping the ball over the keeper before spending the rest of the game apologising.
It probably would have helped if Fluddy and I had actually helped Rachel with some defending in retrospect, but she seemed to be coping quite well without us. Having spent most of the game dozing, and with rather a large smug grin on his face following the somewhat embarrassing rugby game earlier that morning, Kiwi realised that if we lost this game, we'd have to turn up to play at 9:30am on Sunday.
Not, he thought, a good idea and slotted the ball in the corner with a minute left on the clock. The drama didn't end there though, and bravely or stupidly (depending on your point of view) Jo Flo decided to put her head in the path of the ball and received a rather fetching shiner for her troubles. That's commitment for you. Wouldn't get Fluddy doing that, judging from the direction he was running when we were defending shorties.
Game over, and with the 12pm final in the bag, it was time for socialising!!!

A couple of cheekies at the club and then we headed back to the oxymoron of a hotel that we were staying at: Quality Hotel indeed. A lovely area, Gorton, one to feel really safe in when you're searching for a kebab at 2am…not too mention abusing the group of five or so locals with stupid hairstyles.
Sorry Faith, but they really were stupid hairstyles. Almost as bad as Kiwi's following his nightly electro-shock therapy. Pizza Express had obviously heard that 14 Southern Fairies were up in Manchester for a debauched weekender and had kindly allocated us our own room.
Foolishly, Jo Flo managed to get herself wedged between Fluddy and Kiwi and was then treated to a somewhat masculine take on some relatively lesser known sexual techniques. Kiwi's missus has a lot to answer for at the moment: I was also treated to sitting in a car with a sex-starved Kiwi and his precious copy of Club for 3hours so I have some sympathy.....but I digress again.
Having decided that a quiet pizza wasn't a good enough way of kicking off the evening, some fool decided to start a ‘quiet' game of arrogance. Corny, having quietly commandeered a bottle of red wine to herself decided on the time honoured tactic of “death or glory”, happily topping up the glass with red to create a nice zinfandel coloured mixture. And shoeing Bill, who had been happily sipping his beer previously, now had the pleasure of drinking the whole lot. Three times in a row. If I remember rightly, he burped, smiled serenely and muttered the immortal words “always a pleasure” each time. Or maybe not. And then onto the main course.

Norwegian Blue. Got me quite excited as I thought it was maybe a northern version of Spearmint Rhinos. Alas not, but a drinking and dancing and cavorting establishment not unlike Brannigans with its clientele. It seemed mainly to consist of several groups of old hen parties, with possibly one of the ugliest bride's to be I have ever seen.
This fact seemed to escape fluddy and he was soon to be seen with Kiwi in tow (and Kev & Sandy - Ed.) making some smooth moves on the dance floor. Getting anywhere, I hear you ask? Err,he was about as successful as yours truly, although at the end of the night he was rescued from an evening's celibacy by a generous Australian keen to do her bit for team bonding.
The scariest point of the evening was perhaps Corny getting talkative with probably the most intimidating woman(?) I have ever seen…needless to say, the area was soon very clear of wimbledon men. Now my memory of the remaining part of the evening is somewhat hazy, due to Dobbo and Sandy. Dobbo for not allowing the pre-match warm-up of nine pints on Friday and thus forcing me to attempt to drink 2x9 pints on the saturday, and Sandy for being on a mission to completely destroy me.
Despite Jo Flo's valiant effort to save me from Sandy and myself, I came off second best. And Sandy hasn't stopped being smug, the little git. My memories of post-black sambuca consist of very little, but I am told it was a very good last couple of hours. And Kiwi even stayed out until gone 21:30. And we were all accounted for in the morning at breakfast (except Sandy, who wasn't quite up to eating) although there had been an early morning review of sleeping arrangements. And I'm not talking about Faith trying to turn Sandy over to stop him snoring, dirty Fluddy...

So, to the final. The stats never lie, 4-4 at full time shows it was a cracking game. According to the EHA report, we had a “late and inspired comeback”. What it doesn't say is how $hite we were in the first half. Unusually for him (I'm now talking in the third person to distant myself from events on the pitch), Kev opened the scoring. Unfortunately it was into the roof of the Don's net as he deflected a short corner. To be fair to the solid, dependable defender ??? - ED. (I like this 3rd party lark), it was an extremely brave charge and he was just unlucky.
We leaked another goal midway through the half as the defence conspired to go AWOL and Tangos were cruising. Always mindful of crowd pleasing, we pulled one back on the stroke of halftime through Jen 'Corny' Stevenson to go in 2-1 down.
It was a hot day, and several of the team seemed to get a little intoxicated at half time by the alcohol sweat emanating from the team in general. It wasn't just me, I swear. The result being another 2 down within five minutes of the restart. Bugger.
Then came the comeback. Kate began putting herself around on the pitch in a way that belied her stature and with Dobbo sweating and grunting all over the pitch we actually began to play hockey and took Tangos apart. With 8 minutes left, a slightly lucky, although deserved flick was well put away by the house elf and then Rachel launched a perfect shortie strike a minute later that crashed off the post and in. Dale, a good decision not to let you take the short corners methinks. We were on a roll and everyone had picked up their game as the half went on and the alcohol dissipated. The third goal in 5 minutes was finished off by Dobbo, but although we were on to we couldn't force a result in normal time. The dreaded golden goal……

Was a tense affair, with neither side really carving out a chance. Then Kev (back to 3rd person again) tried to jab the ball away from a strapping Amazonian six footer, missed and she ended up on the floor. After jumping 4 feet in the air to the appreciation of the crowd. The judges gave it a 4.5, the Ump didn't even call the unlucky player over, brandishing a yellow theatrically from a distance and off he went to the technical area for five minutes, where he didn't really endear himself to the EHA officials there with some rather choice words about the decision. Sorry guys! Perhaps the final nail in the coffin as Tangos exploited the extra space on the left and with 3 seconds left to halftime, the [ageing useless] skipper of Tangos managed to bobble the ball into the net. Gutted. Runners up again.

Cracking weekend though, and much thanks must go to Dobbo for organising, and all the guys who drove. Although it's my opinion that his tactical decisions on the Friday were the catylist for all the weekend problems. Nothing to do with a sending off.

Next year, the Gold!