Chester Men's 1s vs Deeside Ramblers Men's 2s

Fun fact: Deeside Ramblers are technically one side of the River Dee but so are New York and Moscow. Deeside are actually really far from the River Dee compared to, say, Chester for example, hence the ‘Ramblers’. They chose ‘Ramblers’ because they thought they were too good for ‘Wanderers’ of Bolton/Wolverhampton fame.

Earlier in the week, the King of Chester Hockey Club, Dafydd Jones, dropped the bombshell that the top two north leagues had split into east and west leagues. This could have massive ramifications for the rest of the season, or it might not because no one has a clue how Covid/Boris/the next moon phase will impact anything. In any case, it was a Saturday and we were playing another team in a game of hockey, with the main aim of winning the hockey match.

Brydy’s flat tyre set an ominous tone for the day, compounded by Ed’s drag flicks in the warm ups and the fact we had three umpires for the match. Luckily due to averages, at least two of those umpires were pretty good which made for a pleasant surprise. A greatly appreciated largest socially distanced crowd of the season turned up to see the local derby, with the boys in blue keen to show off the form that’s got them off to a 100% start to the season.

Chester gave a short corner away in the first few seconds, but kept that out and decided to start playing properly after that. Deeside went for a Gareth Southgate-esque uber defensive formation with a back four and two holding midfielders, meaning Chester were quickly able to get on top and set the tempo for the game.

We won a short corner of our own which their post man spectacularly kept out with his left foot, a la 2013 David De Gea. Unfortunately, this is illegal in hockey and Jim popped the penalty flick in for an early 1-0 lead. Chester continued their domination, including a string of 14 consecutive long corners, and after Tuesday’s training session, Jim finally made amends for last week and got on the end of a flat strike from Brydy for 2-0. We probably should have made more of the possession and chances in the first half, but we went in comfortably 2-0 up.

The 2nd half was a different affair, with Chester struggling to string more than a few passes together for the rest of the match. We still had a decent number of D entries and opportunities to score, but most of the 2nd half was spent passing the ball to Deeside and then backs to the wall defending like some kind of sadistic Roper style training session. For the most part, the defence came out on top, with Joe making a few decent saves from point blank range. Deeside did get one back but we were able to keep them at bay for the rest of the match.

The final whistle went and Chester trudged off like frogs who had seen the last fly buzz off from the lilypad. After the match, Neil’s daughter had some choice words for the team for their 2nd half performance and for the most part, we looked at the ground knowing she was right. The exception was Ben Scott who had to be held back from starting on Izzie after some particularly ‘robust’ feedback for him, but that passion and energy is undoubtedly good to see if it can be harnessed in the right way. John and Keith were more measured in their analysis. 3 points in the bag is the important thing and it’s a good sign that we’re able to win ugly, but it would be nice to win non-ugly-ly after a couple of squeaky victories on the bounce.

#UpTheChest #DownTheRona

Joke of the week:

“I bought a car off the Kray twins last week.”

“Oh cool, what reg?”

“No, Ronnie.”