For the second season running, the Men’s 4s headed to Old Louts for our away game in filthy weather. Our team’s experience showed early, as anticipating poor road conditions, we all arrived an hour early for the start. However, this also meant that after the half-hour it takes most of us to strap ourselves into our lycra supports, we still had 30 minutes warming up in the midst of Storm Darragh before the first whistle. Indeed, this also gave the skipper the chance to overrule Nick, our meterological expert, and choose to play with the storm behind us in the first half.

Despite having the storm on our side, the first half proceeded with neither team able to impose themselves. Both forced short corners, but none were converted and perhaps Old Louts came closest to opening the scoring when Rich made yet another fantastic save after a shot from the top of the D was deflected just in front of him.

Half-time was spent in the excellent Old Louts dugouts which, unlike at many pitches, were both intact and facing the correct way to protect us from the wind and rain. Before being persuaded to retake the field, we decided to try and get back to playing through the midfield rather than trying to force the long ball direct to the attack. It took 15 minutes, but finally we created a clear chance. Steve attacked through the inside-left channel, found Andy on the baseline, and his cross took out the keeper allowing Pete B to finish from a couple of metres out.

The storm kept up and seemed to be affecting everyone's performance as the game became punctuated by a few odd decisions from the umpires and in the latter part of the second half they became even more baffling. Firstly, Pete C, dribbling across their D, was unfairly challenged twice before playing the ball onto a defender’s foot. The umpire claimed he was playing advantage and then green carded Pete for swearing, but did nothing about the fouls. A minute later, Webby made a clean stop which the umpire did not believe, and when Martin queried the decision, he too saw green. Down to 9, we somehow managed to maintain possession until we got both players back and as with many games this season, proved stronger in the final quarter, preventing Old Louts from even having a shot in the second half.

The 1-0 win means we head into the Christmas break in second place, 6 points behind league leaders Havering, but 5 clear of Chelmsford in third. Overall, we have had 5 clean sheets and conceded only 11 goals in total, while scoring 34, the last of which from Pete Borrie helped him to win this week’s man of the match award. Merry Christmas!