AUMHC Match Report: The Hippies Were Right

AUMHC’s Second XI (a rabble of feckless, grimey misfits) today were asked to play in a friendly against the British Army U23 First team. What followed was not just a hockey match but a clash between industry and artistry, tactics and improvisation and in this reporter’s eyes; two opposing ways of life.

The opposition to the over-weight, black-lunged and coachless AUMHC reprobates were the best U23 sixteen hockey players that the British Army has to offer. Their main coach was an ex-England player. They are a physical, skilful and tactically excellent team who are also extremely fit.

Their opposing group of underdogs shook off their hangovers and creaked through a warm up before this unit of finely honed athletes started the game at pace. As the first assaults began on the AUMHC goal something strange began happening. In a scene reminiscent of the last rugby union world cup final the mercurial seconds responded with the beginnings of what would eventually become their performance of the season so far.

At around the ten minute mark Hayden, a player with the legs of a cheetah and the hand eye co-ordination of a fish scored what can only be described as a wonder goal. His legs and his stick were a blur as he burst through three tackles before slotting home a finish so cool that Bond himself would have been proud. AUMHC scoring, everyone agreed, was a fluke and would presumably be a short-lived distraction from the inevitable onslaught that was on the horizon.

But as the super soldiers began again the game they began to lose their grip of proceedings. This gang of smelly hippies began to build momentum and control the game, starving the British Army team of possession and territory. They scored, and scored again. The Army scored a technically brilliant although unimaginative drag flick to make the score 3-1 at the start of the second half.

The second half comeback attempt swept down on the AU defence and they were forced under the cosh. Buffon argues that the goal keeper is the most important player on a team-sheet and the extraordinarily nimble lunging save that Rob made at the height of the pressure was evidence of this theory. The soldiers looked at AUMHC’s towering keeper and realised the futility of trying to beat him. They would never mount another serious attack again.

The hippies responded by running rampant. A team that had only won two other games all season were in the ascendancy and the slaughter had begun. The final death-knell rang out as even Twist, easily the least athletic and least reliable defender in the club managed to put his name on the scoresheet in an event so unlikely that odds that long don’t yet exist. This reporter can only hope that he doesn’t go on about it.

This reporter assumes that they are all surely, as of today, destined to become part of AUMHC folklore.

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