Croydon 9 - Avondale 5 (Surrey Div 1 - 10 August 2009)

Avondale managed just seven players and two (junior) supporters for this Surrey league match. The supporters were disappointed to miss of the more entertaining members of the team, but were very impressed with the game nevertheless.

It was a typically tight match and given the size of the pool, the absence of a shot clock and the paucity of members in the visiting team, the slow pace was probably inevitable. As usual, Avondale had more than their share of shooting chances, but converted fewer of them than they should have. Good defence for the first three quarters contained the home team's strong attack, but the majors were mounting and in the end, rather than lose a man, the visitor's defence had to sit off the hole man and suffer the consequences. Half way through the last quarter the scores were level at 5 - 5, but the inevitable tiredness of the visitors presented the home team with several late scoring chances that they took.

One particularly moment of brilliance from 007, early in the last quarter is worthy of note. He stole the ball from an attacking Croydon player, wide on the Avondale left on their own 4m line. THe Croydon player was swimming in on goal with the ball when it disappeared over his head and Bond headed up pool with it. He sprinted to the opposition's 5m line and their with a bounce shot that was too fast for the eye to follow. "What a pleasure", as they say!