Two games in two days was a little tiring, even for a goalkeeper…!

Mixed results for both of my 5-a-side teams. Torpedo TF have gone back to our poor second half showings after being level at 1-1 halfway through our game on Tuesday night. Three second half goals with no reply blew our chance of going third in the league. Some of the players looked a little tired, maybe they play for multiple teams as well? But we need to pick it up as we have the two league leaders in consecutive weeks next.

Team Brand(x) fared much better after their maiden game last week in the Chiswick Jumpers for Goalposts league. Five goals up after 20 minutes and a team of relative strangers were looking like seasoned veterans with some very well worked goals. With a more than capable 3 man bench we were able to control the game and never looked in trouble, eventually running out 13-7 winners.

Cheers to all the lads in both teams, hopefully they will be able to keep the standard up as I start my new job in a couple of weeks and won’t be regularly between the sticks.

Typical British summer… After last weeks game in torrential rain, this week was in sweltering heat and the pace of the game was much slower. No greasy ball to deal with either but I did have the sun in my eyes second half. (bring a cap next week!)

Our opponents were very similar to us results wise, so it was no surprise that we ended up at 0-0. A typical game of two halves, but at least we finished stronger and their keeper got man of the match. Makes a change from me getting it, which I’m glad about because it means we are defending better as a team.

We’re starting to climb the table a bit now and a win next week would mean we leapfrog a few teams. We need it as the return games against the top teams are just around the corner…

And bad luck to my work team who have just formed after years of talking about it. They went down 15-8 last night, maybe they need a keeper…?

After a pretty dramatic game in wet conditions, we came away with another three points this week.

After going a goal down, we scored on the stroke of half time to go in 2-1 up. Early in the second we got that crucial first goal and looked to be in control at 3-1 going into the last few minutes. Our opponents looked to be running out of ideas but pulled one back, but we didn’t panic until disaster struck…

Despite my vision not being 100% with the rain on my glasses (I know I should try contacts) and my gloves being soaking wet, I had had a decent game, making a few good saves to keep us in front. But as a harmless, chest high shot came my way that was clearly going over the bar, my natural instinct was to comfortably catch it. The wet, spinning ball hit me in the chest but squirmed away as I tried to gather it and looped over my shoulder and into the net for 3-3… gutting.

It looked like I had thrown away a win, but credit to the boys they said I was unlucky and retrieved the ball for the restart. Two passes later, the ball was in the net again and the ref blew for full time before the other team could kick off again!

A great game, and I think we deserved the win. Hopefully we can keep the run going and make it three on the bounce next week.