Two Club Sandwich players were "selected" to play for Kent in the County Championships in Norwich last weekend. Sounds posh, but Kent were fielding a representative side, pulling players from as many different clubs in the county as possible.
So it was that Nadia and I got the call from Karl to take part in this event. Despite carrying an injury I decided to try and scupper Kent's chances by agreeing to play! I might have made a different decision if I had known that I'd have to get up at 5.30 on a saturday morning in order to get to Norwich by 9.30. However, by the time this was made clear it was too late and I was committed.
Anyway, the alarm went off on time and we made it in time for the first game. It was only when we arrived however that we realised that a couple of last minute withdrawals (from girls of course - always unreliable!) meant we only had 3 girls in the team. Luckily, as all at Sandwich know, Nadia's pace and agression make her more than a match for at least 7 or 8 normal ladies so we were still confident.
In our first match against Staffordshire despite playing a player short and my "quick hobble" style of defence Kent came away victorious. We went on to beat Staffordshire again, losing twice to South London and beating and then drawing with the joint Sussex & Hampshire team to leave us qualifying for the top 6 pool for the Sunday. Nadia played a blinder as the lone girl on her division for the whole day, with Karl legging it around like a maniac marking two boys and Jif just standing under the post collecting everything.
Our first thought was "Bugger that, we're going to get torunced, lets see if they'll let us play in the bottom pool".
However then the (extremely cheap!) beer started to flow, and after a Staffs player told us how chuffed he was that we were going to let them have our place in the top pool as they'd never placed so high and gave Matt a big hug we decided we'd stay in the top pool after all - sorry Staffs!!
So on the Sunday we were expecting a drubbing all day. In the first match we played South London (for the 3rd time!) - this was a much closer game than on the Saturday, with Sandwich staying in touch at 2 - 1 down with 5 minutes to go. However London pulled another couple of goals away to win 4 - 1. We next played Surrey, another strong team. Again we competed well for large periods of the match, but were fairly soundy beaten.
A win against Norfolk in the next game meant we were unlikely to come bottom of the pool. In our penultimate match we pushed last years winners, Notts, very close. We were 1 - 1 with a couple of minutes to go, when I managed to run for the first time in the weekend, get past my marker, and see my running in shot creep to the top of the basket, teeter precariously for about 20 minutes, and then trickle back down the front of the basket. Notts then went straight down the other end and scored the winning goal! Typical Sandwich killer instinct!!
This meant the final match of the weekend against 7 man Midlands would decide who got 4th place. This was a gripping, tight contest and it was probably the fairest result that it ended in a draw to leave us tied on 4th=.
This was a really enjoyable tournament and a great experience to play with a squad full of National league players - keep your eyes peeled for all those National league tricks we picked up - like how to goad refs into giving you a yellow card. (It was also the first time I've played in a team with someone less than half my age!!! Arrrgghh!!) The team did extremely well to take 4th place playing a player short, especially with the stifling heat on the Saturday.
Kent Squad:
Nadia, Duncan, Karl, Jif, Lisa, Lauren, Matt & Adam Dibble.
Report by Duncan