12 Goal Bonanza in Swindon featuring “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly !!”

What a crazy day away in Swindon! You could not have written the script, and the few words that are committed to this match report, will never do justice to the day.....! The cold frost and snow had cancelled all our home games, and simultaneously sent Captain Ed Watson into a heightened frenzy as he fought tirelessly to find out if our away game in Swindon was still on. It proved almost impossible to find out if our game in Swindon was on or not and Captain Ed had “never sent so many messages in his life, [his] battery was drained” and allegedly he had "sworn before lunchtime !”.

Eventually, Ed got the all clear from Swindon and sent out the vital message and rallying cry........, “THE GAME IS ON”. We hurried out of Marlborough (& surrounding area) and headed for Swindon (there is a first time for everything!) , where we arrived with less than 10 mins to warm up. Now it has to be said that “Short Warm ups” have served us very well this year. But not today. The most memorable part of the warm up was Captain Ed’s “very vocal Anglo-Saxon description of his day so far and his overall opinion of the environs of Swindon – no offence intended!”. However, something was not quite right.....and the most bizarre game of hockey got under way.

THE BAD & THE UGLY....Marlborough - 3 nil down in under 10 minutes!

Marlborough started well...... for about a minute. Actually that is too generous, the best that can be said is that we were on the pitch !

1-0 Swindon, went on the attack in the 2nd minute and with their very first strike scored! Not a problem, we have given away cheap goals and come behind from a goal down before! Time to wake up and start playing.

2-0 Swindon went on their 2nd attack of the day and scored again in open play ! WTF – 2 goals down already! Time to wake up and get a grip !

3-0 Swindon went on their 3rd attack and won a short corner, from which they scored! OMG, 3-Nil down in less than 10 minutes ! What was going on!!?

Swindon, by now, were massively pumped up for this game and presumably, prematurely, were sniffing a big win. Marlborough, on the other hand, were still too cold and mentally vacant (of a defensive midfield!), and mindful too that little good comes from being premature!

3-1 Keith Radnedge scores in open play ! Desperate times called for desperate measures....cometh the hour, cometh the man – Keith Radnedge (Note - Centre Back), furthest man forward, scores an amazing overhead smash ! Game on and suddenly Marlborough had belief !

3-2 Justin Metcalfe scores an “amazing goal” [Justin’s words – not mine]. Some say it was a “tap in”, others say he beat jinxed past 15 people, beat both benches, and smashed in an amazing goal! It had to be seen to be believed!

3-3 Toby Sampson scored. Marlborough tails were up and we started playing proper hockey, epitomised by Mark Kinder who drove down the right, cut along the baseline and cut back to Toby who smartly slotted home.

3-4 Amazingly Marlborough take the lead before half time. Nat Clarke scores a cleverly deflected shot after Toby Sampson had done much of the hard work driving down the left or right (he couldn’t decide – it was all becoming a blur!!) and smartly cut back for Nat. Some proper hockey now being played!

4-4 WHAT ! Swindon scored again from another short corner....and the crazy game finally reached half time for all of us to catch our breath....and figure out what the score was!

5-4 NO WAY ! Would you believe it - Swindon take the lead again, through another short corner. To their credit, they were very efficient and took their chances well. We would just have to score 6 goals again, as we had done in previous games.

5-5 Keith Radnedge scores his second goal of the game from a straight strike at the top of the D. Now at this stage of the game many of us had no idea what the score was but we knew that we would go on to win.

5-6 On the 11th goal of the game Marlborough take the lead for the second time. Adam Staines scores after some great build up play from Mark Kinder.

5-7 Marlborough extend the lead through Mark Ramage who flicked in a rebound (only needing one hand on the stick) after the keeper had made another good save from Justin Metcalfe.

The goals don’t tell half the story. Mark Ramage got sent off (again!) for an attempted kick at the ball – (more in tomorrow’s match report at Mark’s growing tendency to spend time on the bench!), Adam recovered swiftly from “a sniper attack”, the game was stopped several times to tell both sides to stop “appealing”!

Finally, a win is a win – our 3rd win in 8 days and puts us 2 points behind the league leaders with a game in hand. This game will live long in the memory for all those who played. The memories are as much about how wrong our initial formation was in the first 10 minutes, how we came back from 3 goals down, kept the faith – but all that cant be as painful as the memory of scoring 5 goals and still losing - the world works in mysterious ways !

Marlborough News Online MAN OF THE MATCH – Mark Kinder, who set up many goals and was at the heart of all that was good today !

MOMENT OF THE MATCH – So many !! But it has to be Captain Ed Watson’s pre-match antics to make the game happen and ultimately summarised by his pre-match team talk!