Mens 1s v Hertfordshire

LSE 2
Hertfordshire 5
The Regions

By Porter

The first game of the season had come around yet again; with the departure of a few familiar and important faces the LSE Hockey firsts had a very different look about it. However, few things change, as our ever-punctual Irishman with his stupid rollerblades was yet again late.

We set out to Hertfordshire feeling like pros in our 75-seater minibus, hoping that the sight of this colossus of a bus would frighten our provincial opponents into submission. Sadly this was not to be, as our competitors looked more than capable of giving us a thrashing. The first five minutes certainly reflected this, as we started in our usual fashion, we played like experimenting virgins, nervous and fumbling our way to what we thought was the way to play. Luckily, we soon remembered we were in fact seasoned pros and managed to take the lead after a well-worked short corner. That ended with a drag fluke into the corner of the goal from our shire resident captain Frodo. Though James ‘ginger’ Jackson did attempt to claim the goal claiming that the reflection from the sun on his balding scalp had managed to distract the defenders and keeper.

After taking an early lead the game ebbed and flowed in the usual fashion, sadly the umpires felt the need to award a penalty flick against us and generally award the other team as many free hits as humanly possible. The final score was 5-2 to Hertfordshire, the score not accurately reflecting the tight game that only got away from us in the last ten minutes – perhaps more fitness training is required. There were encouraging performances by our freshers with our very own Arabian Prince putting in a particularly good display upfront with Baloo’s favourite man child Mowgili.

We managed to leave Herefordshire with our pride restored after a fine display in the post-match boat races, a very special mention to our new sceptic tank Nial. Little did the freshers know that this was only the warm up to their night of drinking as they still had the infamous initiation to complete.

Thus, Houghton Street was yet again turned into the drinking assault course first dreamed up by a Scottish SAS captain and now used by the LSE mens hockey team to separate those who just want to play hockey from real team players. The fastest time was 1min50secs from the above-mentioned Nial, and the losing time, a dismal performance from Rob ‘i’m not welsh’ f**knut of 2min55secs. The most vomit award must go to Alan Ball who produced a puddle of vomit that was so large the cleaning bill has effectively dashed London’s hopes of having the Olympic games in 2012. Well done to all for completing initiation and welcome to the LSE hockey first eleven. Strength and HonourTM.