Wilderspool Causeway

This was an impressive performance from the team, if a little too comfortable at times. Evan chipped in with four assists from midfield, playing delicately weighted balls into Hayden Harris on two occasions and sliding in for a shot on the keeper which was followed up by Amelia Mulvaney for an important goal to put us two up early on. Twyford struggled to make an impression on the game, perhaps due to an unusual philosophy which led to the whole team being rotated every five minutes: they seemed to have brought a whole coach load of players across the wastes of Sonning for the game. The Twyford manager – a grizzled South African who looked like a cross between Jurgen Klopp and Joe Mangle – keep shouting in support of the ‘Comuts’ but struggled to cultivate much coherent play when there were so many grandparents and parents to satisfy in his own ranks.

With players missing due to the Norovirus, commitments in the Black Country and spreadsheet misinterpretation, Wokingham had to face the multitudes of Twyford with no substitutes or room for misadventure. With Amelia Mulvaney playing at the apex of the Christmas Tree formation, she was fed chance after chance by Connor and Evan who made the Twyford rearguard look about as impregnable as the buffer zone around Theresa May’s lectern. She had five near misses before poaching two goals before half time; her dad, Coach Michael, with motives as inscrutable as I’m sure they were sound, then took the decision to remove her from the fray in the second half, thereby denying her the chance of a first hat-trick. She spent the second half in goal, brought out of isolation once to confidently tip the ball around the post and deny Twyford a consolation. With Wokingham in command, cousin Connor then risked charges of complacency by leaving the game entirely with 5 minutes to go; this wasn’t Robin Friday running through the gates of Elm Park and straight into the Spread Eagle after scoring a hat-trick, though. He was off to a major Cub event in London.

Twyford and Klopp/Mangle/Warne will have to regroup, and I’d advise them to do so in fewer numbers – they need to slim the roster a bit. Maybe not ‘root and branch’ reform, but certainly a bit of judicious pruning’s in order. After the game, Evan and best mate Ozzy disappeared into the shrubbery and tall trees, emerging a while later with a friendly and slightly doddery lady from Winnersh who had advised them to climb with caution: straight off the pitch and up the trees – a refreshingly classic activity before tortuous traffic and a one hour journey from Woodley to Reading just for a decent post-match milkshake in Reading’s ‘you’re not smelly anymore’ alley.

Playing football, climbing trees, drinking milkshakes, hanging around in the Black Country, going to cub conventions, chatting to dishevelled South Africans: we may not have learned much from the game itself today, but we definitely had a decent window on some wholesome activities occurring in the world around us.