Er. As the sun baked astroturf of the University of the West of England was gradually populated by 14 Westbury players and their new coach Jo Thomas, an air of expectation was almost tangible. Under new leadership both on and off the pitch, many great things were expected of this westbury team. Taking to the field for the first time this winter, it was clear by the number of new faces, that this was going to be an exciting game. Happily this author can report, Paul Croker took to the field umpiring having been called up at the last minute to fill a gap. The game started, and my did it start. UWE came out of the traps with a verve and enthusiasm which was both unexpected and a tribute to their coach who was away in Ireland visiting (ahem) his Mrs. The opening clashes were even and more expeditious than truly piercing as both teams sought to push and pull each other to see where the breaks might occur. First blood to UWE as a breakdown in defence allowed an attacker clean through on Mr Krebs who showing pre-season rustiness got all in a tackle with his feet and allowed the ball under him into the goal. A period of difficulty followed where old habits, dying hard, came through and Westbury decided that a well measured panic would be more effective than planned thoughtful hockey, and proceeded to give UWE the ball repeatedly, on and inside the 23m area. A culmination of some superb last ditch tackling from the assemblement of Mr Holmes, Mr Smith and Mr Watts, who it must be said however, were oft. responsible for the lapses, saw that the only damage was to lose a second goal in bizarre circumstances as a 1 on 1 at the top of the D between an attacker and mr Krebs was channeled expertly to the left wing and Mr Knight's help in giving the attacker a very narrow angle to cross from was sadly turned into an own goal as Mr Knight's dedicated attempt at intercepting the cross only served to deflect the ball into the goal. These things happen during pre-season friendlies and must be accepted and learned from. Mr Knight need feel no anguish as the only defender seeing fit to aid the goalkeeper in his exploits. Westbury had to respond. They did. It was worth mentioning that prior to this, the curse of Bristolians refereeing/umpiring struck for the 2nd time in a week as a low Mr Richardson drive across the goal into the bottom left corner of the UWE goal was missed by both umpires and the game was allowed to play on as the ball bounced from the goal into play. To make amends, it was left to Mr Hill to attempt a virtually identical shot and succeed in waking the umpires sufficiently to award the goal. 1-2. This not only served to justify the attacking prowess of Mssrs Smerald, Wilkins, Mason, Watts, Richardson and Cutts, the latter of whom carving some exquisite first time balls from wide areas into danger zones for Mr Cochram and Hill to run onto, but also to rejuvenate a previously lethargic Westbury attack and culminated in a short corner and 2nd goal for Westbury courtesy of Mr Smerald who had been creating room and space all game. At half time, positives were taken in as copious volume as water on what was increasingly becoming a clammy Saturday afternoon in Frenchay. The second half started. UWE had clearly had a think at half time. They approached the half with the philosophy that scoring goals would win the game. This philosophy allowed them to create a few short corner chances, which after the initial attempt on goal was tamely mopped up by Mr Krebs, a secondary attempt was given and it took Mr Krebs' entire length throwing to his right to block it with his chest and move the ball to the right of the pitch and out the way. Westbury were struggling to maintain the pace by which they had finished the first half. Chances befell Westbury, Mr Wilkins working well with Mr Hill and Mr Mason putting UWE under pressure, no more so than when a UWE defender decided in the spirit of utter stupidity, to undercut a clearance, with no pressure on himself, straight at Mr Mason's face. Now those of you who know Mr Mason, will understand that an assault on his facial features counts as an assault on the very essence of Mr Mason. Showing cat-like reactions Mr Mason got his clenched fist between the ball and his coupon, rendering his hand in considerably more pieces than it had previously intended to finish the game in. Continuing, a 4th goal from a fairly well taken drag-flick was applied by UWE against a now flagging Westbury, and UWE again decided to abandon all forethought and sense and this time attempted to alter the looks of Mr Watts. Now those of you who know Mr Watts will know that an assault on the facial features of Mr Watts is not taken in quite the same protective manner as Mr Mason, as Mr Watts, it would appear, concentrates more on his personality than his looks. Mr Watts took the ball right on the point of the nose and proceeded to manfully bleed everywhere whilst assuring everyone that all was well and he would resume shortly. He did. Luckily. The game proceeded in a slow fashion with UWE adding 2 more goals as Westbury attacked to close the score gap down. And the game ended 6-2. For a first game of the season it should be noted that the performance was far above what was expected by this writer and UWE likewise were considerably better than anticipated. Apart from the 2 sad incidents which were by no way intentional, the game was an enjoyable affair with reasonably good banter with everyone, despite UWE irking Mr Croker on occasion by not respecting his authority. It is this writers sad duty to report that Mr Mason will be out for a few weeks as Britain's "pigdog communist" free healthcare service seeks to rebuild his right claw. Free America would never approve. Mr Watts, the other casualty of the day, is in fine spirits and is applying for a paralympic licence so he can continue sport despite his debilitating gingerness. Thanks to Mr Croker for umpiring, and Mmes Griffiths, Barber, Iles and Hart for their enthusiastic support and proving that Westbury have better looking groupies than even a Uni team. Not a bad effort.

It was this writers pleasure to welcome to the club Mr Owen Kemp and to welcome to the first team Mr Jonny Day both making their debuts in sadly a baptism of fire. Prior to the match starting, Mr Krebs intimated to Mr Thomas the coach that he would like to experiment with a 2-3-2-3 formation given that we were going to be under it anyway and it would be a good chance to stress-test the formation to see if there was any point in persevering with it at a later date. Mr Thomas, the voice of caution sensing an impending rout relented gracefully with the caveat of changing it at halftime if it was going horridly. The scene was set.Mr Thomas spent a good time explaining this new and rather weird formation to a skeptical squad who manfully took on their tasks with a minimum of fuss. Presumably used to getting thrashed by Robinsons and not really fussy how it was to be achieved this time.The game started with Robinsons being somewhat taken aback by the fluid nature of Westbury in particular the ever presence of 3 central midfielders who were able to control both attacking and defensive play with the minimum of fuss and convert one to the other with some deft running and slick passing. It is no exaggeration to say that the opening encounters of this game belonged to Westbury and only a good committed stop by the Robbies goalkeeper prevented the Verdi Rossi from taking an early lead. Going low well to block Mr Cutts' effort from the top of the D. In true Westbury style however, the time came to start making the odd daft mistake, however for some reason Westbury forgot this and continued to dominate the game. Mssrs Smerald, Holmes, Wilkins (both) and a midfield paring of Mr Richardson and the acerbically vocal Mr Barnes combining in all ares to shovel the ball up the wings and create problems for Robinsons for the entire 35 minutes of the first half.
A slight lapse in concentration allowed a 2 on 1 against Mr Krebs and sadly Robinsons, against the run of play, went in at half time a goal up. At this point credit must go to Mr Watts and Mr Smith who played in what can only be described as an unnatural role at centre back, curtailing well their usual forays up the pitch to create a defense that was both secure and fluid in transition. Judging well when to switch from Zonal to Man marking as both they and Mr Krebs learned the in's and out's of this new defensive style.Half time was a jolly affair with 14 happy players and a happy coach somewhat incredulous at the score line but genuinely feeling that the game was theirs to reclaim and that for once a change in attitude was not required.The second half. Traditionally the time when in pre-season, Westbury start to drop out of the game and better teams can take opportunities to score as a result of tired legs and tired brains. The first 2-3 minutes proved to be no change to this as a rejuvenated Robinsons side came out of the traps flying looking to kill the game off early with a staid and boring half court press. Westbury took a minute or two to really come to terms with this negative style of play and the opening exchanges were as fruitful as they were dangerous. A feature of this game which has not been touched on yet was the umpiring. West had kindly supplied 2 of their umpires to the game with a view to them getting some experience in the new rules set up before the season started, and certainly one of the umpires took to this new found ability to boss about like a duck to water, asking Mr Krebs to not place his water bottle in the goal net as it would clearly affect everything. It is OK to do this in European hockey, but not the west of England. Perhaps the FIH could learn a thing or two from West about how to run hockey matches. Both umpires were superb in all aspects of their control and management of the game, taking the lead in ensuring that their philosophy on the new rules was understood and that players had an opportunity to carry the game out correctly before being penalised for a transgression.This served to ensure that what has traditionally been a tense fixture even in friendly guise, was played with the minimum of prima-donna hissy fitting and this writer is not aware of any cards being shown.Back to the hockey. Having had 5-10 minutes to assess Robinson's shell shocked half court press, (clearly deciding that they were lucky to be a goal ahead and preservation was key) we started to work our way into their strong defensive midfield setup and create a little space. What was lacking however was the willingness to get the ball into the D and take a little risk up front every now and then. Most of what was supplied into the D was dealt with superbly by the Robinsons' goalkeeper. One unusual vocal transgression from Robinsons allowed Westbury to turn over a free-hit quickly and take advantage of the self-pass and after much trying, Phil Cockram found himself in front of a gaping goal and had the presence of mind to slip a looping ball into the backboard to draw the scores level. Again, those who have watched Westbury will know that this is when they traditionally, and somewhat sportingly, let the opposition back into the game so they can have another go. For whatever reason, this phenomenon failed to materialise and Robinsons, not without chances, were unable to find any dominance in the game. Quickly reverting to a full court high press, it is testament to both Wilkins brothers, Mr Day who came into the defence with aplomb, Mr Richardson who's aggression was controlled and incisive, and Mr Cutts who as Mr Poulsom mentioned after the game "was tripping as he was able to see passes that no one else could see" managed to work above the press and create gaps in midfield that a less fluid formation would have been unable to sustain.One brief threat on goal following a short corner to Robinsons required Mr Krebs to make a diving save to his top right Postage stamp and deflect a hard driven snapshot over the back line to keep the scores level. Other than that, there were no real instances where Robinsons threatened the Westbury dominance of the game. Other than the brilliance of the Robinsons' goalkeeping, the only reason that Westbury did not win the game by two goals to one can only be explained by Mr Richardson. Space is available for Mr Richardson to explain, by way of reply to this post, how he failed to even get his shot, with no pressure, 20ft out from an open goal, wide of the left post by about a metre. Leaving a truly astonished Mr Cutts to try to shovel it into the goal from the goal line, to no avail.The game ended 1-1, happily this writer can report that for once this does not flatter Westbury in any way and any justice in the world would have ended Westbury 1 or 2 goals ahead come full time. Perhaps then the only negative to take is an inability to take chances.Who would have thought that before the game. Thanks must be given to Mr Thomas for his invaluable coaching and willingness to adopt a style he was not altogether 100% sure about. The umpires, as I said before performed with aplomb and made the game enjoyable for all. The Westbury traveling support in the form of: Mr and Mrs Longden, Mr Ogilvie, Mr Poulsom, Miss Hart, Miss Griffiths, Mr Frost and Mr Palmer. Who all added to a great atmosphere and disconcerted Robbies somewhat, who went into the game sure it was their home fixture. Robinsons, and particularly Mr Long for organising the binge, and finally each and every Westbury player who surpassed all expectations and have now raised the bar quite considerably for both themselves and for those who were not playing. Competition for the new season is rife, and anyone who was not part of the team tonight is going to have to really think about how they are to earn their place. Quite simply, no one will be getting dropped who plays like that.