Schedule for week commencing 5 May 2008

The next game is on Monday night, 5 May 2008, at Bukit Timah campus. As stated last week, as was the case this Monday, only the 9 to 10 pm slot on Court No. 2 was available for booking for next Monday. However, the lot who play before us on Court No. 2 were not there this Monday (despite having booked) and, as such, we could have started earlier. So for next week, be there by 8.30 pm (even though the 8 to 9 slot has been booked by the other lot). If the other lot are there, we will have to wait half an hour to start, otherwise, we can start early.

(For the following Monday, 12 May 2008, I have managed to get Court No. 2 from 8 to 10 pm!)

Confirmations for Monday’s session by 5 pm today please – by submitting a comment/response below, by reply e-mail, by SMSing me or even via the FAFI Group on Facebook.

For next week at The Cage, only a 7 to 8 pm slot on Wednesday was available when I booked several weeks ago. (I have now booked either an 8 to 9 or a 9 to 10 pm slot at The Cage on Wednesdays up to the end of June. It is even harder to get a slot at Sports Planet at East Coast).

Confirmations for Wednesday’s session by Monday lunchtime please. I understand that some of the Wednesday crowd will be away next week, and others may not be able to make the earlier start, so if I do not get at least 10 confirmations by Monday afternoon, I will cancel next week’s Wednesday session.

Report for 1 May 2008

We had 13 in all at the Cage yesterday morning – Geoff, Ben Y, Steve, Swee Hoe, Andy C, Collin, Simon, Jayesh, Sam, Heath, Llion, Andy P (not the same as Andrew P) and me.

Geoff, Steve and Simon had their kids playing on one of the other pitches, and Andy P was a friend of Geoff’s who joined us yesterday.

We started with Geoff, Ben Y, Steve, Andy C, Jayesh and Andy P (Whites/Lights) v Collin, Simon, Sam, Llion, Swee Hoe and me (Blacks/Whites). With both sides showing nice touches, the early exchanges were even, with the game tied at 2-2, before some clinical finishing took Whites/Lights ahead.

When Heath arrived, he came on as a rolling sub for Blacks/Darks, and before he could get into the full swing of the game, a clumsy challenge on Jayesh took the latter out, with a sprained ankle. Jayesh, I hope you recover soon, and you’re not put off joining us in the future.

Although there was some amount of shuffling of players until the end of the game, the two sides remained largely the same. With Andy C strong in defence, midfield or attack, and Geoff tenacious in winning the ball, Whites/Lights extended their lead. It didn’t help that Sam had switched to Whites/Lights after Jayesh went out, and despite not having played with us for a while, was his usual industrious self, winning the ball and making effective use of it. Even when Blacks/Darks created chances, Andy C was a boulder in goal. Despite Llion’s charging runs, and good link up play with Swee Hoe and Collin up front, Blacks/Darks were not finishing off their chances, while Whites/Lights were. Amongst other things, Llion needed more composure when getting his shots off on goal.

In the last quarter of an hour, Blacks/Darks managed to put away some of their chances, and pulled back the score to 9-12 by the finish.