Many of my favourite moments come from the NSPL Sat night gatherings at Reading/Bricket, with lots of us bonfiring and boozing in the car-parks all night!
Onfield, playing London Shock. I was playing for the team I had formed, Mindful violence, with Alex and his Dad - in the Alex being in his first year of sup'air - and a couple of guys from Ratz guesting for us.
It was the Bricket-wood Winter series, and it had snowed heavily. We ended up playing against a couple of decent teams in a four team round robin race 2 - no one else had turned up! As a lowly NSPL Div Four team, having had our arses kicked all summer, we were expecting a rought ride - especially as shock had a very strong team.
On the break, I knew I could make the snake, and briefed the rest to drop into the cluster of bunkers around back center, as I expected LS to be overconfident and come at us hard. We clipped one off the break and I was therefore able to make the snake 60, then pop up and see three packs lined up - I took all three, the Shock Captain attempted to mug one of our guys. He argued the call and I put three more in his pack whilst he argued, then ran the buzzer.
In the second point, I stayed in back center and pushed an extra guy D-side. They were a bit pissed off and came to quick, and we managed to win the point with 4 alive.
To sum up, a little rag tag team of inexperienced player beat a strong top division Mills team 2-0 with only one loss. We went on to narrowly lose our second game, then win the third, taking a joint first place. What really made it a great day was the amount of guys that shook our hands and congratulated us.
