Croydon Korfball Club - Korfball in South London | Super Friendly and Competitive Sport

Croydon 2 vs Invicta 2

The game was set in another early Sunday morning and most players crawled out of their warm cosy beds to get to a game which was a comedy of errors from the word 'go'. Phone calls between 2nd team players indicated that the game wasn't at Maidstone but at Fort Pitt.

After the initial confusion Croydon players finally got to the destination albeit a bit late and started their warm up for a game against Invicta. Captain Nigel Hudspith, Lynda Barker, Becki Pratt and Zu Munshi started in attack with coach Paul Jeanes, Jane Belfourd, Vernon Ellis and Julia Johnson in defence.

From the start it was apparent that Invicta had played their strongest boys in first attack and holding them from scoring for long enough would ensure a Croydon victory. Initially this worked well as Croydon scored first and went up to a 3- 1 lead. Becki Pratt opening the account for Croydon with the first goal after losing her marker.

Invicta weren't one to give up easily and regular goals from either side brought up the half 7-5 in favour to Croydon. Things went into the twilight zone here as the referee indicated that the score be changed to 6-6. After a discussion with the both captains and Invicta's scorer this mistake was rectified. Invicta's support base grew in the second half and the home advantage was apparent with loads of cheering from the bench on every home goal. Croydon went into the lead at one stage 9-6, but were unable to hold it as Invicta, rejuvenated, fought back to level the game.

Croydon and Invicta then proceeded to swap one goal on either end to bring the score to 11 all. At this point Croydon players tried very hard to score their goals but seemed to miss the basket. This continued for at least 15 minutes and Invicta pushed harder to get their goal leaving the score 12-11 at the whistle.

This game was one of the lowest scoring games for Croydon and one which never pushed the team players to their limits. The captain aptly coined the loss of the game to the fact that Croydon had, "a one percent scoring rate". Hopefully the second leg will bring great fervour and motivation within Croydon to put away a team that wasn't as good as us on paper but better on the day. Well done to goal scorers Paul, Lynda, Nigel, Becki P, Jane and Vernon.

Match Report by Andy