We all know about Men's 1 and Men's 2, but what about us jolly lot in
Men's 3? Very quiet in terms of matches (and therefore match reports)
this season, so time to start making amends...
Oxford Bullox aren't blessed with an assortment of French, Germans,
Italians and other such countries who have all played volleyball since they
were 8 months old. Instead we have a fine medley of try-hard enthusiasts
who started volleyball in their 30's (well apart from captain Matt Smith of
course, who might even have reached 15 years old by now). Accompanied by
our flamboyant Italian coach Luca, who possesses the energy and bounce of a
loveable tail wagging cocker-spaniel that has just downed a can of Red Bull, a
team consisting of Matt S, Matt B, Tony, Jon, Nick, Ivan and the vastly
experienced Neil "Papa Smith" all set sail for Kendrick School in
Reading!
Up first, Didcot... a cheeky warm-up, some words of wisdom from Coach
Red-Bull and we were off! Tit for tat at first with scores tripping up
over themselves, things very tight indeed. Alas as seems to happen with
the Bullox from time to time, first passing started letting us down, a few
dodgy arms here and there turned into mis-hits and other subsequent errors,
setter Matt S was steaming round the court like a pinball machine in full flow
trying to rescue things, but after a promising start we began to make a right Horlicks
of it all. At 12-20 down Coach Red-Bull sensibly called a time-out…
On to set 2....
Now then, if the last set was edge-of-your-seat stuff, this one was
squeaky bum time all the way! With the score rarely more than one or two
points apart, both teams jostled for the advantage. The capacity crowd
could barely contain their excitement... it wasn't long before we were at the
business end of the set, although our serve had started to let us down on a few
occasions by this point. Alas our ice cool finish to the previous set
wasn't to be, and disaster struck as from a scoreline of 23-24, Didcot eked
out the final point to nick the second set. Damn!
A swift and stiff brandy to calm the nerves, and then on to the deciding
set...
Did I mention this was a close match? And so it proved, we snuck
ahead 8-7 before the customary switcheroo half way through the third set.
At 10-10, a dubious call by the referee... and it was all getting too
much for Coach Red-Bull on the side-lines, and a verbal diarrhoea of loud and
passionate Italian diatribe suddenly spewed from his mouth! Mr. Referee
raised his eyebrows at Captain Matt Smith in an inquisitive manner, who rather
eloquently told Coach Red-Bull to "kindly refrain from any further
outbursts or misdemeanours" (I paraphrase slightly...) On we
pressed... annoyingly a few individual errors cost us vital points, but on we
soldiered, cos we iz well-'ard in Team Bullox... 15-15... 16-16... 16-17...
17-17... 18-17!! Could we nick it? NO! 18-18... 18-19... oh-oh..
and then tragedy struck! The killer blow landed by Didcot at the bitter
end, 18-20 the final scoreline and thus a 2-1 win to them!
Disappointment all round the team after our efforts, but we dusted
ourselves down and immediately prepared for Reading Uni...
Well, the warm up certainly gave us a flavour of what to expect!
Reading have a powerful set of hitters, a few lusty blows were hammered
hard into the 3 metre line like cannons going off at regular intervals, and
when one Reading mis-hit torpedoed cleanly down the line of my centre parting
leaving a friction burn in place before my arms even had time to react, we knew
we would have to be at our best to compete. A quick change in personnel
too, Neil had contributed hugely to our performance against Didcot but it was
time for Coach Red-Bull to deploy young Ivan into the team for his first match!
16 years old, but with some great skills including a bullet-like serve
that would make your eyes water if you were to miss a pass aimed at waist
height...
Now then the scoreline won't say so, but Team Bullox certainly upped
their game from the previous match significantly! First passing was much
better all round, giving our setter a chance to get us into the match more
often and provide some hits to his front men. In defence, we were
starting to cotton onto their crafty technique of quick hits through the
middle, cheeky sets and crafty tips at all angles in between the raging raw power
of their angry hitting beasts! Sure we were still done like kippers a
number of times, and we each ticked ourselves off when it was our own fault,
but improvements were evident all round the court. We certainly caused
Reading some anxious moments, and them calling a time-out with the score at 10-9
to us was a great but rather brief morale victory before they returned, upped
their game significantly and, despite our staunch resistance, ran out as 25-14
winners of set 1.
Second set, and with enthusiasm still high we tried to get as close as
we could to Reading. The result was never in doubt but we battled with all we
had to push Reading as hard as we could in order to earn their victory.
Some epically long rallies were had, and in particular Jon dug out a
couple amazing first passes from a couple of lusty Reading hits, and in the
middle I was working up a tremendously hot forehead of sweat trying to block
two big Reading front men (think "wardrobe" and "barn door"
for size comparisons), there were times when you could have cooked an egg on it
due to the radiating heat...
We threw everything at them and tried all that we have been taught, but
it was just "one of those sets". You know, a bit like those
days where you hit every red light on the way into work, choose the wrong queue
in the supermarket or hit 'reply all' to an office email. Nobody likes
such days but they just happen unfortunately, and certainly in this set nothing
quite worked. A 10-25 loss but smiles all round after a battling effort! Lots of sore limbs left the battle ground of
Kendrick School, and we knew that the following day we would all be walking
around with the ease and flexibility of a pensioner on a cold winter’s morning!
Written by Matt Buckley
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