TWFC

Seven players attended tonight leading to the agreement to swap a player at half time. In the Captain Stays On arrangement to celebrate the new England captaincy, this week Niyi was captain and Jon stayed on having won the previous week. Idiosyncratically Niyi tried to convince his team to start with a weakened side, hold their own, then flourish in the second half. This might be described as a Marie Antoinette style of management; in effect he asked his team to bear with the lean times and they would eat cake thereafter. Like the good French burghers of the 18th century his team expressed their fundamental disgust at the idea but like true genteel scholars decided to give it a chance.

In 3 against 4 the four person team must have stick keeper and also their outfield players must achieve a chain of each player touching the ball at least once in the opposing half, without the opponents touching it, before scoring.

The gamble seemed to pay off and though Jon's Mufti team scored seven, Milo, Steve and Niyi were able to score five. During this period of play Milo won and converted a penalty. In the last two and a half years no one has ever missed a penalty. At 8:45pm with the score at only 7 - 5 to the Muftis half time was called.

Decisions decisions! who to take? Danny had earlier said he was just back from a glorious beach holiday and feared he might not be on top of his game; so Like Louis van Gaal Niyi chose to forsake Danny and instead he advocated striking at the heart of the opposition by taking their captain Jon.

7 - 5 the game restarted and stayed that way as the Bibs were continuously stymied by the Muftis man marking and breaking the three touch chains. Then as if to prove a point Danny struck to make it 8 - 5 to the Muftis (this was not in the script). Somehow the three person team of Ben, Danny and Koonal did the unexpected and with a combination of marking and counterattacking brought the score to 15 - 10 to the Muftis by 9:23pm.

We can, and often do, play to about 9:45pm when pitch availability allows it, an attempt was made to play on but 3 v 4 takes it out of you and eventually logic dictated an end had to come. It is believed that the final decision was best of three and the Muftis won this 2 -1 consolidating an impressive victory.

Match awarded to the Muftis 17 - 12.

Things to Note

There is no football on 24 September as Spurs are playing Notts Forest in the Capital One cup.

Jon is the most successful captain so far in this month of Captain Stays On with 1.5 victories.

Four players went for a drink to rehydrate their aching muscles. The evening included two closely contested, highly technical, frames of pool lasting almost 30 minutes each. With Niyi and Milo 1 - 0 up at 11:45pm and the last frame down to a straight black over the pocket Ben stepped up then said he could not stretch far enough to reach the distant cue ball. There was no rest in the pub. The ever resourceful Danny convinced his opponents that in such a circumstance, in the absence of a rest, the player at the table could take the shot using his playing partner in lieu of a rest.

The outcome of this paradigm shifting shot can be viewed at
http://hrmisolutions.com/jwfc/pool_2014_09_10.php