Men vs Essex - 22/10/2022 (A)

BLWP 17 - 5 Essex

CORE 6 Match Report

This is a tale like no other, the tale of the Core 6!

Twas a cool autumn evening, when a band of four brothers, the Core 4, descended upon Mile End tube station. There was an eery sense of defeat having learnt that we would be PLAYING A MAN DOWN THE WHOLE GAME. Even worse news, we would be playing without our captain who was trapped at a wedding. But. Water Aid had plan. Whipping his notebook out with so much conviction like no man had ever before, he devised a plan of pure tactical genius; a plan even the Core 7 would be proud of. Having drawn the most intricate energy diagram, the fate of Essex had been sealed. Upon arriving in Colchester the Core 4 were a little confused. It hasn’t been Christmas dinner yet, why were they in Essex? The tide was even further against our favour. When reaching the pool, the Core 4 became the Core 6 and little did these men know that they were about to make history…

Despite Water Aid’s best negotiation attempt, Essex refused to play with one less man to match us. Shocking! This would not stop us though. Seeing the arrival of coach Jose, we were hyped up and ready to leave it all out in the pool. 

Soon the first quarter started and we were off. In typical Lumpfish style he won the swim off, but in tragic events Essex won the ball went straight up to our end and they scored. Despite the feeling that this may be a long game our heads did not drop, literally! As in the next possession an Essex player launched a shot straight into Chundy Shark’s face denying a certain goal, and from the rebound went up and equalised courtesy of Tadpole Christian. The battle had commenced and by the end of the quarter we were miraculously leading 3-2 thanks to another goal by Tadpole Christian and one by Seahare.

In the second quarter Water Aid’s defensive masterpiece was put into action: the 5 die. Chunky Shark and Tadpole Brandon (who was making his debut) were unwavering in their defence of the goal posts, and yet again Chundy put his face on the line blocking yet another goal. With coach José Mourinho barking orders at us, we employed some beautiful counter attacking water polo with Lumpfish and Tadpole Christian picking up another goal a piece. Despite the referee’s best efforts of refusing to call any fouls against Essex and only us, the scoreline was 4-5.

The third quarter was about to start and even the referee’s couldn’t believe what was going on. With no thanks to Water Aid, a shouting match began with them, when one of Essex’s men couldn’t figure out how to put a hat on. Even they were against the CORE 6! It wasn’t just the referee’s that were rattled, the Essex men were as well. In events that are still difficult to comprehend their collapse began. First of all they lacked the ability to count, leading to their captain being wrapped. Then their goalie decided to donate two lovely penalties to our cause, meaning he was wrapped as well. Combined with some of the most beautiful water polo from us, we grew the lead to 10-4.

History was nearly made and only a quarter of play was in our way. Now it was Seahare’s time to shine not only did he add an exquisite goal to the scoresheet, his moustache also lived rent free in one of the Essex’s players heads, leading to him being uppercutted twice. But he had the chin of Tyson Fury and was unaffected by this. Goal after goal went into Essex’s end with one of the most outrageous backshot’s known to man by Tadpole Christian. The highlight of this quarter was Tadpole Brandon scoring a thunderous penalty on his debut. 

The final whistle blew and the CORE 6 became etched into water polo history. We had won by the staggering margin of 17-5!!! Even more surprising, was that on the scoresheet we found out that we had an imposter in our team. It was Tadpole Brandon not Tadpole Christian who had scored 10 goals for us. Tadpole Brandon MVP!!!

What an outrageous result from the CORE 6 and I couldn’t be any prouder!

To the rest of the water polo world watch out and shush!!!

Goal Scorers: Lumpfish, Seahair, Tadpole Christian, Tadpole Brandon