Witham 4’s took on the tough trip to league leaders Old Loughts 6’s on Saturday. Thanks to some untimely traffic complications en route, by the time we’d actually got there it felt like we could have swum to Sydney in the same time.

Having got there, an insightful tactical talk from Dinky in the changing room and Jacob doing his best Dory impression by forgetting he needs shorts to play hockey set us up for what turned out to be a Nemo-tional late afternoon.

Early exchanges saw Loughts bearing down on Witham’s circle like barracudas round a reef, with wave after wave of attacks repelled by the resolute defending of Dinky, Steve and Scott and Jon’s amazing habit of being the right “plaice” at the right time.

Witham began to come out of their shell as the game developed and ventured into foreign waters with more confidence. With Sam breaking up play, and Nick, Terry “Crush” Venebles and Fish (Paul “Marlin” Hewitt) venturing patiently forward to bring Austin, Callum, Oscar and Nemo more into the game, swimming against the tide of the Loughts attacks.

First blood however eventually fell to Loughts who swept up the pitch exploiting holes in an over-committed midfield, overpowering the defence with numbers and slamming the ball past Jon in goal. By the time we got to regroup at half time the purple (an)enemies had added a second.

Nemo and the Tank Gang needed an escape plan, and Dinky stepped up to the role of Gill as if it was written for him. His advice: just keep moving (or was that swimming?).

With the sound advice ringing in our ears, we got our skate(s) on and the game was suddenly on more of an even keel. With the younger snapper-fish increasingly making a nuisance of themselves, we won a PC which was eventually netted at the far post by Fish (AKA Marlin).

With the game up for grabs, a momentary deviation from the script saw a brief venture into the Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a “memorable” tackle from Steve which certainly stopped the attack and also gave him a breather.

Loughts managed to sink a match defining third goal to make it 3-1 at full time. But the Witham Tank Gang’s younger members should be deservedly proud of how they proved they are more than capable of swimming in the big sea with the big fish - drawing the second half 1-1 away at the league leaders - and none more so than Nemo himself who put in a real coming of age performance to earn man of the match and make Marlin super proud