More Soupy, less sloppy

Despite being second-best for long periods, Edinburgh salvaged three points and showed how individual flair can triumph amongst industry and toil. Andrew Campbell, whose nickname is derived from sharing his surname with a brand of soup famously used to make a statement fifty years ago that consumerism can be art, deserves more than fifteen minutes of fame for his steady performances this season, and has led some to call the hockey he plays ‘Soupy Hockey’. Thus there is a call for soupier hockey in the finest Edinburgh team, which includes some players who that same evening trained with the Scottish team and in the match itself played like they deserved their place.

A slow game to start with, attributable to the November chill, the speed picked up but passes were wayward, overhit time and again leading to a flowing yet stilted game, with no side seizing the horns of the game. Dependable David Forrester made some strong saves, as did his opposite number Mark Hutchinson; though Edinburgh’s forwards were full of movement, they were low on converting possession into decent chances. Glasgow had the ball in the net five minutes before half-time but their play was deemed too vehement; the rule that high sticks cause danger to players saved Edinburgh, who were putting flair over discipline and trying, like Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, to pass their way delicately into the Glasgow goal. The bulwark for the men from the West in the first half was Chris Reid, number two on his back, over six foot tall and playing like a professional, leading the line vocally and confidently; Edinburgh would do well to ply him with a PhD or some such, or clone him, as he’s a terrific player of this game.

Stewart Laing was impressive upfront for Edinburgh with his spindly frame and Paddy Thompson looked tricky when he came on, but it was to Soupy that this game belonged, even as Glasgow’s forwards missed two or three sitters and couldn’t capitalise on their early second-half chances. Five minutes into the half, Reid pulled up clutching his leg and berating himself and his frail frame; his international coach, in attendance, revealed he had just started training for him after a long lay-off, and his howling threatened to cast a shadow over the game as it was held up. Yet the injury wouldn’t have happened if he had been the right side of the attacking Matt Connor who, after Reid went down, dragged his one-on-one wide. Moments later it was Soupy who danced round three players and slotted home; Reid was missed already and the home team threatened to run away with the game as they were kick-started into action.

As usual though, they were quiet, no man imposing themselves on the game with captain Duncan Birse, his bullet balls omnipresent in his arsenal, calling his team forward. Yet Birse and his defence, including one of Scotland’s finest young players in Callum Duke – whose face is set to a default mixture of wryness and determined concentration – played themselves into trouble, and it was from here that Glasgow would score their goal through Pete Abernathy, who looked like an extra from a Bon Iver video but took his finish very well all the same for 1-1 with fifteen minutes to play, Birse anxiously asking the official how long was left. Seconds afterwards, the ball was tapped in by Edinburgh, David Ellis the proud number nine converting coolly. Too many Glaswegians were anonymous, with none to rival Soupy’s play since Reid’s withdrawal, and they wasted two short corners without even testing Forrester. In the final few minutes, as the clouds swept across the sky and darkness descended, Soupy was tripped, took the free hit, and had his shot turned in for, at last, a score for the blonde-haired Connor to put the game beyond doubt, making the scoreline harsh on Glasgow who, even without Reid, showed menace.

Aaron Crookshanks and Steven Morrison, the full-backs, who were both solid and impermeable for much of the game, are to be highly commended. Though Glasgow could certainly have capitalised more, this solidity at the back – and with Duke showing no sign of last season’s long-term injury – could hold the team in good stead as they go from strength to strength, so long as they remember to play Soupy hockey in the drab wetness of Edinburgh’s winter.