The early autumn season got started last Thursday. Because of the Olympics in August, this season has been shortened to just four weeks, and we’ll only get one chance at each team. In our first week we played two very familiar opponents: Oguzkhan and Dulwich Lions.

Oguzkhan was first, and they appeared to be missing some of the young, fast, and skilled players that have given us trouble in past encounters. A lucky deflection early on put us up 1-0, and we never looked back, cruising to a 5-2 victory that was never really in doubt.

Dulwich is one of the older 5s teams in the league, and we have faced them on many occassions, though not as much in 2008, when we sank to Division 3 and they rose to Division 1. This time we met in Division 2, and they were strong. We played well but didn’t have the lungs or the legs to keep up. After we went down 2-0 in the second half, we made a push to come back but only made things worse. Final score, 5-0, Dulwich.

Overall, a decent start for the Barbars. For the next week’s matches we should have a few more bodies, now that both 5s and 11s seasons are underway.

Lineup: Adam, Bujar, Dave, Keith, Sean, Spiros