Potje tijdrekken met Almelo

“Zonder bodem wordt er niet gewerkt” and thus we gathered again at Nicolai’s place to have dinner. This time we were allowed in the living room. Within the team we keep track of each other's allergies, intolerances and ‘Things we can't get through our throat’. Chickpeas were included in the last category for Mart and while the chickpea curry was delicious, there were some complaints from [name redacted]. Although the team has a strong work-ethic, the members regularly find excuses to get out of work and Maarten ‘forgot’ the cake at home only so he could skip the dishes to cycle back and forth.

Tonight we had a build-off against Almelo. The opponents clearly had a lot of experience in this line of work and their long tools led to the majority of the balls played being within their reach. Quickly into the first set Mart showed that we need not be discouraged by their ‘lompe klauwen’, an unique treat often seen in rural districts. By winning a 2v1 blockduel, Mini-Mart inspired his coworkers and the set turned into our favours. 

The second set was held in the theme of delays and stalling. At the first time-out the opponents got a warning-whistle from the safety inspector for stalling, as they did not return quickly after a coffee break requested by the construction team of Harambee. And as we all know, the team that requests the break, determines the length. Later this set, our foreman was called to the ref for stalling in between points, where we took our time to review recent works. To disregard this warning, we substituted our foreman and the back-up foreman was soon afterwards called to the inspector for another warning for intentionally stalling between points. Much like the chickpeas, this did not go down the throats of the opponents easily as they confronted the inspector on rushing the match and prematurely intervening, which resulted in a yellow flag for the Almeloers. And now you wonder, why those renovations always take longer than expected? 

The third set was also very similar to renovations. A lot of hard work, but only little progress. Rallies took longer than assembling scaffolding for a skyscraper. The opponent maximised use of their long tools and our scoring potential went down harshly. As our rivals uncovered we were not as quick on our feet as we are in a forklift, they increased their amount of tipping. To combat this, we added our outsider Klaas into the field on the diagonal position to sweep up the softly constructed balls. Here we found out that communication was key and the note that our newly acquired diagonal was recruited for passing was not clear to all. After setting a few balls on diagonal, the setters themselves also found out a cold shoulder is not a recipe for a wrecking ball. 

The fourth set we had something to prove. Losing both the second and third set, the coming two sets were crucial for the desired victory. In the fourth set we put some more common sense into the game and started playing like we trained. The fourth set we won quite confidently.

Now we could continue our renovations with an ‘uitbouw’. The fifth set became a reality our opponents feared. Their ‘experience’ also resulted in a limited amount of energy which did not last past the fourth set. Although they did not make it easy for us, the victory was quickly a reality. 

And as always, we will end this progress report with a limerick;

The ref had no tolerance for stalling

Our basics needed some recalling 

We ended last

But with a blast 

And they let the balls go falling