White Team Player of the match: Jason for great goalkeeping and winning the penalty flicks for his team, even though he was also in goal against his team (you do the maths)

White Team Lemon of the match: Sophie for not scoring a goal and not coming for pizzas

Dark Team Player of the match: Janette for defensive excellence

Dark Team Lemon of the match: Pearson for abandoning the goal keeping duties, as it was ‘boring’

The scheduled mixed match number four of this season was supposed to be against Bury St Edmunds, but they could only muster the interest of five players for the game so it was looking like there was going to be desolate pitch at Long Road this Sunday afternoon. However, due to Cambridge South Hockey Club having such brilliant members there were enough willing volunteers for the game that we were able to stage an in-house captain v captain match between Colin and Sophie.

We picked the teams one player at a time. My first selection was of course my wing man (and forever dependable) Tom Rossellini (the auto spell kicking in), and by the end of the selection process the team lists all looked very even. Pearson was a late volunteer, and in fear of tipping the balance if placed on either side he was shoved in goal where there was a vacancy.

So everyone arrived and it was obvious who was on whos side as everyone had remembered to bring the right coloured shirt (except Dan Loy who not only turned up late but managed to find a yucky light brown colour shirt which was exactly in the middle of light and dark). This was good as I had forgotten who was on my team. Sophie had 10 players and I had 12. In an act of kindness I offered Sophie one of my players. The term ‘give an inch take a mile’ springs to mind as she went straight to my talisman Rossellini and asked him to betray me. I was expecting Tom to say ‘No I’m playing for Colin’, but the actual reply was “I’ll just go get my white shirt’. The fact he came to the pitch with a white shirt makes me very suspicious of some pre-meditated collusion.

The game got going and the white team (Sophie’s team) were putting the pressure on the dark team (led by Tom amongst others – typical). The dark team managed to repel this but eventually succumbed to the mighty Graham scoring. The first half went very quickly apart from Graham stealing the show for the right, and the wrong reasons (he also received a green card for a ruthless stick tackle).

The second half was much more dramatic. The dark team levelled by Jack performing his composed trickery in the D and slotting home making it 1 a piece. The whites responded and put the pressure on again and won some short corners. I recall Pearson telling me he was about to throw up every time I stood next to him for the shorts, and also that he was bored in goal. He got so bored he abandoned the goal, took his pads off and re-appeared in the forward line. This act of craziness seemed like a good idea to start with as he scored a goal to make it 2-1 to the darks, however the whites bounced back and scored twice into an goalie-less goal, Graham and Dan getting the next two making it 3-2 to the whites.

There was further mischievous from my co-captain that wasn’t spotted until some point through the second half. She had snuck on their substitute, except there was no ‘substitution', they had been playing the entire 2nd half with 12 players on the pitch. Perhaps she thought we had the gale force wind as our 12th player or something?!? It was very evenly matched so I won’t make too big a deal out of this.

The dark team equalised again through a short corner, making it 3-3 with only a few minutes to go.

Guy should receive a special mention at this point for his lone umpiring, spending the match running up and down the pitch, and remaining impartial despite a family member on the pitch. He demonstrated this by giving his daughter Jess a yellow card for a brutal tackle.

The game was tied at the final whistle. This was not a desired result as we wanted the Mixed team to have another victory on that well run South website stats page, so the game was settled with penalty flicks. Sophie won this (and that is as much a mention as it's going to get).

Thanks to everyone who took part in a close match, which I hope everyone enjoyed. The pizzas afterwards were as good as usual, and kept everyone quiet for a few minutes whilst I sorted out the paperwork (just collecting the match fees really);