For the final game the season South Men’s 1st XI travelled to Rutland to take on their already relegated 2nd team. With several key team members and Nick Bristowe unavailable we had only 11 players available so it was a good job that Jack managed to find Tom Watson for the meet, scrape him off the pavement and pour him into the car to sober up on the journey.

The captain’s positional selection was illuminating. Some might question his motives in putting Chalk (his closest rival for top-scorer of the season) into a right-back position. Not me, I never doubted that this was based on anything other than sound team principles. Nothing to do with Goal Kings. Nope. Definitely not.

As the teams lined up it was Rutland who looked the more impressive, packed with fresh-faced youth and exuberance. True, South did have a couple of players under 25 but neither were an advertisement for clean living - Watson, with eyes like two p*ss holes in the snow and a tongue that seemed to be wearing a yellow sock and Johnson (F), unshaven in his 3 week old unwashed kit, looking and smelling like a tramp. We were a little concerned that we might be faced with a lot of pace and skill.

However, looks can be deceiving and, although Rutland did have some good individual players they did not play together as a team and South were dominant throughout the match. As always, I don’t remember a great deal about the goals we scored. Goal scoring is for the flash Harrys who play up front, all mouth and no trousers. For any serious commentator, the beauty of hockey is in the defence - that’s where you see the cut and thrust of the game, the battle of wits, pace and agility. Really I’m not sure why I write these reports. Still, here goes ….

We got the first goal after 10 minutes or so from an open play move which may well have been up the right hand side through Johnson (R). I think that a cross came in from outside the D but maybe it was pulled back from the byline. Anyway, McCulloch was on hand to deflect the ball into the goal.

At this point we noticed that we were only playing with 10 men. Venner had done a Bristowe and limped off after 5 minutes and was now crouched almost out of sight behind the spare goal on the sideline and appeared to be massaging himself vigorously. Not quite sure what was happening but it looked damn suspicious to me. Still it clearly worked for him as he came back on in a few minutes with a renewed spring in his step.

So, back to the game. On about 15 minutes we won our first short corner. I expect that Venner won it for us but it could have been someone else. Be that as it may, we scored from it but from my position on the half-way line it looked like a pretty soft goal. I’ll admit that it was a good push out by McCulloch and stop by Chalk but then Hawkes’s push travelled back to the injector slower than a tortoise with a hangover and should have been cut out by the home defence. It wasn’t and Graham chipped it into the goal for his second of the day and to take the lead in the Goal Kings competition.

Not long after that we won a second short corner from which we also scored - Hawkes playing a delightfully disguised slow drag flick which deceived everyone and found the back of the net. Or in other words he fluffed the flick and the ball looped up and fell into the goal.

Three-nil up at half time and all fairly comfortable although South hadn’t had it all their own way and it was no time to be complacent. Rutland came out in the second half with much more determination and put some concerted pressure on the South goal. However, the defence stood firm and with Parker on great form as always they never really looked like conceding. And then midway through the half South put the game to bed with a really good 4th goal. Starting from the back it took only 3 touches - Wych to Williams, Williams to Venner and Venner to McCulloch - to move the ball all the way from our own goal-line into the opposition D and then McCulloch scored with an excellent reverse strike to claim his hat-trick.

With the game sewn up it was time for a slight change and the skipper switched Watson into right back and moved Chalk up into midfield. Some might say that, with the Goal Kings tied up, Graham was making an empty gesture to Jack but not me. No way. It was a well-considered tactical move designed solely for the good of the team. It did have the result that it brought Watson into contact with the rather chippy Rutland midfielder (you know, the one with a face that looks like he’s looking at himself in the back of a spoon). Well, as we know, Watson may be small but he doesn’t get pushed around so inevitably when the Rutland player had a dig it ended up with handbags being thrown. Fortunately Williams was on hand - immediately clucking round Watson like a protective mother hen and accusing the opposition player of being “naughty”. I don’t know if you’ve heard Mark telling off the opposition in a match but he does it in such a fatherly way that I’m sure they leave feeling thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Honestly, it was heart-warming to watch and if you get the chance at the Annual Dinner you should get him to tell you about it.

The game was then played out mostly in the Rutland half without too much excitement until South won a short corner and the final whistle went. The skipper very kindly agreed to allow Wych to take first strike of the short to keep up his average of one shot on goal per season. This then hit a defender’s foot leading to another short and this time Aston was given a turn but he inexplicably decided to take the ball before it reached the stopper and made a right hash of it, leading to a free hit to Rutland and the end of the game. This incident quite took the gloss off the victory and pretty much ruined the game for most of us. Still, there’s always hope that Aston will be playing 2s next year.

So the M1 season came to end and in summary it was pretty much the story of Aston’s life; a promising start with high hopes then letting itself down in mid-season followed by a general sense of disappointment and underachievement at the end.

See you all next season.

PS: Nick Venner’s DVD “1,000 Shots and No Goals” will be available shortly in all good pound shops.