The morning after the night before. South turned up in body if not in spirit to a mercifully late pushback against Long Sutton with more than half the squad nursing a Bristowe-induced hangover. John (“Did I get with a bloke last night? It had short hair and was called Mitch”) Hawkes, Kev (chunder in the bath) Rowland, George (hockey on Selwyn lawn) Wych, Dave (“I've had him up the arse”) Monck, Robbie (pissed on a mate and got punched) Leigh, Dave (didn't chunder - how?) Aston, Ben (“I play hockey to improve my stamina”) Buckley, Manu (how low can you go) Bhardwaj, Jack (“the kids find my goatee cool”) Chalk and Nick (no mates at Selwyn) Bristowe all looked a bit green round the gills and, if this were not enough, Bhav Virdee tried to take out one of the only sober team members before the pushback when he undercut a vicious shot into what cricket commentators sometimes call the “inner thigh” of Rob Barton during the warm-up.

The match started in glorious sunshine and South straight away found plenty of space to run into but for the first 10 minutes the slow Abbey pitch induced a number of mistakes, occasionally allowing Sutton to break from midfield. The defence, marshalled by Chris Graveling and Nick Bristowe, held firm but during one such attack Bhav Virdi (another of the few sober members) took a very painful blow to the knee and was sidelined for the rest of the game. At this point however, South realised that Sutton were playing with only 10 men which explained the amount of space being conceded and now the home team began to press forward with superb runs being made from deep by Manu Bhardwaj and George Wych to support the front players.

And then ... disaster ... South conceded an extraordinarily soft goal on about 20 minutes by allowing a Sutton attacker to shoot from just inside the D. The shot was a mishit and the ball rolled gently towards keeper Ben Buckley who we suspect was seeing double and kicked the wrong ball! In any event the ball finally made it over the goalline and the 10 men of Sutton were 1-0 up.

With the lead, the away side shut up shop and pulled all their players bar one into defensive roles. South were dominant in midfield; Dave Aston and Kev Rowland spread the play wide down the flanks and the centre pairing of John Hawkes and Jack Chalk bossed the middle of the pitch. South were continually on the attack but the Sutton defence was holding firm and only rarely did Rob Barton or Robbie Leigh get a clear chance on goal.

After half time the game continued in the same fashion, with South sending wave after wave of attacks forward, only to see them break on a resolute Sutton defence. On the occasions when South did test the young keeper he responded admirably and the game took an air of inevitability as the clock ran down. To their credit South never stopped running but, despite playing against 10 men for the whole game, could not force the ball into the goal and at the final whistle, the Away team had hung onto their lead and took away a hard-earned 3 points.