And so we have reached the final game of the first half of the season, and some novel things have happened for the 2nd team so far. We’ve won some games, we’ve scored some goals (not many, mind), and we've conceded slightly less, and for some odd reason there's already a team photo up…and yes, Xabi Alonso has secretly left Bayern Munich to revive his hockey career. We were shocked as well!

The build up is required, because this game has been many years in the making. Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker have nothing on the Anns family and their willingness to do battle on the hockey pitch. We've watched over recent years as the newly formed City Vets team have taken the lower leagues by storm and to set it all up perfectly, South 2s did their part by making sure we were relegated last season to bring the clash forward a year! Ron really should have won man of the match for that! All was looking good, we were even starting to get a consistent team out, and then frankly we were let down…

One good thing did happen on the day and that was that England seized the psychological advantage ahead of next year's Rugby World Cup with a 26-17 Twickenham triumph over Australia. The Wallabies will travel to Rugby HQ for a Pool A showdown with the host nation next October on the back of successive defeats to Stuart Lancaster's side, who ended their autumn series with two victories after two defeats. A dominant display from England's pack laid the foundation for victory and Gloucester No 8 Ben Morgan scored two tries as the hosts got their World Cup preparations back on track with a morale-boosting victory… if only that had something to do with the hockey…oh wait, it does.

Anns Jr. as we shall from this point call him, decided weeks in advance of this fixture that he didn't want to duel with his Anns Sr. (apologies) but would rather watch the rugby. For the record, tickets may or may not have been purchased prior to the fixture list for the season being published, but serious investigation is required. It was also mentioned after the match that perhaps it would have been a nice thing to offer to take one's father to the rugby…I doubt it ever was considered.

Anyway, onto the game. Anns Sr. was lining up in attack, but in Jnr's absence it was instead left to Matt to shadow the man. He even tried some imitation Anns Jr. stick tackles in the 2nd half, one of which was particularly horrendous. Tom, that Green Card was just for you.

Unusually, we had a sub or 2 again, and we thought it would be 3 when George decided to turn up. Sadly, he wasn't coming back to South, but to try and stop us from scoring. City were oddly playing in blue, which is just confusing and didn't provide the extra rivalry this Cambridge derby needed. They'll be in red from next season so normal service will be resumed when no doubt they'll be playing our 1st X1. The game was decidedly even, with pretty much everyone raising their game and was ultimately decided from short corners. City scored 2 and had 1 cleared off the line, which somehow got Coops a man of the match vote despite the fact he missed the first one. We chose not to score ours. I think Nick felt bad that Anns Jr. wasn't there, and that we didn't want to win if he wasn't about to witness it. Of course, it does always help when the injection actually makes it out of the D, or even to the stopper. This new routine didn't catch the vets off guard, neither did missing the wide open goal, or the ball at the far post... (Can't say we didn't have our chances. I believe there was some mention of training this week, perhaps it might be wise, or shall we see how next week goes…)

I thought this would be the end of the report. However, as the game finished JT somehow managed to get a yellow card. Now normally this wouldn't have swung any kind of voting - Anns Jr had lemon sewn up weeks ago. The only problem was that JT managed it whilst off the pitch. What had happened? Had Anns Jr bribed someone? What the cause, it did mean that Junior escaped another week without lemon. He didn't even get his weekly MoM vote, which of course could hint that it is always his vote! The afternoon was rounded off in style with the Red Lion doing us proud with pizzas like they do every week… oh wait, that was last year!

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For an excerpt from next week's report…. please keep on reading….

The Art Of Pizza

Breaking News: Xabi Alonso has left CSHC 2nd X1 and returned to Bayern Munich, or he might have been stolen by the 1st X1… Sources are yet to confirm, or it might have got lost in the emails.