It had been lurking in the bowels of the fixture list all season: Alford away.

Remarkably, there wasn’t much arm-twisting involved in getting a team together and it was a confident bunch that set out from the ‘bridge.

The natural world was keen to welcome us to the mid-way pit-stop in Boston. First, a rat was spotted enjoying the landscaped gardens of the Little Chef. Next, a fly was calmly breast-stroking across our jug of milk. And finally, half a cow landed on Shin’s plate (shortly after half a diet Pepsi had landed on his lap courtesy of our keen-to-help garcon).

Our hosts have been down in the lower reaches of the table all season, but this was to be no walk over as:

1. so have we;
2. their form had notably picked up after Christmas (including a recent 5-0 thrashing of Cambridge Nomads); and
3. playing hockey shortly after ingesting 1500 calories is remarkably difficult.

Matters pitch-side began well when we noticed the goalie bag was lacking a helmet. Once an alternative had been kindly provided by our hosts, the game could get going and we soon realised that Alford were technically capable, highly motivated and noticeably more numerous and (up front, at least) speedy than we were. Poor old Shin had been dealt a poor hand. His opposite number was particularly relentless in gassing up and down the right flank, signalling his intentions to disrupt our left-half’s digestion in the opening minutes and not really giving up for the whole game.

Our passing was, in general, not the best, and a succession of half-hearted semi-passes were gratefully gobbled up by the industrious Alford midfield. We did though string enough together to take the lead, JT slotting in via a defender’s foot.

Somewhere in the middle of his own personal nightmare, Anns took one to the pinkie, but bravely soldiered on. He could do nothing about the latest cross from the home side’s right hand flank, however, which was prodded home at the back post. Worse was to come when stand-in keeper Cooper conceded a penalty stroke, nearly hospitalising a young forward that had broken through. He flung a stick at the resulting flick, but no avail.

South thrust back and, after Virdi had hit the post and Pawson had seen a goal-bound effort expertly deflected wide by a fully extended goalie, Johnson added to his tally for the season with a far post tap-in of our own.

Half time was a welcome breather after what had been a fraught first period. "This is too far to come and not pick up points" was a common recurring theme, along with "If these boys get enough points, they’ll avoid relegation and then we’ll need to come back to Skeggie next year." With such words ringing in our ears, we resumed.

The second half was a similarly tight affair, with both sides seeing a couple of short corner opportunities go begging. After fifteen minutes or so, Bhav rolled a pass ahead of Dodson in midfield…

What was he doing?! You can’t put passes ahead of Dodson! What about his hamstring?!...

With Dodson now hamstrung and South reduced to ten men for the remainder of the game, this was going to be tough. We retreated further and further back, trying to soak up pressure and release Johnson on the counter. Alford’s forwards were enjoying themselves now, but it would be a mistake to say that they were banging on the South goal. When they re-took the lead, it was disappointingly soft and a further comeback seemed a big ask. Come back we did though, courtesy of a Virdi strike accurately placed down the middle of Alford’s goal.