At the 12pm push back the sun was shining over Long Road. The normal M4s' captain, John Greaves, was away so unfortunately… I mean heroically… the trusty ‘Steeds’ stepped in to help. Howard captained the game and I, Tom, was assigned the challenge of writing the match report!

South started with intensity and put lots of pressure on Bourne Deeping in the early stages. This resulted in a first short corner which was bravely deflected away. This hard work was not reflected well as the opposition broke away halfway through the second half and got a shot on goal. It was stopped by Howard Steed on the line - however not by his stick, but by his foot. He must have forgotten that we were playing hockey and not football, an easy mistake to make! The umpire quite rightly gave a penalty flick and we conceded our first goal.

At half time it was still 1-0 and the captain tried to give an inspirational talk that hopefully would lead us on to scoring two quick goals. Surprisingly that didn’t happen and Borne Deeping added another within seconds of the match restarting. South did not give up though as we continued to attack and put pressure on their defence. Pip Ho managed to get a blistering shot away which just skimmed past the far post, and our other forward Shahbaz consistently got shots away from the four short corners we had. Stu Creed once again was a rock in central midfield. He defended well and showed some great vision to provide the forwards with long balls. However he was a bit of a bad boy and was awarded the first card of the season. We don’t actually know why but let’s just say he was working too hard.

South defiantly held their own but a judged infringement led to yet another penalty flick. The Bourne Deeping centre forward had no difficulty placing it in the top left corner giving him a hat trick.

Some great keeping from Steve kept it at only 3-0 until the final whistle blew.