The day started to the sound of howling wind and driving rain, and I have to admit that my usual enthusiasm for hockey was feeling a little thin. I got to Long Road two hours before pushback ready to umpire the L2s, only to find that a scheduling confusion had resulted in three umpires turning up and consequently I was out of a job. At least the rain had stopped, even if the northerly wind was still making conditions feel pretty Baltic.

With the L2s a goal down to Haverhill 2 despite having probably the better of the game, I retreated to the changing rooms to get ready for our match. I thought I’d take advantage of my fingers defrosting to compose a quick tweet ready for the L2 result along the lines of, “Hard work but no banana.” Of course, having spent sixty minutes shivering on the sideline without seeing a South goal, I left the changing rooms to find we’d scored twice and grabbed the win. And I’d got up early for this.

Anyway, on to our game. Spalding had had some good results against us last season, a win and a draw, and were sitting just behind us in the table, so we were expecting a tough game. As it turned out though, we totally owned it pretty much from the first push back!

The first goal came after just a few minutes, our record South American signing, exotic imported striker Roberto Bartonez, advancing on the keeper and squaring a simple pass for M3s returnee Nathan to deflect home. Two more followed in quick succession, a straight penalty corner strike from Dave, who’d brought his shooting boots this week, and one from Bartonez himself after being put clean through by a defence-splitting pass from Charlie. Will, making a welcome return, was looking like he'd never been away with a dominant performance in defence. By the time I subbed off midway through the half, it was all looking as sweet as a Christmas pud (first Xmas reference of the season).

Unfortunately, my departure from the pitch coincided (or was it a coincidence?) with everything going Pete Tong for ten minutes, as focus and intensity was replaced with some dilatory Marying-around. Spalding took the opportunity to grab one back, as Lino’s first touch of the day was to pick the ball out of the goal. His only other touch was a kick, making his hockey a bargain £4.50 per touch.

Our record South American signing, Roberto Bartonez, also off the pitch for a break, implored the team to regain their composure. “Treat zuh ball like eet ees zuh golden egg”, he said in his funny foreign accent (a bit more comedy-French than exotic-Latin-American). What the hell was our expensive overseas import going on about? Some strange ideas, these foreigners.

Fortunately, Bartonez was soon back on the pitch to steady the ship with a howitzer from the top of the D, just when we thought he was meandering off towards the byline to try and get it on to his reverse. This was followed by another Monckosaurus special, putting the game to bed shortly before half time.

After the five minute break and a bag of jelly babies, we were off again. It didn’t take long for our record South American signing, Roberto Bartonez, to bring up his hat-trick. Other incidents of note were Paul continuing his track record of bullying teenage opponents, this time by taking a shot at goal that involved playing the defender’s face rather than the more traditional ball, and Dave taking another spectacular tumble. There was also a pitch invasion when, two Moncks on the pitch not being enough, two more of Dave’s mini-mes tried to join in the action.

Back with the game, a rapid turnover and break from a defensive short corner saw South streak down the other end and Nathan grab his brace, before Bartonez completed the scoring with his fourth.

In amongst all this, there was an injury time-out when one of the Spalding players landed heavily on his shoulder. Captain Jan took the opportunity to call a quick team huddle and, not being one to waste fifteen seconds of potential coaching time, gee’d up the team for the final minutes with a speech that started, “The pitch is divided into five vertical columns…”. What the rest of it was we never got to find out, as we all wandered off ready for the restart. I’m sure it would have been good though. Maybe we would have got ten goals if he’d had the chance to finish it? We shall never know.

So a comfortable afternoon for the M3s, helped by being prepared for a competitive game from the start. Now to see if we can show that same intensity and focus in the derby match against the M4s next week.