At times like this, it can help to have someone to blame.

‘A backline of Coops, who missed last week with a back injury, and Colin T, whose recently-healed broken ankle passed a stress test last week (Anns thumped a ball into it!), inspires genuine confidence. Skill, experience, reading of the game; Kettering won’t have a chance.’

Thus spoke Januthustra*. He (Jan) needed to remember the concept of the eternal recurrence of the same events, though.

The M2s' backline exists in a state of sad atrophy. After Non-Beardy Matt’s hyper warm-up, signs of our decay were seen as early as the second minute when the opposition, with their first touch of the ball, launched an aerial from one D to another. This was a move which apparently their centre forward was expecting a little more than we were. He duly rounded George and popped in an early leader. I threw the goal to the ground in frustration.

Waist-high passes were thereafter the order of the day, with the home side obviously well adapted to the peculiar local conditions (their pitch is a little less bouncy than Long Road!)

It took us a little while to adjust our radars, with the nadir undoubtedly being Walshy launching an exploratory shot that I saw fly over the goal, fence and then trees behind the pitch. I presume it came down somewhere near Corby, so at least it won’t have hit anything valuable.

In our good moments, Trollman went desperately close to an equaliser. Nev sent an effort desperately close to the touchline.

This even sort of game lasted just long enough for it to hurt when we conceded again.

Half time at least brought a change of angle and we were now to defend the aerial bombardment peering into the setting sun. It was not looking such a good toss to win. The now-hampered viewing led to some confusion as to who had the right to receive the lofted pass. Tom, always keen to have a debate with the masses, so to speak, took a couple of minutes to think about what he had done.

He watched on in sticky horror whilst a short corner burst through the left post-ish corridor, then returned in time to offer his robust defensive presence with such effectiveness that we quickly conceded a further three. Chris had seen which way the worm was turning by this point, and was already hot-footing it back down the A14. We win as a team and we lose as a team, except for Walshy.

*See e-mail of 04.11.16