A youthful looking M5s team arrived at Long Road to face a mercenary group of 'Irregulars' made up from a mixture of M4s, returning battle-hardened from their fixture against St Neots 4s, various L1s, L2s, L3s, M3s and M1s, including a slightly orange-tinted Colin T fresh from his hols in Dubai, plus anyone else we could find in the Long Road area who looked like they could hold a hockey stick!

In true South spirit, it was decided mix the teams up a bit using a complex, multi-variable algorithm developed by Irregulars' captain Greaves!

The first half was a fairly evenly matched affair, with both sides having decent chances. Eventually the youthful Irregulars midfield of Ho, Ho, Gibson, Kenyon and Steed proved to much for the home defence, allowing danger man Barton to strike twice within the space of a few minutes.

Both teams came out fighting after half-time with M5s' big hitters, Rosselli, Troll and Monck, bombarding the Irregulars' defence with some blistering shots and calling on keeper Saint-Gower to make some spectacular saves. Meanwhile, at the other end M5s' guest keeper Louise G was mopping up everything that the Irregulars forwards could throw at her, including a brilliant reactive deflection of a blinding shot from Greaves. Eventually however, the Irregulars' captain found the back of the net, sealing the score at three-nil but not before a cynical tackle by Steed Jnr on Steed Snr sent the latter crashing to the floor and for which he received a LoM award to go with his MoM for the Irregulars!

A very enjoyable afternoon's hockey was finished off with the traditional pizza supper at Cantabs.

Editor's note:- As this was an internal friendly, the appearances/goals do not count towards club statistics (yes Rob, including yours) so the details are below. Which are accurate as far as anyone can remember. If you know better, please jog Howard's memory...

M5(ish): Louise Walker; Dave Monck, Ky Ho, Laurie McKenzie, Colin T, Howard Steed (capt), Tom Rosselli, Peter Creed, Shahbaz Ali, Alison Small, Nick Georgiadis, Andy Thomas, Alex Pashley

MoM: Louise Walker - Some great saves, which helped stop the Irregulars coming away with too many bragging rights!

LoM: Tom Steed - For showing no parental respect in his tackling.

Irregulars: Matt Saint-Gover; Alex Larkinson, Alex West, Tom Steed, Pip Ho, Laurie Ho, Hannah Kenyon, Alan Radford, Katie Gibson, David Bridge, John Greaves (capt), Rob Barton

Scorers: John Greaves, Rob Barton (2)

MoM: Tom Steed - For showing no parental respect in his tackling!