Waking up at 8 o’clock on Saturday morning, I was filled with excitement. For months on end, I had been looking forward to this day. 189 long days since the last league match at Long Road. 189 days since the ups and downs. 189 days since the thrills, the drama & scarcely believable scenes. I gazed lovingly at my bedside photo of Tom Anns, looking magnificent in a revealing satin kimono, and I could barely wait to watch the M2s in action once again.

Before the wait ended, the M1s had a match to play against Wapping 4s. Captaining the team in a league fixture for the first time, my mind was occupied with dreams of Churchillian leadership. As a result, the warm up started off badly as I failed to remember any more than four stretches. After the short warm up, former captain Jim Hockley inspired the troops with tales of former battles with Wapping: “They’ll be feisty,” he said. “They’ll go hard in the first ten minutes,” he said. “We must go hard in the first ten minutes,” he said. And that’s exactly what South did.

After around ten minutes, Paresh turned the ball over and made a trademark bullet pass for Shin to pick up. Attacking top left of the D, with his trademark trickery, Shin shot across goal where Wizard forced a save from the keeper, with a trademark deflection. In charged Jim, with a trademark burst of power, on hand to put the rebound away. All in all, a trademark goal. One-nil.

What followed was a highly competitive and enjoyable match with, contrary to the pre-match warning, a decent bunch of blokes. The score by halftime remained the same and the message was to make the most of the space on offer in the middle third. For the first twenty minutes of the second half we were in total control and continued to create lots of opportunities, with P pulling all the strings. We set up camp on Wapping’s 23 but failed to finish the game off.

As the match went on, Wapping become increasingly dangerous on the counter, getting the ball high up the pitch quickly and swarming forwards. A resulting short corner ended with the devastating equaliser. The following ten minutes saw Wapping put us under lots of pressure, so it was a relief in the end to weather the storm. A nerve wrecking last five saw both teams create chances, but ultimately ended in a draw. The general feeling was that we deserved to take the three points, but regardless it was a very good team performance with lots of positives.

Positives:

• Colin didn’t throw a single squaerial and gives the best high fives.

• Owen didn’t get a third green in as many weeks.

• Jim still has the best reverse strike in the club.

• Paresh sorted out the match teas (resulting in Man of the Match).

• When subbing on, Jon charged on to the pitch forgetting to take his training top off. After he realised his mistake, he shouted, “I’m in disguise.” The whole debacle resulted in Lemon of the Match.

In other news, I am now a proud possessor of The Science of Hockey by Horst Wein, published 1973 (loaned by M2s skipper, Simon Cooper). The inside cover describes the book as, “A penetrating and provoking analysis of all the skills of hockey.” With a detailed explanation of the offside rule, as well as Chapter 17: “The point of Limbering up”, I’m filled with optimism about where this book may take us for the rest of the season.