Our season had started in inauspicious fashion last week. Moments before esteemed chairman, Mr Greaves, published my Jim Telfer rip-off (a call to arms for the M2s, in an attempt to thrust us forward to the heady heights of Div 3NW this year), we had been out-muscled by a St Ives XI that showed considerable improvement from last time out and may well be challenging at the business end of the league table when March rolls around. Meanwhile, the M3s were comprehensively outplaying St Neots. They then went on to back this up with another point in the midday push-back on Saturday and we were already four points behind. The Div 4 contest was suddenly looking to be a one-horse race.

Our 3pm match saw us welcome Wisbech 2s, who had just come down from the league above. This promised to be another tough test, for which we’d surely need all of our big guns on the field.

The action now pauses for a moment to consider the following excerpt from the recent James Menzies biography, written by one T. Anns.

James awoke, feeling a trifle squiffy. He was fairy sure he’d taken Biffy at that last game of Ring Hook, but the old upstairs department was proving a frightfully tricksy devil at the moment. He popped in a couple of figs and waited for his foot bath. Today was going to be a good day. He thought fleetingly of his hockey chums and their ‘big game’. Weren’t they all big games, he pondered, as a bead of syrup congealed on his luxuriant beard? The question, as always, was one of perspective.

Back at Long Road, ‘intensity’ was the word of the hour. We resolved not give our visitors anything for free. We chatted intensely. We got changed intensely (an interesting sight). We warmed up intensely.

It was intense.

The game began with a pre-planned solo foray from Jack Chalk. Jack carried the fight to the massed Wisbech ranks with all the gusto he could manage. Spurred on, the rest of us followed this forlorn hope up-field, setting the tone for the rest of the game. We were up for the challenge.

What followed was an old-fashioned, sleeves-rolled-up contest. With the older hands engaged in a proper arm-wrestle, youngsters Max Holgate and Tom Steed glided around skilfully, mostly managing to evade the clumsy rough-stuff. Barney Studdart had been re-cast in mid-week from a reluctant midfielder to an auxiliary right-back, and he took to his new role in some style, even managing one full-frontal reverse stick block. Non-Beardy Matt threw in a couple of trademark infinity pokes to thwart Wisbech attacks and Walsh was proving consistently effective in the middle of the pitch, shuffling left to right and back again in his typically low-slung style, an energetically doughy combination of elbows and cheeks. It was all going well.

Half time was so positive that Oven even forgot to hand out the Haribo.

The second half saw more of the same, with both sides fighting for supremacy but neither establishing a convincing argument for it.

It was the away team that struck first; a short corner slipped left and then hoodwinked past an unsighted Anns.

There was no question of the South boys crumbling though. Polge had warmed up his hamstrings by this point and started to fizz around up top, aided and abetted by Mathews’ willing running. Several penalty corners ensued as the pressure mounted, before Steed ghosted in to slide home a deserved equaliser. Incredible scenes followed as he streaked off to the sidelines, to be duly mobbed by an onrushing management team. Eyes were tight shut. Mouths were wide open with bellows of defiance. Chests were thumped. Oven had gone full Mourinho.

As the stakes were raised, so were tensions. Jack’s stick went for a quick airborne trip. A pair of Wisbech players in quick succession were invited to take a breather. We had a short corner awarded just as a ball was being struck goal-ward. It was all kicking off.

As it was, either side could have claimed to have done enough to have won the game but neither did. Our visitors were happy enough with a point, which took them to second place in the table (one place behind St Ives, who are the only team with two wins from their first two games). It promises to be a competitive league this year but if we can match the heart and courage shown today then we should be in good order.