Sun (in the sky), sand (covering the pitch), seven goals and a successful trip ‘Oop North’ for the M4s with a convincing victory over Ely 3rds.

The match followed the slightly worrying trend with Cambridge South only really waking up after half time. Luckily they were already three-nil ahead courtesy of an own goal from an alumnus of this parish, Andy Pounce, which hat-trick hero Simon Ta claimed through an obscure rule about him having been the attacking player who had hit the ball last (yes, he was inside the D) before the unfortunate defender…pounced…on to it with a neat deflection. Oli Anderson netted soon after with his outstretched stick connecting on to a cross near the far post. The half finished with a customary Dave Monck thunderbolt straight from a short corner.

After the break, and some lurid threats from the man Monck about nose breaking, it was time to get serious, with much more purposeful passing play and midfield control by man of the match, Oli Anderson, guest star, Alex Pashley, and maestro, Jason James (when he wasn’t relaxing on the ground)…at least when South had the ball. Ely did manage to locate their players all too easily with hits out from defence but were unable to capitalise due to the Williamson gang and their able sidekicks, Jelley and Monck, maintaining defensive solidity.

Simon Ta got his hat-trick with two further goals…his second via a cultured move orchestrated by Oli, feeding a pass for the forward to slot past a stranded Ely keeper, and his final one, all his own work, with ace new left winger Paul South on hand to will the ball into the net, resisting the temptation to rob Ta’s glory.

Next came a bizarre lemon-winning interlude whereby keeper George Toynton failed to stop a breakaway Ely move ending with the ball in the CSouth net…mainly due to him being involuntarily sidelined at the time having attempted to relieve the boredom by playing a little football OUTSIDE his own D. His excuse that, “The line was invisible" was countered by the apologetic umpire insisting that the line had been in the same place since the start of the game. Both true, but only one man was holding the cards. Yellow it had to be.

This encouraged Paul South to show his own striking prowess, deftly dragging the ball away from the goalline in order to give us a little shimmy and flick it back into the net from a narrow angle. It only remained for skipper Greaves to pop over a few zinging crosses from the right, sadly none converted, and 358-goal supremo and wannabe girl-band member Old Spice Rob Barton, to net CSouth’s seventh with his usual elan after his earlier shots had been saved, narrowly missed, curved away from goal due to unexpected gravitational forces etc.

All in all, the warm weather and docile pitch seemed to slow down the hockey but the M4s performance was sufficient to get them to the top of the table at this early stage of the season, with tougher battles ahead.