Having beaten St Ives 5ths five-one in a friendly earlier this year, we were confident of another win.

Thinking that this might be a good time to try a new formation, captain Pete Dreuitt suggested a strategy that concentrated on attacking, which relied on his fitness and running abilities to help in defence as required. We chewed on the idea of a 3-4-3, but finally settled on a 2-4-4, due to more straightforward substitutions.

Unfortunately, illness took hold of the poor chap leaving him unable to play, and winning him Lemon of the match in good jest. We hope you feel better soon, Pete! Howard Steed kindly took up the mantle in his place.

The theory was brilliant. Unfortunately, even though we gelled well towards the end of the first half, it did not pan out so well in practice as it proved rather difficult to run back to defend against the young legs of St Ives. At half time, we decided to go back to our usual 4-4-2.

For the prestigious Man of the Match award, volunteer goalkeeper James Piper was crowned king by an overwhelming seven votes, and rightly so as he played like a pro, stopping numerous shots on goal, kicking balls with might across the pitch and ensuring that the game was not lost.

Other Lemon runners-up include:

• Alex West for having and then unfortunately missing two great opportunities on goal due to bad luck, and then hiding with his co-conspirator away from the team during teas.

• Shahzad Ali, for suggesting that perhaps Lemons of the Match could write match reports as with some other teams (and so he did).

• The floodlights, which went out eleven minutes before the game finished, forcing the game to stop and then only continue after the umpires barred aerials (the down-time was well spent; the author got acquainted with his mark - a friendly St Ives player for thirty years and proud father, who told of his daughter who was captain of the Ladies' 1s and now works with England Hockey).

• Stuart Creed, for being our glorious paladin martyr, courageously deflecting a fast aerial ball to the face with his sword, receiving a ball from a full swing that resulted in the formation of a third knee, and then almost being knocked out; all in defence of home goal which housed King James Piper in full Crown Armour (actually, Stu was also runner up MoM for the exact same reasons… Hmmm…)

Some other great memories include:

• Injured warrior Adrian Granger Brown scoring a goal even with a seemingly broken finger. The opposition D was so chaotic that although we know he scored the goal, we are collectively unsure as to exactly how.

• Andi Caddy, Andy Thomas, Alex West, and Peter Creed also all had fantastic shots on goal. Unfortunately, they were missed by short distances.

• Chevaliers Garth Wells and Ky Ho, while out-manned, out-paced, and out-gunned, shutting down the opposition attack all by themselves during the first half.

• Luke Bevan, who was playing only his second game of hockey, hassling opposition players constantly and finding space for ball reception.

• Wilco Dijkstra tag-teaming with Stuart Creed to ensure South's midfield was formidable throughout the game.

We were also awarded a number of short corners. One which springs to mind involved a glorious artillery push-out by Sebastian Dias, who used all his might. It was so good in fact that it missed our players and ended up on the other side of the pitch. No-one was by any means disappointed of course; the sheer spectacle of the move was worth it.

Although St Ives played competitively, South had more possession of the ball and far more great chances at goal than the opposition throughout the game, which were unfortunately foiled due mostly to bad luck time and again. Simply put, everyone played great. Indeed, another time and another day, things could have easily been very different.

For our next game however, Ky, with a wide grin, suggests that perhaps we might try 1-1-8?