The sun shone. Eighteen hockeyists turned up. The Rock returned. Fun was had.

And seven goals, with Greaves’s Grafters beating Jelley’s Jesters, five-two. Rupert Espley and ace newcomer Tom Anderson both netted a brace, with the ‘home’ team’s other goals coming from Avi Sharma, James Yu, and blast-from-the-past, Tom South.

Rupert could have had more but for a unanimously Lemon-worthy performance by the Hon, Chairman, who managed to:

• Get his foot too close to a goal-bound effort which was then disallowed.
• Miss an open goal from three yds, claiming the keeper’s spectacular dive put him off.
• Block said keeper from seeing Rupert Espley’s thunderbolt hat-trick goal flying past him; this incurred the wrath of umpire, Steve Riches, who disallowed the goal.

These masterpieces were slightly offset by a couple of calm assists and neat passes using the extra space of a nine-a-side. But only slightly.

Tom Anderson was a deserved MoM, running the midfield, sending long accurate raking asses to teammates, and was unlucky to be on the losing side. Hopefully, as he was hidden under a cap and some cool shades, he didn’t realise this.

David Bridge’s nose was unlucky to encounter James Yu’s shoulder, and came off second best.

Shahzad Ali and Roland Li cleared the ball off the goal line with confidence on numerous occasions to prevent further scoring.

End of.