No-one had travelled up the A1 expecting to open the car door onto to the Great Steppe. Ok, northern East Anglia is flat, but you don’t expect the Red Army to be war-gaming in Div 4… 

George denied all expectations in the first ten minutes. Channelling his inner Vlad, PuPu took it all out on the backboard following an (admittedly dodgy) call by the blue helmeted peacekeeper. Never let it be said the alpha male throws his toys out of the town.

This set the scene for a 35 minutes onslaught against the plucky defence of Jones, Mainwairing, Wilson and Pike (sorry… Radford, Swarren, Brynjolfssen and Alston). If only James had been wearing his shoes, we might have gone in 1-0 down, and with a fighting chance. (Ed: frankly I’m disappointed he didn’t take the chance to wear his brogues as as alternative to astros… could’ve at least done it in style…)

Firm words from the elderly sent the plucky 5s on their way, knowing that a 2nd half turnaround was in their grasp. Indeed, chances started to come, and with the final 15 minutes approaching, Peterborough built their own Maginot line (Ed: aren’t you mixing your military references here???) and sat back. Cue the opening of the M5 playbook and high wide men being sent out on patrol. All credit to the pace of Nwarren and Barton, but gaps in the line were hard to find. 

It was, genuinely, a fine 2nd half performance.  Against a higher quality side, the M5s pushed and pushed in vain. Little did they know, George was sitting back, on the one surviving backboard, necking Vodka and cackling, in preparation for the M3s game to come…