The Men’s Vets had explored various ways to not play this season. First we were drawn away to Belper in the Over-40s Cup proper, but were somehow allowed to wiggle out of that one on the grounds it was too far away… and got a bye to the next round as our reward. That saw us drawn away to Norwich Dragons – nearer, but we still couldn’t get 11 men together, so we forfeited our way down to the plate (AKA Tier 2). And then our first match in that, against Stortford, got postponed due to the cold snap.

Time pressure of the next round meant the match was only moved back seven days, which meant a desperate scramble to find 11 players and two Umpires. So thanks to those who volunteered, especially Suzi and the Stortford volunteer Ump.

So everything was set, but what did we have in store. Well, the first minute gave a clue what was to come and it wasn’t good news for South as one of Stortford’s players led into the corner, cut back sharply, moved on to his reverse stick and looked to ping the ball across the face of goal. He got the skill wrong, popping the ball up for a free hit, but that he believed he was capable of fizzing the ball hard and low through a crowd on the reverse sweep was indicative of a higher level of play than our collection of M4/5/6s players are used to encountering.

8 minutes into the game the same player got the opening goal, ghosting in behind our defence to touch home a driven pass aimed at him from basically the centre spot. Oh. Right. Hmm. Not great marking or defensive positioning for sure, but also classily exploited. We then didn’t help matters by redirecting a Stortford penalty corner that was heading wide inside our own post a minute later to fall two behind.

In truth the match was over as a contest by the time of the second goal – by this point I think everyone realised that the visitors were almost certainly going to be too good for us and the deficit was much more likely to grow than shrink. Another penalty corner goal followed just before the half hour, though at least this time we demanded that Stortford put it in themselves.

Talk at half-time was about playing for pride, maybe getting a goal, and Nev’s irritation at a lack of competitive tension in the game. There was even some bullish talk about, “Let’s score first”. Well, we got to their circle first and might have done just that if a mis-trap hadn’t seen the ball roll away from a South stick to allow the Stortford goalie to kick clear. From there it went pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-save from Ben to prevent a second own goal-unmarked player is free to tap in at the back post. 4-0. Dang. Four minutes later a visitor absolutely lashed a fifth into the top corner.

However South were not giving up on the consolation strike. A ball out of defence went to Jan at right back, who switched it across the pitch to Neil at left. Neil sent it back into the middle for John, who then moved it on back to Jan again – with 25 yards gained up the pitch in the process. Jan slid a ball down the line for Dan’s lead, and he then centred to Nev who burst past the last defender with a combination of skill, momentum and determination. Nev had the time to unwind a shot that had a fair amount of emotion in it – it faired fizzed into the side netting just inside the goalie's far post.

Two minutes later South were cheering again after a break down the left on this occasion. Once again simple ball movement to free men (it’s almost like there is a theme to Vets Hockey!) worked it through the visiting defence before Shahbaz squared from close to the left backline. It looked like Will might crown his debut with a goal as he nudged it past the keeper… only for Club Secretary, Neil, to divert it home from point blank range! Well, you can’t have these new recruits nicking all the glory, can you?

Suddenly it was 5-2 and South were scoring at a rate of one every 150 seconds. Was an unlikely comeback on the cards? Erm, no. Stortford re-asserted themselves to score three more in the remaining time to run out 8-2 winners. No arguments on who went through – good luck to them in the rest of the competition. South, meanwhile, will ponder if we can convince the eligible players in our upper sides to play in the Vets Cup before deciding if we want to try again next season, as this one was a bit of a nightmare for the skippers!