The M3s came into this game filled to the brim with positivity following their excellent win against Uni 4s last weekend. That positivity was unfortunately quickly extinguished following a rather heavy 6-1 defeat against Peterborough 4s today. The game did contain some passages of positive play which the boys can draw from, however, a loss like this can only mean going back to the drawing board and rediscovering our form. No point dwelling in the past, we can only look forward to the next game and hope to prove to the rest of the club and league that this was a freak occurrence. Stay tuned over the next week or so as we hope to bring back the old M3s we all know and love. 

On a more comedic point Chris didn’t actually play today, and his lemon vote was a slight act of petulance from the boys who, in their sombre mood, chose to misinterpret his harmless message asking about any positive takeaways, as an act of cockiness. Therefore, in this rare moment of magnanimity from me, I will confess that I was the rightful winner of this week’s lemon award due to an interesting interaction between me and one of the umpires. The whole scene can conveniently be seen in HD on Ben’s YouTube channel, @southern_keeper. While you’re there, I strongly advise you to check out some of the other videos showing some far more impressive performances from the M3s and in particular, some super heroics from Ben (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y-0DNtip6Y minutes 14). Editor’s note: Riccardo, you realise that none of the other teams actually read our match reports, so this entire section is pointless!! *Actual Editor's Note: I know for a fact at least Kettering definitely read these...

In line with me changing up my match report style, I will now follow a slightly lame South tradition of randomly comparing players to (often unknown) people. So, if by some miracle you are still reading up to this point, you are welcome to click off this report as the rest of this has nothing to do with the game. A not particularly fun fact about me is that outside of my full-time job of M3s hockey player and match reporter, I moonlight as a scientist. So, today’s completely unnecessary and irrelevant player comparison is going to be M3s players compared to famous scientists.

Ben Lye – James Clark Maxwell: The godfather of electromagnetism, Maxwell’s equations govern the behaviour of electromagnetic fields in all systems in the universe. We in the M3s have the Lye equations. These are the equations that govern all defensive structure and marking in the D. Barring today’s game, these equations are incredibly accurate and allow us to keep opposition goal tallies low.

Arthur Jones – Rosalind Franklin: Her work on the structure of DNA was for a long time lost to history. One of many female scientists to have their work overshadowed by men. Arthur is now being more regularly featured in the M3s lineup. I have no doubt that M4s are feeling rather like Rosalind Franklin as they gradually see all their hard work to develop this elite defender get lost to history.

Danny McCree – Werner Heisenberg: Famous of for his uncertainty principle which states that one cannot know both the precise position and momentum of an object. Danny has by far the hardest and fastest push pass in the M3s. However, one can never quite be certain of both its speed and vertical displacement.

Alex Pashley – Pierre de Fermat: A key man in the field of optics, Fermat’s principle dictates that the paths taken by light moving through different media are the ones that minimise light travel time. I’m yet to see a player who can run past Pash on the hockey pitch. Should they be running down the sideline, he always seems to take the optimal path to close them down and pinch the ball back for us.

Tom Anns – Jocelyn Bell Burnell: The woman who discovered the pulsar (a Neutron star whose rotating magnetic field emits radiation) initially had her work stollen from her by her PhD supervisor and fellow PhD student, leading to her being left off the Nobel prize honours. Anns has never been able to forgive Jamie for trying to steal his weak shot at goal. Whilst most of us can see the difference between someone’s groundbreaking astronomical discovery being stolen and a wayward shot at goal being stolen, I assure you Tom Anns cannot.

Douglas Gibson – Marie Currie: One of the greatest chemists in history, Marie Currie is famous for her work in radioactivity and her discovery of the element, Radium. She unfortunately died as a result of her years of work with radioactive elements. That level of commitment to scientific discover and literally “putting your body on the line” very well describes Dougie. A man who never backs down from a tackle and is more than willing to step in front a crash ball into the D.

James Menzies – Isaac Newton: The greatest mathematician in history. Newton invented the entire field of calculus to solve one of the most important equations in physics, Newton’s second law. Newton’s third law says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Action: M3s are down 3-1. Reaction: Menzies decides to once again deck a child!! Editor’s note: That’s not quite how the law works Riccardo. *Actual Editor's Note: Or how the incidednt played out...

Shin Kim – Christiaan Huygens: Few scientists in history were able to defy the great Sir Isaac Newton. Huygens did however, with his principle that describes the propagation of wavefronts which completely opposed Newton’s corpuscular theory of light. Only one man on the M3s can rival Menzies’s aerial pass, and his name is Shin!!

Seb Dias – Stephen Hawking: Famous for his theory of the entropy of a black hole and Hawking radiation, Hawking wrote the famous book “A brief history of time”. In past reports I’ve accused Seb of having poor time keeping skills. A comment which he has on occasion called me out for. However, based on how the M3s managed to hold themselves together for a full 70 minutes against Uni 4s, I’m finally confident that Seb has as good a grasp of time as Hawking. Editor’s note: If you mention something about me and time in one more report, I’m going to drop you!! *Actual Editor's Note: Don't tempt me

Gabe Wolf - Max Planck: The true pioneer of the field of quantum mechanics, Planck was the first scientist to correctly quantise electromagnetic radiation in his attempt solve the Ultraviolet catastrophe. Gabe is somewhat of a pioneer in his own right with his trademark through the legs dribble. I myself have deployed one of these in a game and I imagine it won’t be long till we see it regularly in the pro-leagues.

Matt Langley – Joseph Fourier: The Fourier transform is one of the most powerful mathematical operations commonly used in science. It allows one to convert from a real coordinate space to its inverse space. Fourier invented the technique in order to solve his law of heat diffusion. Matt came into the game feeling under the weather. I imagine that, coupled with the 3s shaky performance, left his temperature spiking sporadically. Side note, huge thanks to Matt for battling illness to be with us today.

Jamie Coltman – Michael Faraday: A hugely impactful figure in the field of electromagnetism, Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction is one of the 4 Maxwell’s equations. He is also known for the amazing party trick that is the Faraday cage. If one could harness all the electricity that is wasted on trying to impress people with the Faraday cage (just use your car in a lightning storm) and put it all into Flash Gordon, he still wouldn’t be as quick or as energetic as Jamie.

Jack Chalk – Niels Bohr: Another famous figure in the early days of Quantum mechanics, Bohr came up with a model for the atom that had electrons orbiting the nucleus in discrete orbitals. Picturing these orbiting electrons in my mind makes me think of Jack’s patented spin move which was crucial to his phenomenal goal scoring run last season. As the M3s look to bounce back strongly next week, perhaps an appearance from Jack’s unstoppable spin move will mark our return to form.

Riccardo Nori – Galileo Galilei: His work on planetary orbits stemmed from his observations of the moons of Jupiter. The first moon he observed he decided to name “Io” which in Italian means “I”. I proudly confess that I have the same degree of self-importance. Just look at the second paragraph in this report which is all about a completely dull interaction between me and the umpire. I still long for the day in which I can brag about “Riccardo’s law of molecular friction”. 

That’s all folks, I hope you’re happy Ash!!