Yesterday saw the 4th XI back on the road, with London the destination. I am sorry to have break this to everyone but it turns out that Dick Whittington was talking rubbish and the streets are not paved with gold. Don’t let that stop you from going though, some of it looked quite nice.

I first played at the John Orwell in the early 1990s, I even played a football match there once and you can count the football matches I have played on 2 fingers. Not much has changed. The view remains stunning, Turner’s Old Star is still a great post game pub and the pitch iitself is still like playing on the hull of a capsized boat.

In a throw back to simpler times, we opted to let the train take the strain and convened the inaugural away day for a new breed of hockey casuals, the OCF.

Tower Hamlets away felt like it was going to be a good test and so it was. In what is becoming a bit of a habit for us, we started slower than them and all too quickly went 1-0 down to a penalty corner. It took us a while to get ourselves organised and our match-ups in order but we did pick it up as the half progressed. It was obvious early that Johnny had come to play and he was outstanding in our goal from the start. He was ably supported by all the guys with him at the back. We didn’t do too much wrong but we were guilty of allowing their star player too much space and time in midfield and he took advantage. The half ended 1-0.

Half time saw us make one simple tactical change and we went man to man on their main man. Dr No, who was back to something more llke his best, even though his wife was using the family stick in her game, stepped up to do the job. For 5 minutes he worked his magic and had the guy in his pocket. Alas, brains all too soon overcame age by the simple means of movement; the guy started running. Not to be deterred, Lucas dropped back for us to take up the man marking role and did an excellent job. He was eventually relieved from duty by Jannick who was equally as magnificent in the role. They scored a second but the game was now on and, as we are learning happens pretty much like clockwork in this league, the play opened up. It was us that stepped into it. We created more pressure and chances and it will be little surprise that it was the housewives’ favourite, Simon ‘Boy Band’ Preece, that grabbed our goal (almost elbowing his son and heir off the ball in the D to do so). We kept the pressure on but in pushing up, as were entirely right to do, we were we always going to be vulnerable on the counter and so it proved- we conceded a late penalty corner which was well converted to take it to the final score.

It was a good game played in a great spirit. Everyone played fantastically but I can’t name everyone as I’ll be here all day. I will, however, specifically mention Mark Butt, who was great in his first game of the season for us and Simon Worrall, who travelled for us despite being injured and tried to give it a go. We wish him a speedy recovery. As also touched on earlier, Johnny was superb throughout and was rightly crowned MoM without the need for a vote. As one of the TH players asked me after the game, why did you have to bring Manuel Neuer with you in goal? Football isn’t my thing but even I got the reference. Well played young man.

So lacking in incompetence were we that the Jacket of shame nominations amounted to an attempt to stitch me up for adding roughly 90 seconds to our journey to the game for taking a wrong turning. It didn’t wash as where there is doubt, there is no doubt- in the absence of anyone else, it goes to Dr No.

Thank you once again to everyone who played and the hardy OCF ultras who came to support.

Keep the faith!