“On victory, you deserve beer, on defeat, you need it.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

Knees, Achilles tendons and Hamstrings creaked and moaned as the 5s climbed the steps from the mild climate of the car park to the biting, arctic wind of the pitch. Whether we were on time or late, it really didn’t matter as it was still only half time in the preceding game. So we stood, shivered and split our attention between Kris Baker’s high-pitched screaming and the clearly desperate Crostyx team and their suspiciously competent looking squad.

Finally it was time to get ready, the gates opened, Jack managed to circumnavigate the bin and we took to the field. On paper, we had a winning team, unfortunately the game was to be played on astroturf. Wiseman took the keepers role back from Gregg, who had some other unimportant engagement; Slap, Jack and Daren lined up in defence; Jono, Mat, Sam, Terry and Joe were the engine room; Glen and Awesome were poised to take advantage up front with Dan and Kev wrapped up warm on the bench. That was the plan anyway, however due to Jono’s inability to get dressed in time, Dan started in his place.

After two minutes, Jono was finally ready so Dan let him onto the pitch. Silly Dan. From that point on, Jono’s passes had the kind of pinpoint accuracy that one normally associates with Edward Fox (and latterly Eddie Redmayne) in Day of the Jackal - every one went straight to a Crostyx player.

Crostyx opened their account after ten minutes, Wiseman being beaten from an acute angle but we were soon back in it as Joe passed the ball into the D (successfully for once) and Sam M got the fine touch to angle the ball into the Crostyx net.

Shortly after the restart, Jono limped off after sustaining a nasty blow to the foot. A little reshuffling saw Daren pushed to bottom of the diamond and Dan slotting in at left back. Some good flowing play from Crostyx gave them their second goal after 25 minutes. Witham pushed back and won a short corner right on the stroke of half-time. The men in yellow swarmed the D and were roundly ignored by Mr. Awesome who fired the ball home. Two all at half-time.

It’s fair to say that we missed the usual half-time motivation from Widdle - not a sentence that I ever thought I’d write. Will did his best to fill in, but it just wasn’t the same. The second half began with the line up that was supposed to start the first, Dan not learning from his earlier mistake and letting Jono onto the pitch again. Silly, silly Dan.

Crostyx quickly gained another advantage through what was possibly the luckiest fluke of a goal anyone had ever seen - the ball coming off an angled stick to loop over Wiseman and into the goal. This goal was swiftly followed by two more leaving Witham 5-2 down after 43 minutes. Jono decided that he’d done enough for a Crostyx Man of the Match award and took himself off.

Witham continued to press where we could, but struggled to contain the purple tide and were soon 6-2 down, this was not to be our day. Kev replaced Dan at the back in the hopes that his greater pace… sorry, experience - greater experience would help. One promising late attack saw Joe again get the pass into the D but Glen was just unable to latch onto the shot.

Another bit of team shuffling saw Dan return to the pitch at right back just in time to thwart a Crostyx long corner by guiding the ball down past the post. The whistle went to end the match and Witham 5s had fallen to their first defeat of the season. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but several pints back at the clubhouse helped and got us in the mood for the most ridiculous Christmas quiz ever devised - I’m still waiting for someone to explain why it’s more likely to find a frozen chicken in a Christmas stocking than a live puppy.

Man of the Match was Sam M who never gave up in midfield, Dick of the Day was Jono for obvious reasons.

The mighty 5s will return…