“I never meant to cause you any sorrow, I never meant to cause you any pain.” - Prince, Purple Rain

There is a school of thought that suggests that you should win at all costs, this is not the way of the 5s - we just want a good game of Hockey (some of us want a good game of Cricket, but recognise that it’s January and that really isn’t realistic).

The squad gathered in a random changing room, the usual group of experienced players, inexperienced players and youthful energy (but only after the Deep Heat had been deployed).

The match was to be difficult with Old Loughts fielding a full squad of 16, outnumbering ours considerably and making our subs bench of two, Ross and Kev, look a lot emptier. But we held resolute with Wiseman tending a goal behind a defence made of Slap, Sam M and Dan; the midfield were Mat, Connor, Mr. Awesome, Joe and Terry; upfront were Sam L and Geoff.

The whistle went and we were under pressure straight away, soaking up wave after wave of Loughtonian attacks, led by a strong central play. Before we knew it, we were three-nil down and wondering just how it happened.

Kev came on for Dan and Ross for Sam L and the result of this change was a short corner for the men in purple after a particularly nimble player ran rings around the Witham defence. The ball was injected, bounced around outside the D for a few seconds before a reverse sticked screamer was sent past Wiseman and into the top corner of the net to leave everyone wondering if Witham had been promoted a few league divisions. Due to some arcane point of technicality (and presumably shock), this goal was subsequently disallowed.

Twenty minutes into the half, the Louts made a substitution and Witham were able to get a footing, allowing them to start applying a bit of pressure, the half soon ended with Loughtonians three-nil ahead.

Since Motivator-in-Chief Widdle had declined to make the trip for unfathomable reasons of his own, we did our best to get ourselves revved up for a more balanced second half. Both teams took their positions and waited for the whistle. And then waited a little longer as it suddenly became apparent that one of the umpires had wandered off to visit the facilities. When he finally returned, the second half began.

We threw ourselves into the game, quite literally in the case of Mat who took advantage of the water based pitch to make headfirst, diving tackles which resulted in several snubbed out attacks and a groin strain for the, now very damp, Mat. A quick reorganisation saw Sam M pushed up to midfield and Kev coming in to the centre of defence.

The defensive line was now composed of Slap, Kev and the luscious flowing locks of Dan. These three eyed the much younger and faster attackers with a certain trepidation, one that was clearly taken into account by the midfield, especially Connor who seemingly switched from Hockey to WWE, flattening one of the attackers twice and earning himself not only a green card but also a stick shaped bruise to the throat. Dan did his best to negate Connor’s efforts by passing to the same attacker instead of Kev - in hindsight it was easy to understand the error, one was a young, slim kid sporting hair and in purple and the other wasn’t any of those things.

Mat tentatively retook the pitch for Terry, who had managed to stay on his feet for three quarters of the match (so best not to tempt fate too much) and immediately resumed his curious love affair with the floor. His commitment to flinging himself around enabled Witham to put some real pressure on the aubergine coloured defence - and earned him a Man of the Match award to go with his 25m swimming badge. Several short corners followed with Sam L finally getting us onto the scoreboard.

Several shorts and a green card for Will later and the whistle went, ending proceedings for the day. We’d won the second half 1-0.

“Stone Cold” Connor Avery was a resounding Dick of the Day as we retired to the Old Loughts clubhouse for jacket potatoes and jugs.