(-15 minutes): Well, 13 of us are here. But where are Nev, Wilco and Dan L?

(-1 minute): Wilco rocks up as no.15. But where is Dan? Then it dawns – Dan got LoM from the M4s yesterday for signing up for the game despite being in Sweden. He also signed up for this one… but is probably also still in Sweden. That is Lemon sorted for the day. Everyone else relaxes.

1st minute: Oh. Walden look pretty good. This could be hard. We can’t even get out of our half.

2nd-5th minute: Ulp. Yes, this is going to be really challengeing. We are under constant pressure.

6th-10th minute: Hey, passing purple to purple works really well! When we manage this we attack, and look threatening with it. Let’s do that! Despite the early pressure the first proper chance of the game is ours when the ball is worked up to Paul in space. Sadly his swing doesn’t connect cleanly. Remains 0-0.

13th minute: Not 0-0 any more. White to white works as well as purple to purple, if not even better.

16th minute: See, we can do this! Purple to purple down the left channel feeds it through to Will. He uses a mind trick to make the ‘keeper miss the trickling ball and nips in behind to tap it home. 1-1!

18th minute: Purple to purple = good. Purple to white = very bad. 1-2.

35th minute: See above. Good save from Giles, and again, and then from Rock. Sadly Giles (GK) is allowed to lie on the ground and block the ball with his body, but Rock (CB) is not. Penalty stroke.* 1-3. Gut punch.

Half-time: Dan IF, who has been great in the first half, runs out of available time. Then there were 14.

36th-70th minutes: White-to-white and purple-to-white (doh!) create many chances… for Walden. Our numbers dwindled further with an injury to Dan T, adding to pre-existing knocks for Nev and Jan. We are down to effectively 11 fit(ish) bodies by the end. The remaining players are overtired and overrun. The final goal comes seconds from time and makes it double figures. Oof.

* - Don’t believe the GMS – this was the only penalty stroke of the game. We didn’t foul in the circle that often!

And so ends the Men’s Masters involvement in competitive Hockey this season. But the game did see official debuts for club for James Cooke (only previously played in friendlies) and Giles Palmer (new recruit) and a first goal for South for Will.