Ah, "Hockey day, hockey day!" to quote our illustrious centre forward, Roberto Bartonez. Yes, after the long torpor of the off season it was time to dust off our sticks and try and remember which way up to hold them. It was also time to try and remember the way to Bishop's Stortford, something that Ed, Neil and Ellis signally failed to do as they sailed on past the motorway exit for a twenty mile sightseeing excursion along the M11 to Harlow and back. Fortunately, Ed has a fast car and a police badge.

Having finally arrived at Hockerill College and cunningly parked in the car park near the pitch (a greater accomplishment than it sounds - see the L2s' match report), there was time for only the briefest of warm-ups for the late arrivals - not ideal before your first full hockey match in over five months. Ian Marshman made an early bid to save the Harlow Three from the Lemon award by demonstrating that he'd managed to forget what his teammates looked like over the summer break. 'Hi, Dan,' he offered. 'I'm Simon,' came the response. Fair to say, there was more than a touch of pre-season-itis going around.

Once the game got underway, South duly purred into action with all the smooth acceleration of a traction engine. Heads still metaphorically on the beach (or in Harlow), Stortford dominated the opening period and it was a good ten minutes before South began to string any sort of coherent moves together. Fortunately, Sev Warren, put in at sweeper - or was it centre back? It was that sort of game - on his club debut was holding the line alongside Dan Loy. Lino Di Lorenzo in goal was the only Southerner looking properly sharp, making several outstanding saves in the first half.

South did finally begin to get their act together and apply some pressure on the home team. Joe Whittaker, assigned to defensive midfield, naturally was pressing the attack in the centre, while Dom Nelson, Simon Ta and Ed Boggis began to see more of the ball on the flanks. Midway through the half South opened the scoring courtesy of Paul South, and this was followed up by the black swan event of a goal from Neil Sneade, maintaining his impressive strike rate for the club of a goal every four years. The surprise was so general that no-one thought to ask why the left back was slotting home a loose ball two metres out by the right post.

Such adventurous play was quickly punished however, when a Stortford through ball turned the high-pressing defence and left Lino totally exposed against three onrushing Stortfordians - quite an image to play with. He duly opened his legs and showed his class, to quote the immortal Coleman, but to no avail. Towards the end of the half South had another let-off, when a ball deflected high across the face of goal right into the path of a Stortford forward, who saw his instinctive aerial strike sail just over the crossbar from barely a metre out.

The warm conditions and long break began to tell in the second half as tiredness started to show, particularly in some of the South tackling, which produced a warning from the umpires and a talking-to from captain Jan Brynjolffssen. Dan, after another challenge deemed to be overly-physical, cunningly subverted the policy of not rotating the defence to grab himself a breather by getting hooked to the sideline by the captain before the umpire did the job for him.

Despite this, it was South who were finishing stronger as the match moved into its final third. Ellis Lui was a tireless engine in midfield and Nev Warren, also debuting for his new club in his old shirt, was distributing some good balls up front. Ed grabbed the third goal with a deflection on a drilled ball into the D that we'll generously say he intended. A fourth was added by Dom, bursting up from central defence to win a free hit inside the 23 which he took immediately to drive straight into the D and whack the ball home while everyone else was still standing around.

The victory was sealed by Bartonez, positioned just in front of the keeper to deflect Ed's strike between the goalie's legs. Stortford had their moments, with Lino again called on to make several saves, including one great rush to the edge of his D to smother a chance and sweep clear, but the South goal remained unviolated in the second period.

In the end a convincing win in what was for the most part a very competitive game, with undoubtedly much improvement still to come.