By then I was working as a trainee solicitor in London and must have lost some weight as I did the London Marathon in 1999. I also played two seasons for Holcombe. This was long before they packed their team with internationals (as they do now) but it was a great club with lots of ambition. I recall we got into the South Prem, but we weren’t ready for the National League. However, the schlepp down to Kent twice a week was interfering with my social life (and/or I wasn’t playing well) so I hung up my boots playing proper senior hockey and joined London Wayfayrers. I had 4 happy years there playing for the “Heavies”, technically the 5 XI but with players ranging from ex national league to “ a very long way from national league“, but on our day we had a team which could shame the club 2^nd XI.

2004 saw us move to Cardiff and I joined Eversheds. Lee Ireland’s wife Fi, who worked at Eversheds at the time, got me in touch with the Club (it must have been Shelts). I played as much as I could with a new baby (the baby is now playing for our womens’ teams). Since then I have played for 2s to 7s and obviously the mighty vets. As I reached 40 I played eight games for Wales over 40s at two tournaments (The Home Nations and the Euros) in what was unfortunately a poor team - at least we had an ex Cardiff man in Reg Painter captaining us. The highlight of those tours was travelling out to Northern Ireland with CJ who was playing 45s and Nicko (Howard). I also played in the double header for Wales O35s v Scotland in a great team packed full of Cardiff stars (playing behind a certain Mark Ramage tends to help).

Back in the light blue of Cardiff and Met I am hopeful the hip will hold out for a bit longer. There have been so many great times. I am pretty sure I must hold the club record for the longest to travel for a game (835 miles from Faro to Bordeaux including two flights, I made it for the start of a midday game only to find it rained off). I have seen numerous Churchillian speeches from Neil Evans, enjoyed having Way Way as the ultimate wingman, marveled at Shelts’ ability to organize anything and everything, played in defensive lineups where collective baldness, age and weight have defied all the odds, wondered repeatedly why we have so many left backs and watched pretty much everyone lose the plot at some point…. Why would you want that to end……?

One of my favourites. I came back on having injured my hip to play kicking back after Clevs was red carded. We kept this goal out in the last 30 seconds to win 2-1.  Nezza and I never resolved who actually deflected the ball over the bar. It was me (obviously).