Apologies to everybody to all those whose names I have forgotten or never found out. To everybody involved in the kids game which I completely ignored. Please let me know about any errors or omissions.

Many thanks to Guy Rasch who organised the moving of the goal posts in the week before Christmas; to Mrs Stringer and her helpers on bacon butty and soup duties; to Fiona Patterson for cleaning up the village hall afterwards; to Jeremy Makin for putting down the white lines on a freezing afternoon; to the gentlemen who kindly refereed both games so well and in such good spirit and finally to WoodfordValley.net for sponsoring the Durnford kit!

The Durnfords looked magnificent in their new, all blue kit. They started off in an unusual 4-4-1-1 formation and featured Nick "Dino Zoff" Gallup in goal. A back four of Hugo Hawking, Peter "Solid" Curtis, a ringer from Andover who agreed to play in his shoes and Jonty "Alan Hansen" Ward. In the "diamond" were Jeremy "Peter Crouch" Makin, Chris "Vinny Jones" Stott, Oliver Wells and Jon Baggot. With Leslie Burgess just behind the loan striker, John "ooh that was close" Stringer.

The Woodfords, in yellow, featured some ringer in goal who we believe kept goal for The Police (and we mean The Force not the rock group), Aster "Psycho" Crawshaw, StJohn "Rugby man" Coley, Peter "talks a good game" Ryan, Rob "Turbo charged" Newman, Rod "another" Ringer, Paul "Lanky Emu" Lancaster, Rob Scott, Andrew "We're going to" We(m)bley, Rupert Coley and somebody else probably a ringer (not that I'm still bitter).

It was a glorious, crisp, sunny morning - perfect for football. The two teams emerged from the village hall through the assembled throng, careful to avoid pulling any, long forgotten, muscles in the long walk across the road to the pitch. The dazzling blue and yellow strips tried but failed to hide the assembly of beer bellies, hangovers, and aging muscles not used in anger in the many decades since school.

With a short rasp on his plastic, pink whistle the referee started this historic match and it was not longer before Stringer had broken free and from 25, no 30 or possibly even 45 yards let fire with a ripper just over the bar. Moments later The Durnfords surged again and a snap shot from Burgess(?) produced the first of a string of unbelievable saves from the Woodford 'keeper. The Woodfords broke quickly from the following corner and formed what was to become their preferred form of attack - "the melee" - the final shot just going wide. More pressure from The Durnfords led to a snapshot from Stringer going inches wide and surely it was just a matter of time before The Durnfords took the lead. Stringer was then sent for a lap round the field for a needless shove in the back of A Crawshaw and was lucky not to see red for a leg breaking tackle soon after. Then against the run of play the Woodfords produce another melee and scored! What a cruel game football is.

In the second half Durnford pushed hard for an equaliser and corner after corner followed. Shots hit the woodwork, whizzed past the post and anything on target was saved, sometimes spectacularly, by the Woodford 'keeper. Okay - the Woodfords did have a few chances and almost inevitably they did finally break and so cruelly pinched a second. Stung by the unjustness of it all The Durnfords threw everything forward, including Zoff, in the hope of a consolation, something to help lessen the pain in the pub afterwards. Then in the dieing seconds the pressure told, Durnford bodies were dropping to the floor like nine pins and the referee spotted smothing untoward and pointed to the spot. Nobody had the bottle to step forward to take it. In fact we all stepped back, leaving the team's elder statesman, Leslie Burgess all alone. Our token professional. He strode magnificently to the spot - each one of the fifty years since he was on the verge of QPR reserves seeming more like a second than a lifetime. He went for placement not power. But nothing was going to beat that keeper - it was his day. It was all over. 2-0. The tears flowed - was it joy, was it suffering, was it pain or perhaps a mixture of all three? One thing was for certain - a rematch would be required.

John.