Results - 27 October

Our first Men's Masters fixture of the season resulted in a resounding win for our O35s in the first round of the England Hockey Championships!

Men's O35 won 7-1 at home to Towcester O35

Goals: Michael Joffe, Ben Langdown (2), Bob Read & Tom Whitehouse (3)

Player of the Match: Ben Langdown

Citation - parts of this match report were written with the aid of AI

Much of the warm-up of the Mens O35s cup tie against Towcester on Sunday involved a discussion on backwards causation which is when an effect precedes its cause. This lesser debated aspect of time travel is linked to Einstein's theory of relativity which proposes that time and space are linked and that time slows down as you move faster through space.

Some of us stridently argued that backwards causation (or retrocasuality) is impossible but Bradders assured us that he'd left Spoons at 1.30am the previous night and was in bed at 1.00am. Therefore with that debate settled we put our minds to the grander task of rolling back the collective years and try to play a game of hockey.

That we won the game 7-1 would suggest to the casual observer that it was an easy win and it was indeed largely uneventful save for their goalkeeper being yellow carded for a smothering save that knocked Pixie up in the air. Five years ago that would have been shrugged off as simply the product of taking the ball near a keeper but now is considered dangerous ... apparently. Anyway he had to sit down for 10mins and rue the vagaries of the continuum of time whilst Towcester had their best period of the match and we extended our lead in the same period by 2 goals ... go figure?

As the game ran out and I tried (in vain to latch onto a through ball from Langers) I too found myself considering Einstein's seminal works with the thought that as the ball moves faster, my reactions were definitely getting slower. This was further proved by Lee Gaterall diving superbly to save a ball to his right just as the umpire signalled a 16.

All in all an enjoyable time was had by all and as we succumbed to a pizza induced food coma in The Masons, we all agreed to do it again next month away at North Walsham Hockey Club.