Reading Supervets played in the Grand Masters A division away at 12.00 at Sevenoaks but a 20 minute traffic jam into town meant we all arrived late, started with a borrowed player and had no time to warm up before the game and consequently took time to find our rhythm.

A closely fought first half against a competitive Sevenoaks side (including an umpire warning to both teams to calm things down) gave no indication that a totally dominant second half was to follow.

A half time tweak to the line-up allowed Rage, Graham and Peter Wright to play some very good & well linked hockey across the midfield and gave the defence the time and space to move further up-field as a unit and allow us to dominate possession.

We put together some great hockey as the ball moved from wing to wing and created more & more chances. In the end Jerry Cooke continued his rich scoring vein with two close range finishes and was just wide with a third, a sweetly struck Lowe short corner and the goal of the season from Graham, a calm & stylish finish off a fine Wilcox pass to cap a great passing move, resulted in a very comfortable and convincing 4-0 win. As Peter Wright observed it was wins like these that make it such a pleasure to play for winning Reading Vets teams, a 4-0 win away at Sevenoaks doesn’t happen every day.

Again everyone played well, hat’s off to Rav for doubling up in goal (for us and the Rustlers) and Peter Sherrell for agreeing to play and revelling in an excellent destructive left half role. Men of the match go to the those who played today and play again tomorrow in the 060s cup (Lowe, Robbo, Peter & Graham - albeit for another club!).

The Sevenoaks man of the match (included in the selfie) goes to Paddy Osborne, too young to play Grand Masters, but turned up in response to Micky’s invitation this morning and bought us a generous jug of beer to toast old Reading hockey mates – great to see you Paddy. (NB. Cap’n Bob has promised to bring a jug of Hastings holiday beer to the next game to apologise for his absence today & tomorrow). Good luck to the 060s Reading cup team tomorrow.

Next week we have Relics and Rustlers both playing at home at 2.30pm (we hope to see Trevor Jones & Nigel Woolven on the touchline) and in Bartie’s absence Andy Holden will publish both squads early next week.

Micky