Mill Hill go up in a blaze of glory

8:36pm Wednesday 9th April 2008

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Bracknell 1-2 Mill Hill It was the ultimate promotion playoff. Locked together in the league like two teenagers on an Ibiza beach, mill hill and Bracknell were in a straight fight for the lucrative second spot and elevation to a higher plane of hockeyness.

The away side had a slight technical edge courtesy of the goal tally notched up by their wrecking-ball attack. Their beached-up wreck of a defence had also managed a surprising show of resilience in recent games.

"We did it"

Captain Pete

But their 6-5 defeat in the corresponding home fixture offered a psychological advantage to their slough(but I bet they put windsor on their correspondence)-based opponents.

The north Londoners morale was further buffeted by the absence of Veteran-Striker Solly (that's his real name, not just a hackneyed dig at his age) whose hopes of using the fixture to overhaul ryan as leading goalscorer were dashed by his decision to go skiing.

On the bright side, hedge (not as sturdy as a wall, nor as versatile as a fence but always welcoming to birds) did put down his cigarettes to make a shin-padless appearance. Team hard-man craig, however, was willing to sacrifice his scrawny ankles for the sake of the old man and suffered the consequences with a ball in the leg during the second half.

Which brings me onto the umpires. The league had clearly saved the best till last, like when you're playing thundercat top trumps and you're down to your final card and the only one you haven't seen turn up yet is snarf. We're talking Hale and Pace or Russ Abbot and Sandy Toksvig on a double bill.

Their decisions were like driving anti-clockwise round Silverstone - not one right.

But that only spurred on Mill Hill. Initially reluctant to push too hard for the phyrric victory of promotion, the team changed tack when faced with such adversity. Despite some wayward passing around the back, the team were positive and once more Ryan took his chances - though as usual not quite clinically enough to have to fork out for a post match jug.

The two-nil lead built up by half time was staunchly defended for the second 35 minutes. Heavy pressure was quite comfortably absorbed, even after the deficit was cut to a single goal.

Congratulations to Tring who finished above us (while playing less entertaining, free flowing hockey) but jeers and disgrace to the rest of the league who failed to hold back a team of brazen oldies including an IT geek, a souped-up estate agent and even a part-time journalist.