Getting a Sunday team together is much like living the life of Gordon Smith – your best chance of picking someone up is by hanging around a bar on a Saturday night preying on drunken souls who’ll wake up in the morning and regret what they’ve done.

This is, perhaps unsurprisingly, not the only drinking association that could be applied to the Sunday XIs this season. The 1^st XI was led by a man in Paul Frost who, though undoubtedly capable of organising a piss up in a brewery, seemed singularly unable to guide his troops to any meaningful achievement on the cricket field. A less-than-impressive record of no victories and one point from nine Sunday league games betrays a management style all-too-frequently scuppered by the leader’s pre-match Castle Lager binges.

The 2^nd XI captain, Gavin MacDonald, enjoyed markedly more success, no mean feat when one considers that he had to overcome the prejudices of resembling an inverted pint of Guinness when sporting his flannels. That his charges continued to respect this man whose favoured tipple is the indefensible Strongbow – the choice of tramps and 14 year olds the world over – is testament both to his leadership skills and to his regular willingness to invest the match fees over the bar.

It was originally my intention to use this report to highlight the fine individual efforts and rousing team displays that we were privileged to watch on Sundays in 2004, by unfortunately none of the opposition captains were available at the time of writing to provide this information. I hope, then, that members will forgive me if I crave their indulgences by offering a recollection of my favourite game of the season.

The date – Sunday 1^st August 2004.
The venue – Fortress Short Lane.
The opposition – arch rivals Staines & Laleham.

As a rule, I don’t usually enjoy matches against Staines & Laleham – but for some reason this game was different. Perhaps it was the fine, sunny day – rare indeed in this past summer. Perhaps it was the fact that, for once on a Sunday, I was not sporting a particularly brutal hangover.

But I suspect the key factor was the complete absence of any opposition. By failing to turn up, the boys from Worple Road improved the mood of my camp no end. Happy, smiling faces replaced gloomy, down-trodden expressions, not least once the penny dropped that we now had double the usual tea to consume. A hastily-arranged 6-a-side match put paid to much of the afternoon, and was notable only for the absurd decision made by one J Bird against yours truly.

Lounging in the bar afterwards, filled with an ample tea and a generous helping of imported South African ale, a number of the team set about reconstructing how the game might have panned out had the cowardly Staines lads bothered to attend. To our great delight, the resulting report (reproduced in full below) was published in the local press – I will leave you to assess the likelihood of what was written for yourselves.

Many thanks to all who contributed to a thoroughly enjoyable season, and all the best for 2005 to our friends at Staines & Laleham.