The first Saturday of the New Year saw us performing away at Temple Bar when every other game in the world was cancelled due to bad weather.

In the first half we kicked uphill against a force 8 gale in a field recently vacated by a herd of wildebeest. We were soon under pressure and defending heroically. A goalmouth scramble in the mud bath was the culmination of the Temple Bar efforts and when we scrambled the ball to safety it broke their morale. We raced up the field and after an intricate passing move our two new signings in the January window, Nigel Sprunt and Simon Baile, linked together for Nigel to slot in the opening goal. These two chaps are bargain buys from Old Meadonians and Old Grammarians respectively and worth every penny of the 2 shillings and sixpence we paid for them.

We repeated the same move a couple of minutes later and soon we were dominating the game. Further goals from Ian Soderfeld, Michael Barnett and Ricci Evelyn saw us going in at half time 5-0 up. What a contrast to the previous 14 games of the season! At half time it was whispered we might be in with a chance of our first win.

The second half began with Temple making more of a fist of it and they pulled one back. However, our days of folding like a Cottee’s belly are over and we hit back with further goals from Nigel, Michael and Ricci. We eventually ran out winners 9-2 and thoroughly deserved the score line.

We may have turned the corner.