Following the match against Petts Wood Tudor the previous week, Eltham were desperate for one more game to end the season on a brighter note, but until Friday lunchtime had not secured a fixture. Cometh the hour, cometh the man though, and Pete "The" Fish reached down into his magic bag and pulled out a rabbit - well, a fixture at least. "Anybody mind a long drive?" asked Pete. "I've got something in Merton." Too right nobody minded! Old Ruts had stepped into the breach and provided us with a game at short notice, we were not going to get upset about a bit of traffic! We don't know how Pete managed to get the fixture, but rumours that Derek had put his nuts on the line were swiftly put in their place by Delboy on arrival at the ground.

Eltham managed to have ten players who had arrived at the ground before the start time. Who was the missing eleventh player, you ask? Regular Eltham-watchers will not be surprised to learn that Asjad was "en route" at this point. Indeed, phone messages had been relayed to indicate that at the same time everyone else was arriving in the car part, Asjad was in Greenwich Park! Naturally, he was still confident of arriving on time - but he was the only one. As if that wasn't bad enough, he also gave us the stunning news that he wasn't driving, but had accepted a lift of Tanveer, who was not even playing! Now Tan is to arriving on time what Richard Page is to understated shirts, so this seemed a curious state of affairs. Ours not to reason why!

Asjad arrived near the end of the Eltham innings.

By this time, Skipperoo had lost the toss and Eltham had been put into bat. Without Asjad to open the innings, the skipper turned to those openers of years gone by, John Fisher and Colin Wouldham, with instructions to go on the offensive. With the bowling tight from one end, the pace was forced at the other, until Wouldham managed to turn a full toss into a low catch at cover when he could easily have blasted it over the top. 43-1 off 10 overs, not too bad, but the incoming Swain had ideas to boost the run-rate.