Bicester 3-4 Mill Hill There's a fine line between laughter and tears but despite moments of intense comedy on the pitch, a number of Mill Hill's senior players left the field furious at their side's inability to convert technical superiority into a wider margin of victory.

Indeed Ryan Schlanders, whose arrival at the game without his wedding ring had got the changing-room gossip-mill stirring, added fuel to the rumours by storming off in a furious strop despite his match-winning hat-trick.

The first-surprise of the game came when the visitors found that a Bicester side languishing near the foot of the table actually had tactics. Or to be more accurate, their anorak-clad coah, barking-orders from the sidelines had planned a half-court press.

Unfortunately his instructions had only partly translated so the team got the concept of being in their own half but didn't quite grasp the pressing part of the equation.

As a result, whenever Mill Hill were awarded a 16, the opposition team trotted back across the halfway line and stood around as though waiting for the 5pm football results.

Dan Stockill, standing in at centre-back, found himself with a huge amount of possession and time. Known as the Devon Malcolm of hockey owing to the speed and accuracy of his distribution, he did wonders for his pass completion stats by only picking out the opposition striker twice in the whole of the first ten minutes.

The game followed Mill Hill's carefully choreographed routine. One-nil (Schanders short corner); one-all, thanks to a swift and incisive breakaway; two one (Schanders short corner); and two-all by half-time after a scrappily converted short.

Pete again tried to pull out the magic team talk, drawing a line in the sand. "We'll pass through them," he promised. Other team members were more animated.

"We can't play any worse than we have so far," muttered Schanders, wildly erroneously.

The umpiring double-act of Laurel and Hardy took centre stage in the second 35 minutes. Every decision involved a vigorous scratching of the head and a centre spot conference.

"Another fine mess you've got us into. What should I give?"

"Short corner and send off the defender."

"Oh, I was going to give a 16"

"Toss for it."

"OK I win, it'll be a 16 but we'll send off the defender next time."

The anger of Mill Hill's balding players mounted as the match went on and even carefully coiffured Nick Warr transferred his playthings from the perambulator to the Astroturf on more than one occasion.

Nevertheless a couple of incisve passing moves allowed Schlanders to complete his hat-trick before Hamid, a product of the youth academy, capped an energetic performance with a close-range finish for his first top-level goal.

Having built a two-goal lead, however, Mill Hill's performance degenerated, with Ian Namey battling his own strikers for the ball and Marc Scut swearing slightly more than Gordon Ramsey doing a Tourettes impersonation.

Bicester got themselves back into the match when Stockhill, defending a shortie showed the kind of balance and poise that regular centre-back Dave Evans often exhibits at 11:30 on a Saturday night.