The frost may have melted but the Henwick pitches were hard underfoot as players went through the ritual studs v moulded debate before kick off. Q Associates started strongly and kept Shefford pinned in their own half for the opening 10 minutes, before the visitors began moving slightly further up the field.

A worrying sign for Shefford with Q getting a free header from a corner was turned into worse news shortly afterwards. Another corner swinging in, another free header well saved by Smurf but it fell to a Q player to finish from close range. This actually sparked Shefford into a response and the rest of the game was played pretty much in the Q half. Chance after chance went over or wide until Gareth Withers picked the ball up on the left wing, jinked inside and fired a looping shot into the top right hand corner to equalise with the last kick of the half.

Posession shared at the start of the 2nd half until Q's main player muscled the ball through nearly the entire Shefford defence. Tackles went in but none strong enough to get the ball off him and he eventually fired a low shot into the bottom corner. Shefford responded well and Withers again made an excellent run down the left to feed a neat cutback to debutant Glen Canning who only needed one touch to side foot it past the keeper.

Shefford now looked the stronger team and began limiting Q to chances, before an effort from outside the box squirmed out of Smurf's hands and dribbled over the line. The shot was accompanied moments later by a typically timed Crabbeman tackle so the scorer then spent the next 5 minutes seeking him out for retribution, which came in the form of an elbow and a second yellow card, putting Q down to ten men. Suicide against a pressing Shefford side and duly punished when a cross from (insert who crossed it here I can't remember) was headed home by Canning for his second on his debut to make it 3-3.

It was all Shefford for the last 10 minutes but the closest they came was a Crabbeman effort close in but at a tight angle and the ball wouldn't come out from under his feet.

Points shared - probably fair enough cos I haven't mentioned Q's disallowed (rightly) goal or their shot that hit the inside of the post and rebounded across the goal and out. But Shefford made more chances and scored better goals. Familiar story.