It was back to the pound for the Hounds, as Clapham put on what was arguably their finest showing of the season. Indeed, it often seemed as if the Royals’ ‘Claygate’ was made of something far more porous as the goals flew in.

Winger-cum-striker James Allen was clearly in punitive mood, bagging an eye-catching four, while Messrs Oggy, Matt Cefai, Sam Emmery, Adam Spooner and Ronald Ohene all netted one apiece. Ohene’s was a particular fine effort, the maverick midfielder meeting a deft cross fed from the left with both elevation and pomp, powering the game sphere home with an aerial display unmatched since Polish pilots bailed out British counterparts in the autumn of 1940.

In fact, the only thing hotter than Xaverians’ strike-force were the post-match showers, with deputising centre-back Andy Douglas marking his clean sheet with an impressive all-body lather. All attention then focused on Alex Jayes’ misguided pub-centred attempts to replace himself in the squad by recruiting an underage bartender, with beer-fuelled topics ranging from the revolutionary tactics of Trotsky and Allen’s evolution into a goal-scoring machine. And if all that weren’t all enough, the extra-curricular activities simply abounded, with jouyous rare sightings of Earlsfield’s own version of Jason Quinn (the original sadly absent for a double-header in Bognor) and a beguilingly masked Chinese-Jamaican Mortal Kombat-style anti-hero (complete with entourage) making a series of awful life decisions.

On days such as this, Clapham stops being a team. It becomes a religion.

MoM: James Allen

Spencer Grady