It’s an early-morning departure as we’re off to south London and collecting Monty & Father Don and Captain Cooper along the way. The first venue is easy to find as it’s triangulated between the BP garage, next door’s forty-six big black bins and Barnwood’s ‘Vets 4 Pets’, but the Sat Nav has its first issue of what’s going to be a pretty long day by failing to recognise the post code of the second, hidden away in the Theseus-inspired labyrinth that is Coopers Edge. An appropriate place for the captain to be residing, one thinks. Thankfully, but more by luck than judgement, we stumble upon the correct road and five minutes later, we’re bombing up Crickley only slightly behind schedule.

‘Well on track,’ observes Father Don cheerfully after consulting his Rolex, just as we hit the 50mph zone shortly after Chieveley. Within two miles of the lines of red traffic cones initially appearing, the first of the bright yellow LED signs that says ‘M4 Junction 5 to Junction 6 closed’ appears. We exit at 5 (or 6) and follow the rest of the motorway traffic towards the questionable delights of Slough town centre. If ever there’s a place that looks like it sounds, this is it. You can tell nobody’s been out for a month as two sparkly white Christmas trees are still standing in roughly the same place as they were originally placed, while there’s only three lots of police tape visible from the main road. And we’re still in the nice bit.

Father Don’s still nursing the road atlas as, finally liberated from the urban sprawl of east Berkshire, we shoot past the M25 exit and add another few miles to the ever-growing total. Unsurprisingly, the navigator blames the Sat Nav, while the Sat Nav blames the navigator. ‘I didn’t see a single herbaceous border in Slough,’ observes Monty Don, somewhat incongruously. Everyone else frowns, unable to spot even the most tenuous of links.

With the ETA now saying 10.48, we forego Cobham Services in favour of a two-minute lay-by stop next to what we think might be the A3, so Monty Don can extract a clutch of Tesco sausage rolls from the rucksack in the boot. Captain Cooper meanwhile chomps on a Waitrose deluxe chicken wrap with a sprinkling of Mediterranean vegetables – clearly one of these players will grow up reading The Times, while the other one won’t.

We’re edging our way down Cheam High Street, idling in front of the 75th red light since exiting the M25 some time ago. ‘Look!’ urges Father Don, pointing enthusiastically at the John Lennon canvas in the window of the antiques shop opposite, while grabbing desperately for his phone to take a nostalgic snap. ‘Imagine that on the bedroom wall,’ he muses, then imagines Mother Dons’ response and shelves the idea for now. ‘I love The Beatles,’ he informs no-one in particular, as the lights change to green and the kangaroo start does its best to ruin the image.

‘Were you named after Harrison Ford or George Harrison?’ Father Don asks Captain Cooper as we pull up at the next red light, barely fifty yards further on. ‘Harrison Ford,’ replies El Capitano, much to the disappointment of the man in the front passenger pew. ‘Never mind,’ he mumbles, though thankfully no-one in the back seat quite hears this.

‘I loved John Denver,’ mused Mother Steadman, circa eleven years ago. ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads, and all that Country & Western stuff. I think we should call him John.’ ‘That’s a bit traditional,’ piped up Grandad Steadman. ‘I was thinking Cecil, after Cecil Rhodes. He was the son of a vicar, you know.’ ‘I didn’t know,’ replied Mother Steadman abruptly+-, ‘but if you think we’re calling him Cecil, then you’re very much mistaken. Anyway, William, how many runs did you score today?’ ‘Out first ball,’ lamented Father Steadman, ‘but I fielded like Jonty Rhodes.’ And it stuck.

‘Do you mind being named after a gardener?’ Captain Cooper asks Monty Don as a Primark lorry momentarily blocks our route. ‘Well, it could have been a lot worse,’ considers MD. ‘If my dad had had his way, I’d have been called Yoko Ono.’

We crawl into Carshalton and with two hundred yards to go, both the sky and the roads mysteriously clear. Thankfully, everyone else is present and correct at the Boys’ College where today’s encounter will be played out and Coach Stalley is already sorting out his big yellow & white cones, ensuring they’re placed exactly 2.2 metres apart. ‘Those two aren’t quite right,’ says Smiffy. ‘My enhanced mental estimation skills suggest there’s at least 2.3 metres between that yellow one and that white one. 2.347 metres if you want to be exact,’ but before he’s rattled off his third decimal place, Coach Stalley’s shifted the white cone and got everyone doing some knee-bends and ankle stretches. As everyone’s down low in this phase of the preparation, the sickly image of hideously coloured boots becomes all too apparent, though the wry smiles emanating from TD and HB suggest they know what some people are thinking and consider themselves wholly exempt from any sort of criticism or potential deformation of character comments.

There’s little to choose between the two teams in the opening period as each set of players pretty much cancels out the other. Boris makes a fine one-on-one save as Sutton break from a Gloucester corner, while the home keeper does very well to turn Steadman’s stinging volley over the bar.

At the back, Eagle, Dix and Cooper, with Barnard covering in front, ensure there are no other direct attempts on goal in a first half that sees Hurricane make his long-awaited return from exile and Two-Foot attempt a throw-in that only goes slightly wrong.

With Boris returning, the half-time jaffas don’t last overly long, but the general five-minute sugar-rush seems to have paid dividends, as there’s considerably more intensity in the visitors’ play after the break. It’s Sutton though who claim the lead via a long-range free kick, but Gloucester come perilously close to a leveller, the home keeper doing very well to deny Steadman a second time. The reintroduced Smiffy is looking dangerous down the right too and from his cross, Don can’t quite lift his effort over the keeper.

The excellent Sutton centre back gives both Don and the Freemason few opportunities to bear down on goal however, but Captain Cooper’s elevation to the central midfield slot sees him create a few problems for the homesters’ defence, including striking the crossbar with a fine effort as the visitors again go close to restoring parity. A late break from Sutton results in them also being denied by the woodwork, but despite the frustrating reversal, the players should be pleased with the shift they put in, particularly after the break.

The glum faces immediately after the final whistle are replaced by chocolatey faces a few minutes later and smiling faces ten minutes after that as the game’s become a distant memory and the impromptu kickabout with an airless football takes centre stage. The watching adults appreciate there’ll be an agonising 48 hours ahead as they replay this and over-analyse that. Thankfully, the players don’t realise that they’ll be reduced to similar soul-searching twenty years down the line, so even more reason to not over-think things for as long as it’s possible not to do so.

In the car park afterwards, Triple B learns a new word as he packs his kitbag with a fastidiousness that is as impressive as it is time-consuming and ensures his inclusion in one of our future ‘alternative’ teams – the ‘Accurate & Attentive XI’ in this case. Amongst numerous others that are okay to be made public, there’s also the all-time ‘Versatile XI’ (Bevan, Berry, Assheton, Eagle, et al), the ‘Really Neat Left-Backs’ XI (Buttery, Phillips, Dix et al) and the Horticulturally-inclined team (unsurprisingly, only Monty Don in this one at the moment).

The Sat Nav’s set for ‘Home’, which as it turns out is a straight, M25-avoiding line through the entire metropolis that is south London. Small town centre after small town centre comes and goes, none of which contains a single John Lennon print, much to the very obvious disappointment of Father Don. In a fit of utter desperation, he resorts to texting the shop back in Cheam after studying the blurred image on his phone and just making out ‘020’ something, only to receive a quote of £600 and an explanation that says the canvas is an ‘original’, whatever that means. ‘Imagine what mum will think if he pays that,’ ponders Monty Don, before getting stuck into the St Mary’s versus Dinglewell back-seat quiz.

St Mary’s wins the maths round 10-5, during which there are several exhortations declaring that ‘Harrison Barnard’s good at maths, cos he’s going to Crypt.’ While this may well be true, past experience suggests that these two variables don’t necessarily correlate in the way that these two think they do. In Round 2, Dinglewell edges the spelling 10-9 in an absolute humdinger that has everyone on the edge of their car seats. At 9-9, Captain Cooper continues the HB theme with a faultless rendition of FASTIDIOUS, while Monty Don falls at the final hurdle, missing out the ‘Z’ in GLOUCESTERCITYONECURZONASHTONNIL.

Don recovers in the deciding Geography round though, gaining the final mark in another 10-9 classic, just we hit the M4 at Brentford of all places, which suggests that both MD and HC are far more geographically-inclined than the built-in technology which brought us this way. For the record, the St Mary’s victory over Dinglewell (two quizzes to one) is the first time this has ever happened in GPSFA’s long and intellectual history. ‘Please don’t tell anyone,’ pleads Captain Cooper. ‘Of course not,’ we all lie.

Reading Services and the Burger King they’ve been longing for since we sped past Cobham around six hours ago. MD plumps for something massive, scoops out anything remotely green and squirts in plenty of stuff that’s bright red or similar. HC goes for something rather more petite and eats everything therein, neatly using his napkin for the necessaries afterwards. Clearly one of these players will grow up reading The Times, while the other one won’t.

8 o’clock. The Strictly semi-final’s in full flow and Mother Don is glued to the set in the lounge as the five remaining couples are put through their paces. Next door, Monty Don is leafing through his Gardener’s World box set, trying to work out whether he should watch Volume 6 (Perennials for Winter) or Volume 9 (Glorious Greenhouses). It’s a tough choice, we all know that. And upstairs, Father Don is lying on his huge four-poster with the TV off, staring intently at the far wall. ‘Six hundred quid for an original John Lennon,’ he mumbles to himself. ‘It’s only six hundred quid. Imagine….’

Gloucester: Boris; Man for All Seasons, Captain Cooper, Black Boots Dix; Freemason, Triple B, Jonty Rhodes, Two-Foot; Monty Don; Hurricane.