Tooting Bec 'A' welcomed back some big names for the start of 2016/17, but it wasn't enough as they fell to a 3-2 defeat.

Things are never quite what they seem between Bec and Wanderers.

First, the ground: Croydon Athletic's Mayfield Avenue. The Bec players took to the away changing room and imagined walking out through the tunnel onto the freshly-watered turf, applauded from the stands. Division 4? We've hit the big time, they thought. Of course, things were taken down a peg as the opposition led us out to the cowfield next door and spent their warmup wheeling the goals into place.

Second, the players. For Tooting, there were worrying sightings on the Wanderers sideline of the young tyros who ran up a cricket score against us last season. Fortunately they had arrived early for their first team game, which was up next.

For Wanderers, students of the game among them would have been scratching their heads to see half the Bec 1st XI from 2008/09 line up at the other end. Ed Cornwell, Matt Taylor, Ash Allingham, Chris Winn and a 39.9 year-old Steffan Wells took the field aiming to show they still had it.

To start with, they did - and soon had the lead as Ash curled a delicious corner onto the head of Luigi, everyone's second-favourite Nintendo plumber. But they soon slipped up and conceded, a number of small errors leading to a dropped shot and easy finish for the Wanderers forward. 1-1 at half time but Bec should have been ahead.

The complexion of the game changed early in the second half, but not as it should have.

A Wanderers winger took his persistent shirt-pulling too far and hauled Taylor to the ground. The Bec right-back launched a lighting counter-attack, booting the player so fast and hard the referee missed it. But referee didn't miss the player shoving Taylor to floor in retaliation. The Bec man hit the ground like a bag of King Edwards, the ref reached for his red card and the Wanderers player was off. Taylor escaped scot-free.

Sadly for the Bec, Wanderers were fired up by this injustice and went on to take the lead. A long ball through the middle saw their striker out-muscle Oli and Luigi to poke the ball past a furious Cornwell. And as the Badgers tired in reply they conceded a penalty, which was duly stroked into the top corner.

3-1 would have been embarrassing so a tap-in for Ash was welcome to make it 3-2. But it was too little, too late, as the ten men held on for the win. Disappointment in the Badgers' Sett with the result. But deep down there was a glint in their eyes. Some of the old magic was back and they couldn't wait to make things right in week two, away to Beckenham.