Maiden Castle 2017. Or Durham City Hockey Club Mixed Festival 2017, as every other club seems to call it. Earlier in 2017 a snap-election was called. It was decided Pete and PK would form a coalition as your tournament organisers for this year. What could possibly go wrong?

The weekend finally kicked off Friday evening as the players gathered round Michael's to watch Newcastle's Championship title push and also eat food/discuss the weekend. New this year would be a dark subplot - each player drew another name out of a bowl, along with a random item and location found on the weekend. The aim was to 'murder' that person with said item before then murdering their allocated person, and so on - as always, keeping in line with the good natured spirit of the club.

Like previous years, JPC were split into two teams with different fancy dress themes - JPC Narnia (PK) and JPC Roald Dahl (Pete). The teams briefly split to discuss weekend tactics. Key points raised in the Narnia talk were for everyone to have fun and for Amine to not be late.

Players gathered outside JPC on Saturday morning at 8.45am. Amine then arrived at 9.15am and everyone was on their way to Durham. A day of mixed fortune for Narnia began with early defeats, despite keeper heroics from Zoe keeping the score respectable. To make matters worse, centre-back Faith went off injured. We may have lost Faith on the pitch, but we didn't lose faith in ourselves - the team soon rose to the challenge of a potential David vs Goliath encounter. Sport's The Winner; an army of 500 children armed with sticks and shin pads - some young, some not so young - aimed to strike fear into the hearts of Narnia with a well-rehearsed Hakka. However, Narnia held strong and gained their first win of the tournament with a 2-0 win. Meanwhile, a series of mysterious deaths had began and all of a sudden nobody could feel safe at Maiden Castle. Emma showed smart preparation by packing a pint glass for a spot of pitch-side controversy, while Matty Kurian is now seen as a serious threat to human safety with a clipboard in his hands. If only Chappers were here this year to keep everyone in check.

Narnia continued their winning ways after lunch by beating Tynedale. Sadly the impressive winning run didn't last long as Manick (who were a bit good) overcame Narnia 2-0, despite Jonny's sublime saves also keeping this score respectable. The stage was now set for Saturday's heavyweight fight that everyone was talking about - Narnia v Roald Dahl obviously. It proved to be an even game of controversy featuring six goalkeepers on the pitch at once and a tense derby atmosphere. Eventually Narnia ran away 2-0 winners thanks to goal machine Sian, with both teams firmly poised for Sunday (and also the party).

And so it began. The players made their way down to the Masonic Hall in a range of fantastic costumes. All your favourite characters from Willy Wonka to Fantastic Mr Fox to Aslan were all represented. Kudos to the Blairs and Rosie for their effective recycling, through creating a cardboard wardrobe and giant peach (orange?) with Sainsbury's bags respectively. As the band kicked off, the moves came out and everyone was having a good time. However, Matt 'Sophie Ellis-Bextor' George was having none of it - he was ready and within seconds Zoe was another unsuspecting victim. It was murder on the dance floor. Special credit should also go to Milney, who impressively helped buy a round of drinks with US dollars in Wetherspoon's - clearly Farage has helped foster great US/UK relations.

Sunday morning came and the players arose from their sleep (some more easily than others). Narnia were boosted by the return of Faith, yet an early defeat for Narnia meant they only had one more game to play and a chilled day. Matt George could then not resist the invitation to go inside for coffee, opting to not listen to the warnings from his team mates. The trap worked and the murderer had become the murdered. He did gain a free bacon roll for his troubles though - many would say he had a good deal there. The team's Last Battle was against tournament regulars Team Jäger; a 1-0 win in the ensured a credible 5th place finish and ended a great weekend in style.

All in all it was an excellent weekend and we would like to thank everyone for making it so. Rumours Matty 'the serial killer' Kurian won the murder game with 12 kills were alleged to be fake news as he fell victim to J-Lo in the latter stages, but the use of pictures on his phone in multiple situations as opposed to real locations has brought the game into disrepute. In a weekend of endless cliches, it's safe to say hockey was the winner.