There was something remarkably familiar about Colney Heath's successful passage to the final of the Spartan South Midlands League Spring Cup in the form of yet another George Devine goal.
The striker put the Magpies into the lead just past the hour mark against Shefford Town & Campton and the 2-0 win was confirmed in stoppage time when Hadley Gleeson beat Reece Lewis with a placed shot into the corner.
It was Devine's seventh in the five games so far although even he was struggling to keep count.
He said: "If you include the friendlies it’s about 12 I think but its four or five in the cup games, I’m not quite sure, but it is going alright."
What is certain is that this is the player Colney Heath thought they had when they signed him and one that has used lockdown as a way of refocusing the mind and doing away with a number of niggling injuries.
He said: "I’ve been on furlough for the whole time so all I’ve had to do is train and run around a field on my own.
"Where I live there is a football pitch with a couple of goalposts so I spent most of my days down there just doing a bit of training.
"It seems to be paying off but I’ve been doing a lot of stretching too, that’s another thing I’ve been working on as well as doing the running.
"I didn’t really look after myself as well as I could before. I wouldn’t give myself time to recover for the next one, I wasn’t preparing properly.
"I’m doing that at the moment and I work in a gym so I have a lot of time to just stretch and focus on that stuff."
The form will have brought admiring glances from elsewhere but he is also enjoying playing in a side that is simply carrying on from where they left off.
And with an expected promotion just waiting to be announced, Devine is looking forward to testing himself further up the non-league pyramid.
"There is always a good team spirit here," he smiled. "When we get in the changing rooms after a game we have a sing-song and that’s good.
"That’s the key, we’re all mates.
"Everyone has worked so hard for promotion and we deserve it. I don’t think a lot of people would argue with that.
"And you want to see how high you go. I do. I want to see how far I can push myself.
"I’m looking forward to next year no matter what happens."
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