Following their tricky 2-1 Veterans Cup semi-final win at Forest five members of side plus partners and a few freeloading supporters joined team skipper John Wyn-Evans and his lovely wife Jennifer for a superb celebratory luncheon in Haggerston, a small enclave of Hackney, east London.

On arrival at Wyn-Evans Towers, guests were immediately offered drinks and some homemade artichoke and cheese dip, which the captain enthusiastically slathered onto some crackers using a rather dainty butter knife. The dip was superb and an ideal accompaniment to the aperitifs. Jamie Waugh was driving his scooter however and so required something non-alcoholic, but to stand in the bright, airy reception room nonchalantly swigging Orangina from the bottle while those around him quietly sipped their wine appeared to rule him out of any future luncheon invites.

Guests marvelled at the modern styling of the Wyn-Evans garden: sleek lines, exotic oriental plants and a regal summer house that, one supposed, was where John has spent many, many hours meticulously planning his domination of Arthurian League veterans football.

The group was soon summoned below deck to the bijou dining room with sideboard buffet setup and makeshift dining table, cleverly extended by Mrs Wyn-Evans placing a garden table alongside the main dining table and covering both in an ice-white tablecloth that was later surmised to be a valuable Wyn-Evans family heirloom.

A very pleasant aroma filled the room, surprising given the presence of Bobby Tindall, but the reason soon became clear: four dishes laden with wholesome goodness. In Champions League style, Mrs Wyn-Evans had cleverly seeded the food - pot one contained the French heavyweight boeuf bourgignon, pot two the sturdy English mash, pot three the tricky Italian peas and pot four the exotic, slightly mysterious Spanish dish of cheesy leeks.

Everything appeared to be progressing smoothly as guests filed along the line filling their plates with the delicious fayre on offer. Unfortunately it didn't last. Lederman showed that he is far more composed in a visitors' penalty area than he is in a visitors' buffet queue when he completely misjudged the meat to sauce ratio when ladelling his bourgignon and ended up with a plate of thick, brown sauce and not much else. His attempts to rectify the situation proved ham-fisted and soon he was subjected to cruel taunts from the visiting diners, who revelled in every spillage from all sides of his plate.

At the table however, it was soon clear that others too had encountered some difficulties with the viscosity of the sauce - Mrs Hoffen and Mrs Keenan both somewhat shamefully revealed rather ugly stains alongside their plates courtesy of some less than precise plate-to-mouth transitions.

Waugh and Tindall wrestled with the awkward peas and leeks manfully but experienced old lunch guest Fred Woolley was on his game from the word go, combining mash and peas to full effect and cleaning his plate with the minimum of fuss, despite a brief but effective scolding from wife Jackie when he failed to listen to her question about the salt content of the mash.

With the main course complete, it was time for the man of the house to reveal what he had spent his Saturday night doing: as it turned out, delicately decorating a clearly shop-bought cheesecake with fresh blueberries and raspberries was the somewhat surprising answer. But it was clear John's mind had already veered towards the semi-final and potential reasons for not playing Jamie Waugh - the fruit had been insufficiently pressed into the summit of the gateaux meaning any attempts to slice into it were met with a cascade of fruit onto the tablecloth and Jackie Woolley's lap. 'Never happened in my day,' Mike Keenan mused ruefully.

Fortunately, Mrs Wyn-Evans had foreseen the potential problems and had spent Sunday morning laboriously creating a magnificent key lime pie as an alternative to her husband's rather lacklustre cheesecake offering. The peaks of meringue topping the tangy, zesty lime filling were so majestic one almost felt like putting on a pair of skis and catching a chairlift to the top. In the words of Masterchef's Greg Wallace: 'That is a pudding.'

Desperate to make up for the pudding faux pas, John then rather sweetly did a lap of the table taking orders for tea and coffee. Harmony was restored to the kitchen as he and wife Jenny recreated a scene from their local Starbucks as they shouted orders at each other, handed out the house wifi password on request and checked the rota to see whose turn it was to change the loo roll in the toilet.

Fortunately, Fred Woolley's rather unnecessary aside regarding the lack of a chocolate to go with his decaf double espresso was drowned out by Claire Keenan making a rather dull remark about owning the same set of coffee cups as the Wyn-Evans. Lederman kept quiet, just delighted that he had managed to spot a stray pea in his lap before Rupert Hoffen could heap further embarrassment upon him.

It was time to leave. It had been a long, tiring day but a thoroughly enjoyable one.

Editor's Luncheon Marks (out of ten):

Artichoke & cheese dip: 9 (superb addition to any host's 'nibbles' repertoire)

Boeuf bourgignon: 8 (sauce issues need resolving)

Mash: 8 (perfunctory)

Peas: 8 (tricky)

Leaks with cheese: 9 (good improvisation)

Cheesecake: 6 (needs much more work)

Key lime pie: 10 (Pie-tastic!)