The wagon turned the corner onto Market Hill at half past two on Sunday afternoon, and Ashwick lost its composure entirely.

Six thousand people — by the constabulary’s estimate, though several thousand more would later claim to have been there — packed the route from the Ashwick Oval to the town square, hanging from lamp posts and first-floor windows and, in the case of one elderly gentleman on Brewery Lane, watching from a deckchair on a flat roof with a flask of tea and a flag the size of a bedsheet.

Dov Marsden stood at the front of the open-top brewery wagon, holding the league trophy in both hands. He is thirty-six years old. He has played for the Stoneflies for fourteen seasons. On Saturday, he scored one ring in a 31-18 victory over Millhaven that delivered the club’s first championship since 2010. At the final whistle, he collapsed on the pitch and could not be lifted for two minutes.

On Sunday, he could not stop smiling.

“I have played my last ring,” Marsden told this correspondent, standing in the town square after the wagon had completed its circuit. His voice was steady but his eyes were not. “Fourteen seasons. One championship. This is how I wanted to finish.”

The retirement had been expected — Marsden is the oldest centrist in the league and has spoken privately for months about the toll on his body — but the timing was his alone. He told coach Regan Hollister after the final whistle on Saturday. He told his wife on Saturday evening. He told the public on Sunday, from the back of a brewery wagon, in front of six thousand people who have been waiting sixteen years for this afternoon.

Hollister, who has coached the Stoneflies for nine years, stood at the back of the wagon with his arms folded and a look on his face that was either pride or grief or both. “He gave us everything,” Hollister said. “Every training session, every quarter, every ring. And he gave us Barlow.”

Fen Barlow — twenty-two years old, nine senior matches, three rings in Saturday’s final — was carried on the shoulders of people he had never met. He seemed both delighted and faintly alarmed by the experience. A woman on Brewery Lane handed him a bunch of daffodils. He carried them for the rest of the route.

“I owe him everything I know about this game,” Barlow said of Marsden. “He doesn’t just teach you where to stand. He teaches you when to be still.”

The final league table: Stoneflies 52 points, Thornbury Lancers 51, Caravel Harriers 51. The tightest finish in twenty-three years, decided on the final day. The Lancers and Harriers both won their matches — Dunmore Eagles 26-24 and Fernwich Falcons 27-25 Caravel respectively — but it was not enough. The Stoneflies’ emphatic victory over Millhaven settled the matter with an authority that belied the agony of the preceding weeks.

Maren Thatch, the Stoneflies’ keeper, watched the parade from a bench outside The Ashwick Arms with her two young daughters. She had six clearances on Saturday. She did not want to ride the wagon. “I did my work,” she said. “Sunday is for the lads who score the rings.”

At 4:15 PM, the wagon returned to the Ashwick Oval. Marsden carried the trophy back into the changing room. Hollister locked the door behind them. What was said inside has not been reported. But the lights were on for a long time.