Things that are longer than this report;

Wagner’s Ring Cycle. In fact any of Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerks are longer as standalone pieces.

The Directors Cuts of Once Upon a Time in America and Das Boot

Shoah

Any Test Match, but especially a timeless one.

A Geoff Boycott 100. A bit of a time paradox this one, as such things occurred within cricket matches, but somehow managed to feel like they took longer than the games that contained them. Very fractal.

The Lord of the Rings, book or movie versions.

A suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth.

A speech by Simon Jelley summarising the 3rds 2011-12 Championship winning campaign. Another paradox; said speech felt longer than the campaign itself.

This report, now that I’ve tagged a list of very long things onto the front of it

Getting ones head around concepts like Russell's Paradox. Or staring numbly at the screen hoping the whole thing will just go away.

A Light Year. Wait a moment, that is a measure of distance, not time.

Erm... No, that is it, I think. The complete list. You have been warned...

The first issue prior to this weekend was an unusual one; too many players. 59 people were available for selection across the Men’s club, with at least half a dozen others who play most weeks being unavailable or injured. This prompted some to openly speculate about a South 5th Xi. For me, this is chimera; it so happened that today’s matches were all in the city. We will see how numbers stack up when some of the sides are playing outwith Cambridge.

After the skippers had moved their pieces around on the

big board, El Capitán found himself with a matchday squad of 16. A bug would reduce this to 15, but even so a suggested soundtrack for this report is

Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand.

The Mahlerian metaphor is pushed a smidgen beyond reasonable limits if we use it not only with regards to the size of our ensemble but also as a stylistic allusion to our first half performance. Bombastic, with a very full orchestration, all sections contributing. At times slightly lacking in subtlety and wholly fresh creative ideas? Hey, those are your criticisms of Mahler, not mine.

With

Kapellmeister Ali having included himself amongst the Orchestral players for this performance, it fell to principal guest conductor Katja to keep time and cue the various changes as laid out on the Maestro’s meticulously prepared score, her first such gig this season after having been a regular feature for concert goers in the previous season’s programme. Maybe we should work under her baton more often as we produced a sweet music, dominating the first half.

The tone was set early, from a free-hit thirty yards out, wide left. Neil was scanning around looking for some movement and found it with timed burst from James. By collecting the pass whilst going at full speed, James was through the Grantham midfield line and able to pass in to Rob in the circle. It was a bit airborne, but Rob dealt with in manner of a cricket batsman neutralising a ball that rears-up at him

nice straight bat, high, soft hands to absorb the energy and drop it at ones feet. Rob’s second touch moved it onto the open side, and his third drilled it home.

Our second goal came from a trio segment; the rest of the players taking a brief pause as the left-sided threesome worked their little melody. A sideline hit was won 10 metres from the byline. Ali put it quickly back to Neil on the 25. Neil jinked inside a player and fed it into the circle for Rupert. Rupe carried the ball away from the goal and then reverse-stick flicked it behind him for Ali, who was running the overlap. Ali now had a clear view of goal, albeit from a very narrow angle. Exercising Maestro’s prerogative, he took the shot, and it was pitch perfect, finding a gap of hardly more than a ball’s width between the ‘keepers pads and his near post.

Our third goal came as the result of some jazz freestyling from right-back Jan. Exactly what he was doing in the attacking circle during open play was a question that orchestra

leader Johnny B wanted answered. Whatever the reason for this improvisation, Jan was on hand to follow up with a reverse stick push into the open net after the Grantham ‘keeper had saved an initial reverse stick sweep from the lesser-spotted Barton.

We ended the first half ended with a fourth goal. Or a crescendo, depending on how far you have bought into this riff... The opportunity was created by hard battling in the Grantham circle from Stu, eventually prising the ball away from a defender. Stu then flicked a shot towards the far corner, with Rob getting across the front of the ‘keeper to add a little outside edge that left the gloveman clutching at thin air [at least I’m consistent in my mixed metaphors here: Rob/cricket, the rest of us/music. And you can definitely draw parallels between classical music and cricket, and not just because both can feel like they are going on for hours without development].

The second-half would prove a little

more strident and discordant. Our play lacked much of the rhythm heard in the opening movement, with the tempo dropping and as a result the structure of the piece was lost. We did add a fifth goal when a Grantham short broke down. James collected the loose ball in our circle and did precisely the right thing, getting his head up to play an early outletting pass, hard and accurately to halfway. One good pass, and suddenly we had a six-on-three break. Jan received the ball out and slid it on to Tom, who found Rob in the circle. Rob pulled right to move the ‘keeper and buried his shot into the left corner.

Grantham got a consolation goal late in the game. A quickly taken free-hit caught our defence

daydreaming, giving the space for a cross in from the right which found an overload around the penalty spot, Grantham’s unmarked centre-forward finishing the move with a sweep past Chris. We had one final chance from a short corner that was worked back to the Maestro. His deflection was saved, the rebound fell to James, whose flick across goal clanged off the far post and away. So it finished 5-1, after a bit of a

dirge of a second half.

[blimey, that was hard work to write. How was it to read? I’m not going for this style of report again, I promise! I ran out of classical music analogies and had to go more ‘popular’ at the end. For shame.

Hello, has anyone actually made it this far?!?]

And now onto the part of the afternoon that left a bitter taste. There was a substantial amount bickering between the sides and dissent towards the Umpires. This culminated in the unedifying sight of one umpire fleeing the pitch at the end of the game close to tears, having felt thoroughly undermined by the level of criticism.

From our side, some of this came from people who like to think they know the rules, but could really do with attending an umpiring course. There have been numerous opportunities for them to do so in their years playing for South, which have been passed up. Which is a shame because, if they did, they might;

learn the laws of the game that they are currently willing to inaccurately pontificate on, and

actually have a go at Umpiring and so discover just how difficult it is to whistle a game. Which might prompt them to bite their tongues when, in their opinion (and the offenders are mostly wrong when they are moaning), an Umpire makes a bad decision.

A couple of other people, senior umpires of the club, might also want to consider whether half-time or full-time of a difficult match is really the appropriate juncture for a discussion over rule interpretations. Or whether chatting to the umpires in such circumstances is likely to be interpreted as criticism and will actually put a further dent in confidence.

All in all, sincere apologies to Shahbaz and Vicky. You offered your time to help us out, and that is how we repay you? Not classy.