Before we start on the match report, its important to go through the chronology of the morning:

8.43am: Chief pitch inspector Kim Cooil rings to say the match is off.

8.46am: Stand in captain Dave A texts Jan to say the match is off and to tell BD.

8.46am and one second: Jan rings Dave to say the match is not definitely off and a second pitch inspection will take place at 9.46 am.

9.05am: E-mail comes out from Assistant pitch inspector Lady Penfold, saying match is off.

9.13am: Neil Sneade rings to say there is “absolutely no way” the game will happen and to call off asap.

9.14am: Dave A rings Jan to tell him not to bother going to the pitch to inspect. Call does not get through.

9.31am: As above.

9.46am: As above.

9.59am: Jan rings Dave A to say the pitch looks awful.  This has been communicated to Bourne Deeping, but they are still keen to travel, announcing they will have an away team summit meeting at Peterborough services KFC.

10.02am: Jan sends BD a picture of pitch with corner flag frozen to surface. This only encourages the opposition to try and display further their Lincolnshire masculinity, and they insist on travelling, saying that if the pitch is frozen at 12, they will turn around and go home (probably fancied doing some Christmas shopping in Cambridge).

10.05am: JB informs Mr Aston of BD’s intentions.

10.20am: Dave A tells the team the game is going ahead (it takes him a long time to write a text you see), and those who had started the Christmas party pre-lash after seeing the earlier Penfold email put away their jagerbombs and put on instead their GAME FACES.

10.40am: Dave A’s four month old son has a dump in his nappy so Dave leaves early for the game, explaining to his wife he needs “extra time to give his inspirational team talk”.

11.15am: players rock up to the pitch. Bits of it are concrete, but only the sides so only the wide players are in danger, and they aren’t really very important anyway.

11.23am: Overhanging debris which creates shade is moved from the pitch to hasten the defrosting.

11.50am: Umpires declare surface playable. Treasurer Aston gets BD to sign a “no suing for injury under any circumstances” manuscript and the game is on!

THE GAME:

South started the brighter, with Paresh “Skippy” Parsot returning to the side for the first time since replacing his shoulder in the Summer. The captain’s advice for the day to the front players had been “for God’s sake please shoot when in the D” and John Pawson was first to heed this, slotting a good finish from the top of the area after a fine run.

This seemed to either wake up Bourne Deeping or send South to sleep, I’m not sure which. Anyway after some sloppy passages of play, Bourne won a number of short corners, one of which was bundled over the line by the left hand post, and the game was even.

This led to a much improved performance from South again, and after some promising moves in the opposition half, a short corner was won. Having not seemed too promising on Thursday’s practice, this one was perfect, with the ball returned to injector Jack for a solid slapped finish on the left post. 2-1 at half time.

The half time message was to keep the form of the start and end of the first half going for the second period, and to make sure we got players on the posts to “score with the shaft” (Grammer et al: ©The Banter Bus, 2014). This could not have been heeded more. Firstly after one of many mazy runs by Craig (who was fantastic all game, a worthy MoM), the ball was fizzed in to the far post, and debutant Jim Hockley was on hand to gain a telling deflection on to the backboard for 3-1. The second was after another brilliant run from Craig, when a drilled ball across the goal was steered home by Oli Lamming for 4-1.

The highlight of the rest of the half was the captain getting pulled up for a stick tackle, and then warning the team that the next one would get them a green card, only proceding to then get said green card about 10 second later. The remainder of the match was feisty, particularly towards the umpires at points, but South saw out the game with minimal fuss. We are now third at Christmas, keeping going the tradition from the last ten years!

Some excellent Christmas garments were on display at teas, and were certainly not lemon-worthy!

Thanks to Jan and Bourne Deeping for being keener than most of us and for not respecting our female pitch inspectors, so that the game went ahead- we’re certainly glad now that it did!