The result was close but the tally of short corners, at 20 vs 1, tells the truer story. The Cambridge South defence were magnificent, with Man of the Match, Andy Thomas, at left back catching the vision of robust tackling, harrying and "you shall not pass" positioning shown by the Siddorns-Radford bulwark, and Ky Ho scampering around snuffing out attacks like a teenager…well a thirty-something at any rate.

We had chances; only one of them was at the opposition end, as skipper Greaves turned a cross narrowly wide, getting in front of the wily Deeping defenders on a rare occasion. His forward accomplice, Pip Ho, was a constant nuisance to the Deeping defence, showing persistence and tigerish enthusiasm to get and keep the ball to their repeated surprise and frustration. At the South end, Simon Cooper, guesting in goal, showed his breadth of talents with some great saves and excellent positioning preventing goals, including a couple of sneaky efforts from his defenders.

The first half was - amazingly - goalless, and Deeping only managed to grab the winning goal near the end of the match, from yet another short corner. Even at that stage, South still managed to counterattack. Skilful central midfielders Harvey, Jelley and Ho (L) ran themselves into exhaustion with constant probing, wriggling and trying to find ways through, supported by wide men Shahzad and MacLeod, attacking and defending manfully, often at the same time. Unfortunately the killer final ball into the opposition D eluded us and we couldn't snatch a draw

Lots of effort for the whole seventy minutes and the usual quota of Siddorns thunderbolts, but ultimately Deeping's dominant possession, ability to spread the play in a controlled way, and our inability to prize open their defence made the result a fair one, with encouragement gained from how close it was in the end and the 100% commitment shown throughout.

The teas afterwards, in the delightful Blue Bell pub, were excellent.