It was a sunny, moderately brisk afternoon at the Stephen Perse pitch that welcomed CSHC Ladies’ 1st team to play against Cambridge City 4s. The changing room rang with the L1s' playlist from Lou’s speakers. Apparently, a few people felt a little embarrassed by some of the songs but afterwards at least one of us could not get the “apple bottom jeans song” out of our heads. Nothing like music and a game of tag to motivate the team and intimidate our opponents.

The whistle called for the start of the match, which City began strongly. Indeed, it seemed very tight until Amalia scored a reverse goal from the top of the D – making up for a previous embarrassing miss due to a slip. Soon after, some great passes between the purple forwards ended in Sophie scoring the second goal for South with a strong hit from the penalty point, ending the first half of the match two-nil.

Not long into the second half City took advantage of a short corner to close the score to two-one. However, the purple team managed to fend the red players off for the rest of the game thanks to a solid defense by Lou, Diane and a couple of fantastic saves from Loopy. In the meantime, Flo showed some cracking play up front, supported by Kate, but in the end it was Heather who received MoM for being absolutely great at distributing the ball in the midfield.

The pitch was very slippery, which kept messing up the visiting team’s game. Several of us fell over repeatedly – incidentally, not Lou – and at one point frustration built so high that Georgie swore loudly at the “worst pitch ever”. It was this outburst, and for being heard shouting, “Go City, we are playing so smooth!” that earned Howling LoM.

The game was tough for the CSHC L1s, who were missing a few of our regular players and struggled staying upright on the pitch/ice rink. However, in the end we showed what we are made of and got a deserved win that consolidated our position at the top of the table. Well done ladies!