It was a cool, crisp afternoon typical of early March in south Cambridge. There was an almost audible crackle of anticipation amongst the MTwos players as the prospect of a lucrative Red Bull sponsorship deal looked seriously on the cards early doors. This seemed to dissolve pretty rapidly after my arrival (I imagine unrelated) and we went for a little jog. Some positive words were said from Coops and Menzies about being better than them, and in particular better than the team that lost six-nil to them back in the early stages of the season. Some not-so-positive words were said from Manny about something else. After the warm-up, the lads were greeted with some raucous cheers of support from the capacity Long Road crowd of about twenty-odd, which just so happened to coincide with Oli Lamming scoring for the M1s. This seemed to really lift everyone in the side and the subsequent tempo of the warm-up drills was between lacklustre and insipid.

Anyway, the game seemed to get off to a regulation start. There were eleven players on each side (of which ten were outfield) and there were two umpires. Kettering seemed a fairly decent outfit, with Ron Weasley and Andy Parsons looking like their strongest players. They certainly dominated the early exchanges, with a few nice early hit crosses passing agonisingly close to the far post. Fortunately for South it seemed the Kettering right wing couldn't get a touch on them. After the game, Belgian Alex claimed this was because he was blocking their view - unconventional tactics when most of us would opt to either intercept the ball or make a tackle. These early scares seemed to have little or no effect on South, who were content to try and control the game by passing the ball around at the back for a bit.

Sometimes we got the ball forward and this eventually led to an intricate exchange around the D. The play looked nearly dead when Sam P was forced onto his reverse side. No problem at all for Sam though. He intelligently spotted out of his peripherals the Kettering keeper storming out of his goal and then proceeded to casually reverse stick lob him from about eight yards. An exquisite finish that surely could not be replicated in a hundred attempts.

Kettering however were still well in the game. Their main tactic seemed to involve either chucking shoulder high aerials or spanking the ball hard (often also at shoulder height) into the vacant areas between our midfield and defence. Invariably this would result in deflecting out for a sixteen but occasionally it caused a few problems, particularly when they led to short corners. Kettering's short corner routine seemed a well oiled machine. Your classic Margherita pizza of short corners - push, stop, drag to top left corner. Very fine goal keeping kept out the first one - but nothing could stop the second which levelled the scores.

South certainly benefitted from having three players practically stood on top of each other the whole game. With Menzies, Mann and Kenzie all playing in a similar vaguely central role it meant South absolutely dominated the midfield. I think this proved irritating for Ron Weasley and the rest of the Kettering lads and it wasn't long before cards started coming out (admittedly for both sides).

As the game went on South started to dominate and certainly had the best chances. Some players got so involved that they simply refused to play to the whistle and continued on regardless once it had been blown. Just as the game seemed to be approaching the tense final few minutes station, John Pawson found himself crammed inbetween Andy Parsons and the touchline and somehow managed to reverse stick scoop it into the opposite top corner from an angle that has long been believed impossible.

It was a tense final five minutes in which South had decided that after taking the lead they were jolly well going to have a good go at throwing it away. There were several silly fouls, short corners and cards (of which the majority were attributable to Captain Coops - an endeavour for which he was awarded Lemon) in the final segments of the game but fortunately South managed to bring home the bacon by closing out the victory to remain unbeaten in the league since Christmas. Promotion, still a remote possibility, is something to keep fighting for for the rest of the season.