Talk about wind! On a day that would have obliged Mr Beaufort to start thinking up some bigger numbers, South overcame both the gale-force conditions and their opponents to register a significant victory which for much of the game looked as though it might elude them. Teamwork and persistence were the key and this was reflected in the afternoon's most crucial intervention, when a mass effort succeeded in shifting the heavy wooden seating on the touchline to behind the northern goal, providing essential reinforcement and thus preventing a recurrence of the blowdown that had led to the abandonment of an earlier match.

Forced to play into the wind, South set their teeth grimly and, though largely unable to communicate going forward, they managed to dominate the early phases of play. John Taylor was direct and uncompromising from the off and Matt Murray soon put in a good feed to Sanjay Agarwala, who tricked his way round the goal-line only to find the keeper's pads at the near post. There were further presentable chances on offer for Taylor, Rob Sprawson and Agarwala again but no-one was able to take advantage as shots scurried wide or the defence cleared without fouling. A neat passing move instigated by Steve Fleck and moving up through Rob Hay and Chris Graveling - relishing the Russell Crowe part in the absence of Rick Erlebach - looked promising, but once more the final ball was off target. Indeed, before fifteen minutes were up, South could easily have been three or four goals to the good as a hatful of opportunities went begging; Taylor rounded the keeper with ease but just failed to convert, Sanjay Agarwala fell trying to strike in a Fleck pass and the keeper than smartly deflected a goalbound effort from the ubiquitous Taylor.

Meanwhile, Jim Thorpe - his ample shorts flapping around like a distressed marquee - had defied the elements to bulldoze forward more than once, whereas partner-in-crime Matt Readman preferred the knife-through-butter approach as he angled niftily upfield. Although Nomads had not looked especially dangerous, it was they who won the first short after fifteen minutes when a switched flick drew a fine diving save from skipper Steve Parker, who got a full stick on a shot destined for the net. A second short three minutes later was switched to the other side, leaving a gaping hole which Parker valiantly tried to fill, but this time he could only parry the flick as it found its way through various bodies and into the goal.

South continued to play positively, though, ragging it forward when more classical options were unavailable, yet despite all the pressure, they could not broach the magnetic field that seemed to have encircled the visitors' net. Fleck twice shot wide from decent positions, Rob Barton was unlucky to miss with a reverse and the same player, like Taylor earlier, sidestepped the keeper but found the final touch maddeningly elusive. Good approach play from Murray and Vijay Agarwala always threatened to set something up and Rob Hay and the rest of the defence were steady when it mattered but South, having weathered thirty-five minutes of energy-sapping resistance work, had become slightly disjointed when Nomads nearly went two up with a backhand scoop from the left of the circle which Parker teased past the post with pad and glove.

With the wind in their favour as the second half started, South quickly won their first short after Taylor's punishing shot had been saved and incisive moves by Fleck and Sprawson had set Nomads back on their heels. A clean strike from the edge of the D was half-smothered by the keeper and cleared off the line as Nomads survived again and, within ten minutes, further shots by Fleck and Sanjay Agarwala had also been snuffed out. Graveling, Agarwala and Barton all tried hard to break down the visitors' composed defence but there were always plenty of men behind the ball and there seemed no clear way through the thickets.

When Nomads made way into the headwind, Parker stopped an awkward shot aimed straight at his feet with a "penguin special" before booting to safety, and then intercepted a cross with a booming kick which almost decapitated Hay, who graciously forebore to concede a short by quickly pretending nothing had happened. A similar cross from Taylor at the other end was unmet and, with the game entering its final quarter, even the normally upbeat Murray - hoarse with emotion or it may have been laryngitis - had let his bedside manner slip by wondering whether a cancellation might not have been the better option.

But South held their nerve and, after a storming run by Taylor, won their third short of the afternoon, from which Sprawson scored the equaliser by driving in weightily off a defender's stick (it was always going in, of course - I know, because Rob told me so himself - Ed.). Readman then dispossessed Nomads' front-runner with a daringly kleptomaniac tackle and, spurred on by Thorpe's improving maxims from the rear, South burst forward in numbers. Murray's big shot from the right of the D was somehow blocked in front but Sanjay Agarwala dived into the resulting scrum and, by sheer force of personality, finally persuaded the ball to negotiate the last few inches over the line. Still reeling, Nomads then succumbed again when Murray one-handed his way round the right wing for Fleck and Sanjay Agarwala to wrong-foot the defence and release Barton on the left of the D. The latter reversed a cross from an acute angle to the far post, where Graveling stabbed in a want-it goal on the second attempt after the keeper had all but closed the gap.

Three strikes in five minutes had given South the breathing space they wanted and they then really started to develop more fluency. Despite a sixty-fifth minute short from Nomads, again a dangerous switch routine which saw Parker having to move quickly to cover a flick that whizzed into the side-netting, South had the upper hand in the final ten minutes, with assured passing from Rear-Admiral Graveling a feature, complemented by an excellent steal and scintillating now-you-see-it-now-you-don't run from Vijay Agarwala. Readman, too, had a characteristic diagonal thrust while Thorpe tended the sheep back home and, though Sprawson failed to double his tally at a sixty-seventh minute short, he rounded things off by putting in an exquisitely-timed reverse tackle as the whistle (manfully blown by Jim Sutcliffe in the face of almost overwhelming meteorological competition) blew to set the seal on a well-earned victory that had not been without its alarms.