Due to backed up traffic in Cambridge and works on the A14, the team arrived with little time to prepare. Indeed, the game had already started when Garth Wells, who had kindly agreed to be the keeper of the goalposts, ran on to the field to take position. Unfortunately, the poor chap had little to do for the majority of the game, which he was quite happy with, considering he was coming back from injury.

The numbers looked off. Our players on the sidelines tried to count the players on the field, unsuccessfully, on a number of occasions - the author, being one of the faulty counters, admits that it is somewhat tricky to count players while they run around the field. Finally, it took our professional accountant, Adrian Granger Brown, to settle the matter: indeed, there were twelve players on the field. Unfortunately, this happened twice, but it was all taken in good spirit.

Fortunately, we were joined by Cambridge South coach, Miles Davies, who was also recovering from injury, as captain.

Unfortunately, Miles was rammed in the shoulder, which almost came out. Twice. Luckily, Doctor Stuart Creed was on site to attend to the patient, who only became more determined.

Miles’s orders came loud and clear from the sidelines, as he advised and gave insightful analysis during the game. During half time, when six-nil up, it was he who encouraged us to not become complacent and to aim for ten; a goal which we exuberantly achieved.

After showing off his surprising skill in goal the previous week, Howard Steed played his heart out. So well, in fact, that he won Man of the Match by a clear margin, with Miles also highlighting his stellar performance at the end of the game. Indeed, there was a wide spectrum of nominees, including paragon of fitness Jimmy Wood and our traditional lemon-scented drag-flicking striker, Shahbaz Ali. Everyone played so well, in fact, that the other nominees included Andy C, Miles D, Stuart C, Sebastian D, Garth W, and Hesham M.

Other interesting titbits:

We won three penalty flicks. Two were taken by Shahbaz and one by Miles. All were converted to goals.

There was a solitary vote for Sebastian Dias (scorer of two goals) as Lemon, for not allowing us to witness a spectacular Seb hat-trick.

Shahbaz’s better half and team cheerleader, Sana, joined us for the half-time talk to give support and cheer us on. Unfortunately, she had to [facepalm] when a player went up to Shahbaz to congratulate him on a hat-trick and Shahbaz, true to his Lemon form, turned around and exclaimed, "Actually, that’s four!”

Overall, it was an enjoyable game. Although South had a strong team and Kettering 4s were at the bottom of the table, we felt that the spirited opposition played very well and the score was perhaps a little unreflective of their team’s general strengths.

Having arrived home after dark, the author was tasked with looking after the little one while his wife adamantly promised to write a detailed match report. Her ironic version of what we men get up to goes as follows:

We played, stick hit ball. Sweaty men ran. Sweaty men dirty t-shirts that wives have to wash. Ball hit man. Man went ow. Stick got ball. Ball went bounce. Ball in goal. Repeat for hours.