The 5s squad arrived at a rain and wind-swept Long Road keen to secure victory against St Ives 5s to add to back-to-back wins over the past couple of weeks. The St Ives captain approached with news that their regular keeper was out of action and would we mind if their 2s keeper, who had just helped secure a narrow victory over our 3s, stood in? “Err, well, I guess so.”………“Oh and by the way, he’s good, so you won’t get anything past him.” The challenge had been set!

The home team were quick out of the blocks, immediately putting the opposition defence under sustained pressure, but alas nothing made it past their ‘uber’ keeper. Midway through the first half, St Ives regained their composure, giving the home defence some scary moments. At half time there was however nothing to separate the two teams.

South started the second half in similar spirit to the first, but this time we were rewarded with that elusive goal. A blistering cross from the left-hand edge of the D beat the keeper to find Andy T perfectly positioned on the far post to deflect it into the net. The challenge had been met and in impressive style! This gave the home team new impetus to underline this with more goals. Continually pushing forward from midfield and defence, it wasn’t long before John Gourd beat the keeper again with a blistering shot from close range… Unfortunately, his initial attempt to make contact between stick and ball was unsuccessful for which the umpire rightly awarded an opposition free-hit rather than a second goal.

South continued to apply sustained pressure right up to the final whistle, alas without any further success, but we’d done enough to secure the three points and retain our league position above the away team.

And a grateful thank you goes to the umpires, Tom Steed and, especially, Jan Brynjolffssen, who graciously rushed away from his game in Ely to be able to umpire for us, as well as to Ania Rygielska, who organised the umpiring - we appreciate that it was challenging this week, to say the least.