Spending the past two months in my northern lair in Glasgow – the middle class bit not the “I’m gonnie stab you, mon!” bit, though I appreciate my accent can be rather misleading on this matter – I’ve been following the success of the M1s and M2s from afar with enthusiasm. Now I was eager to return to Cambridge to support the teams in their end of season surges and extend my lead over Stu Rimmer in the “Cambridge South’s most prolific non-goalscorer” stakes.

The M1s’ WhatsApp group the previous week had been full of warnings about the weather down south, ranging from “It’s freezing” to “Is training still on?” Better pack all my warmest gear, I thought to myself. Thus I arrived at Wilberforce Road on Saturday morning with enough layers to clothe an elephant. What is this! It’s boiling. The irony that the day after we leave the EU and it’s practically Mediterranean. What were my southern softie friends on about? This is proper taps-aff weather.

We gather on Pitch 2 and the majority of the team start to knock a single ball around while we wait for the skipper. With my first touch of a ball since November I send Baggers off to the other side of the pitch to collect it. Just as well we’re not playing someone good in my first match back…oh no, apparently we are. Menzies appears and takes us through a warm-up. Tom Anns is absent. Rumour has it he’s conducting a rag-tag bunch of lads on Coops’ stag-do. As a result I’m to be paired with Tom Marchant to create an all-Scottish centre back pairing: Hadrian’s Wall, if you like. This is sure to be successful. Everyone knows that Scottish sporting teams are renowned for their defence; think football, rugby, etc.

To the match and we were facing a young, skilful and fit team that was not only pushing for the title but also looking to peak in time for their season defining fixture against a seemingly identical young, skilful and fit team who just happen to wear a slightly darker version of blue. We start with the sun in our faces. Wow, it’s strong. I might need to tap into my emergency supply of sun cream. Where’s Tom Rosselli when you need him? Straight from the pushback we were under the cosh, facing wave after wave of youngsters who could recite entire chunks of Shakespeare or solve complex differential equations in their heads. Oh, and this one looks familiar: another Gibson, you say. Despite the pressure we were under we did well to keep them out. The marking was tight, forcing the students to pass around the edge of the D rather than pop a speculative ball into the circle. Naturally we conceded a few penalty corners but the majority of these came to nothing. The exception was a powerful drag flick which Naka, making an assured debut for the M2s, reached across for, deflecting the ball wide of the post.

In the midst of the all the defending we had to do we were pushing forwards effectively. Tom was distributing well from sixteens and Dom and Mariano were finding space on the edges of the pitch to send balls down to the forwards. One such instance found Jack with the ball in a crowded D, stuck on the baseline, facing away from goal with a defender directly behind him. Anyone who has ever played with or against Jack knows exactly what he’s going to do in this situation. It’s his go-to party trick. And so the subs and South supporters gathered around the bench counted down and cheered in unison as Jack produced the spinny-thing to cannon the ball into the defender’s foot and win a short corner. If only they’d done some video analysis beforehand. Up steps Ash who, recognising the fact that the pitch is dry and slower than expected, promises his teammates he’s not going to muck this one up. Out comes the injection, Shin traps, Ash drag flicks the air leaving the ball behind and grins sheepishly. The keeper remains untroubled. Though not for long. As the first half winds down we find ourselves with a wide-ish long corner. The ball is played to Mikey just outside the circle. With three or four students encircling him he dances out of their would-be tackles and plays the ball into the circle. It somehow finds its way to Menzies, wide on the baseline. With the keeper blocking the way to the goal Menzies produces a lovely reverse stick lob that loops over everyone and falls to Ollie, positioned on the back post like an old man’s dog waiting patiently outside the newsagent. Ollie has the easy job of gently volleying the ball into the net and we’re one-nil up, arguably against the run of play.

We remain ahead ’til half time, when Menzies encourages us to maintain the tight marking and effective tackling without coughing up ball from sixteens quite so much. We clearly weren’t listening. As we entered the second half the students exerted a high press and strangled our midfield, picking off passes out of defence and turning the pressure back on us. Menzies got annoyed and started shouting angrily, before remembering he can’t really do angry and resorts to a tone that is more disappointed dad. Between the heat and our fitter opposition we start to wilt and can’t maintain the defensive composure of the first half. We concede another short corner and the drag flicker flings it into the net; one-all. Well, we all knew it was coming. The remaining twenty minutes or so we face an onslaught of fresh-faced forwards. The students take the lead through a deflection; one-two. Knowing the way this is going I can’t face seeing my brother score against us. So when no-one else is looking I knee him in the head. In my defence he’d decided to lie down behind me, probably in an attempt to trip me up and then laugh about it. I step back, realise he’s there and try and hurdle him but he’s left his head at knee height. Bang, ensuing HIA. He goes off for a few minutes but it appears I’ve just made things worse. He comes back on, sets up one goal and scores another. We have time to face a few more short corners, make a rare attack that sees James B have a shot at goal, fall over in the process and just lie there in desperation and exhaustion, and lots of running around chasing younger, fitter, more skilful and ultimately better players.

The whistle goes to bring the match to an end. A four-one loss. A fair result perhaps considering the pressure the students piled on us in the second half but disappointing knowing what we were capable of based on our first half performance. We gather in a tiny changing room to reflect and Menzies announces that it’s probably just as well we didn’t win as it would look silly if we got promoted twice in a row. Finally, James B cheers us up by telling us what he really thinks of English people.