Cambridge South Men's 1sts gave another good team performance to see off fellow league leaders, Ely City 2nds.

The commitment and determination were excellent across the team and, although we only managed a single goal, we never looked like losing. South made some forced changes to the side, bringing up a number of 2nd team and Vets players in order to cover for various absentees, but these alterations did nothing hinder the progress of the team.

South started brightly and made a number of good attacks throughout the first half, particularly through Kevin Rowland down the right, but were unable to break down the tight Ely defence. Ely defended deep and there was plenty of space in front of their defence but we were finding it difficult to create clear opportunities. One half chance fell to Dan Pippard as he made an excellent run to the top of the D to meet Kevin Rowland's cross but his snap shot on the run didn't trouble the Ely keeper.

The new South defence (Graveling and Benedikz joined by Andy Bleach and Jan Brynjolffssen) were rarely troubled by the Ely forwards and Benedikz's pre-match complaints of never having played centre back before looked unfounded.

The South display was particularly encouraging for the way it built upon previous performances as we made much better use of the width of the pitch, and the defence was spreading the ball about with… well, not quite consummate ease, but there was certainly a sense of gay abandon about it at times!

At half time the score was 0-0 but the sun was making the Ely team visibly tired and we knew that, so long as we continued to press forward, the goal should come. Graveling, however, decided to take matters into his own hands (either that or he forgot that we'd changed ends at half time), for early in the second half he was inches away from putting a cross into the Ely goal. Shortly after this, a South short corner ended up on his stick with only a defender on the line but the Ely defence closed down quickly and didn't allow him to turn and shoot.

At the other end of the pitch, Ely had their first real chance of the game. A loose ball out of defence gave the Ely forward an opportunity in the D, but the alert Steve Parker was out of his goal quickly to smother the danger. Shortly after this Ely forced a short corner and the resultant shot from Ely needed to be pushed away by Parker. This was but a brief respite for Ely, though, as Creed and Lewis combined down the South right on a number of occasions but couldn't quite create a goal.

Finally, with only a few minutes left on the clock, we broke the deadlock. Graveling (I guess he still hadn't worked up the energy to jog back into our own half) took the ball into the D, past a couple of Ely defenders and crossed the ball just a couple of metres in front of the Ely goal. As the Ely keeper came out to clear it Rob Garrett was in the right place at the right time to sweep the ball between the keeper's legs and into the centre of the goal (and this time I definitely heard it hit the backboard!).

Afterwards we found out that this was only the second goal that Ely had conceded so far this season, so all in all it was a very satisfactory game.