Having necessarily hired an ark for transport through the 40-hour deluge, Kettering Men’s 5th team were warmly welcomed with parting clouds and a hopeful rainbow to the new world - well the new second home of Cambridge South anyway, St Catharine's Astro.

The double privilege of captain, for both the opening of South’s campaign at a new ground and the first ever M6s league fixture, fell to the newly appointed Tendayi Rwambiwa. Regular Captain Thomas, again absent (and so voted as LOM), would have been proud of Tendayi’s opening team talk, which had clearly taken hours to prepare and was a masterpiece of rhetoric and cutting edge strategic analysis.

As it happened there was no need for the additional motivation, for half the team (Messrs Alston, Creed, Gardiner, Greaves, Grove and Marshman) were already fired up having been punished with demotion following their contribution to the humiliation of the M4s the previous week. Not having to play in the pouring rain (as the M4s and M5s had enjoyed earlier in the day) was clearly a tough punishment to bear, but all were warmly welcomed to the team and the game began.

South started the game strongly, with fairly relentless pressure inside the Kettering 23, and benefitted from a few chances and a couple of short corners early doors. The usually lethal James Yu, so successful in pre-season, worked hard on the right of the front line, but was unfortunately just short of a couple of the early attacks, also firing a couple wide.

As the game went on, Kettering settled a little more into their midfield possession game, and were able to start, even if not really finish, a few counterattacks in the direction of the South goal. This pattern of South speedy attacks and Kettering breaking them down just before their circle, then attempting a counter, continued until the halfway mark. Kettering’s best player, wearing a red headband and bearing our very own Stu’s name on his shirt, was hardworking and a real threat in their midfield.

In the second half South set out to use the wide players more, and this helped to create more chances down the middle. A brilliant pass from midfield found John just left of the goal, where he weaved past the keeper, crossed the ball perfectly to the right, where ‘Tap-In’ Yu was positioned perfectly to knock the ball in for his first goal.

His second (and confirmation as MoM) was soon to follow. Stu Creed smashed the ball into the D from a free hit just outside the twenty-three, which Kettering pretty much left alone until too late, for James’s stick to put enough on the ball to deflect it past their keeper.

Kettering had a few chances after this, with one short corner almost resulting in a tap-in at the left post, but the South defence worked together well and kept the threat at bay. South almost added a third from a short corner of their own, after JBL’s pass found John unmarked in space, but it turned out that Ian had failed to take the ball out of the D from the injection.

Overall this was a really great first league game for the 6s, with a really gentlemanly opposition, surprisingly good weather, and an excellent result!