At 3:00 pm, the start time of the game, South had 7 players on the pitch with an 8th player appearing over the horizon. Considering Ely is very flat, use your imagination !!

By 3:10 pm, the 3 players coming from the far corner of Cambridgeshire appeared along with our very own white-van-man (Jo) who hurriedly put on his ‘keepers kit.

South started well with Laurie H playing upfront in the Roberto Firmino role where he spent the whole match stringing the play together, without scoring himself but making the guys around him look better that they usual do.

The midfield was ably controlled by the returning Wilko along with Jimmy Hall, Nick and Matt. Howard added a 3rd after following up from the short corner that he has taken a few moves before. Defensively, Jo chipped in with a couple saves when Ely did breach the defence. Ely was a competitive team despite the uneven looking half-time score line.

Right from the off in the 2nd half, Matt drove into the D from the right with James Yu running wide pulling his man with him to create the gap, Matt picked his spot and pushed the ball in the left post of the goal in a nonchalant manner to make it 4:0. Ely didn’t give up and they kept up their attack and duly got 2 goals back to make it 4:2. This was not going to be a West Ham like come back is it ??

Any jitters were quickly distinguished by Matt scoring his hat trick goal, again it was simple accurate placement rather than a Monckasaurus like strike. James Yu scored again to make it 6:2

[Captain’s note]

I’d like to say a special thanks to the 4th team players being so flexible with us. We had two players recover from injury and one become injured at the last minute. Leading me to ask for four double ups, then two, then three.