South arrived at the Ely ground with exactly eleven players (mostly called James), one referee, ten pairs of shorts and no whistle. Despite protestations from the team, captain Neil refused a kind offer from one of the ladies playing on the field beforehand to slip into her skirt (!) and instead opted to play in tracksuit bottoms.

Both teams have a little history from last year, but as it turned out the game was generally good tempered. A marking mistake early in the first half saw Ely with a man over in the D. Close on goal, Ian had no chance and it was 1-0 to the home team.

Twenty-five minutes later they struck again. This time a back and forth period inside the South quarter saw men unmarked. One Ely player, close to the back line pulled of an extremely good shot in space to make it 2-0.

A lesser team than South might have dropped their heads at this point. As the half wore on, however, there were a few moments of inspiration. Good linkups down the centre and right featuring Simon, Russell, Wilco and some Jameses saw a number of probes into the Ely defence, which struggled against our speed. Eventually the pressure paid off. A strong corner from the left reached Wilco in the D, who pulled the ball across the mouth of the goal to leave an unmarked Russell to put it away. The half ended.

With the goal behind them, South took the half-time break to make a few changes to the team. Michael switched from left mid to right mid. Simon advanced from right back to forward. James R dropped from forward to left mid. Russell dropped from right mid to right back. A thoroughly exerted James B switched with a fresh and unperspiring Matt.

Thanks to the half time gee-up talk, South came out hard in the second half. Barely a couple of minutes in, a high shot from Wilco was brought to the ground by a defender only to be swept into the goal by the ever ready Simon.

From this point on, Ely's heads dropped and they took on a much more defensive strategy. It didn't do them any good. Most of the half was spent in their half of the field, with numerous excellent crosses, link ups, and flowing play from South. The pressure told in the end. An excellent free hit outside the D flew into the air off of James C's stick to be saved by the keeper. Simon was again on hand to put the ball into the back of the net. The final goal came during a period of relentless pressure, which saw James C free on the edge of the D with the ball; one killer shot later and the final score of 4-2 was reached.

After a shaky start South pulled it out of the bag and came out of the game looking by far the stronger team. With one more friendly before the start of the league season, the 3rds may be on for a good run.