We woke up on a cold, autumnal morning for a slip week, but we had a game, a bonus game, against a new side in the EH Championships. 

We arrived at long road to a free pitch, meaning we had our team talk outside and got onto the Astro as soon as possible to start our warm up. Paul was there with his clip board ready to inspire us. The main thing was to have fun and enjoy playing a different Div 2 side that we hadn’t faced before. With a few players doubling up who had played in the 3s match before arrived, including our keeper Bryony, we were ready to go. 

Broxbourne came out hard and fast, which caught us on the back foot, immediately with them gaining a short corner. Player of the match, Bryony, was ready with a kicker to save their straight strike. 

The work rate from the back 5, with 3 having a 2s debut (Anna, Suzi and Hannah), was inspiring, keeping the brox forwards at bay.  The team preserved, working hard together to up the work rate and create opportunities to pressurise Broxbourne.  The ball was beautifully passed into the D, there was a scramble with the goalkeeper going down but alas Liandi and Tiff were so close to working the ball round the goalkeeper but a foot got in the way. 

There was some lovely link play from Hayley, Rebecca, Sophie and Tamsin and the forwards leading to a short corner, after Jess got a ball to the stomach. A bit later on in the game, Captain Dani was fighting hard for the ball, and gave a pass to Jess, who slapped it into the top left hand corner. 1-0 to South. 

We went into half time, ready to hold onto our lead, but also be expecting Broxbourne to come out even harder, which they did, leading to 2 goals from short corners, despite Bryony making some crucial saves and our strong defenders, Hannah, Suzi, Anna, Hayley and Jenny, coordinating and covering the back beautiful during game play: but alas 2-1! 

Jess got a bit excited and ended up getting herself a green and a new nickname “Kamikaze Jess”. We fought hard to the end with Sam and Liandi creating some lovely chances after lovely link play from Sophie and Tamsin. 

A selection of votes for POM went to different people - Hayley, Jess, Tamsin, Anna, Hannah - showing a huge team effort, but Bryony took the award for making some crucial saves and keeping us in the game.well done Bryony!

All but one vote, went to Jess for Lemon for numerous reasons. 

Unfortunately we didn’t get the win, but it was lovely to have a bonus game against a very strong side and see a familiar face in Caitlin. Let’s try again next year! 

Thank you to all our supporters, Paul for coming along to coach us and, not least, to the umpires for coming out on the slip weekend.