Another week, another match against a side one could make a good case for as likely title contenders before the season commenced. The fixture computer did not afford the M5s a soft start to the campaign. The case for Ely was based on their thunderous finish to the end of last season, winning 11 of their last 12 matches, something they had continued into this one with a pair of comfortable victories to be the early pace setters in Division 4NW.

Making an already difficult job for South even harder was Ely’s pitch, the slowness of which always comes as a surprise even to those who have played on it before. “It can’t be as slow as I remember, nothing can! Oh, no, it really is that sticky” As always, and despite everyone’s best efforts to get the pace of the turf pre-match it took a couple of minutes of game time for South to get up to speed. Ely could easily have scored during those opening exchanges, but having survived them South’s rearguard began to get a grip, with the returning Rock in particular proving particularly Rock-like. He got his nickname for a reason, you know…

South goalie Joe L dealt with everything Ely could throw at him before the break, but we still ended it one down after one of his own backline turned traitor and deflected it past him for them (oops). Which was a shame… but it was a first goal we had ‘scored’ this season, leaving details like “past your own goalkeeper” aside.

Into the second half, and an actual proper goal soon arrived when Josh R sent a pass against the grain through to the lurking Rob B (he lurks like a good ‘un). Rob lobbed the ball up over the head of his marked, squashed it straight back down to earth on the other side of him, and then slipped it past the advancing ‘keeper! 1-1.

Game on? Yes, but for both sides unfortunately. And it was Ely who struck next, with a quickly taken hit from near the sideline leading to an equally quickly fired off shot that flew in at the near post. A few minutes later it was 3-1 after a dummy so good that even the Ely player who made it thought he was trying to play the ball, which wrong-footed everyone and left a player with an open goal on the far post. Anti-skill.

South could have pulled one back when a whistle blew just before Rob B struck home. This was initially to give a foul to Ely, but a consultation between the Umpires determined that was the wrong way. Which meant they should have played advantage, and that would have lead to a goal. The whistle definitely had gone though so when the Umps conferred and awarded a goal South felt moved to say “no, really, much as we would love to take it, it can’t be that”. A re-confer got to the right decision of penalty corner… which South promptly butchered with a duffed inject. Dang. Where was the poetic justice of scoring anyway?!?

To make everyone feel even sicker Ely scored a fourth a few minutes later. There was plenty of time for more for the hosts when this went in, but the good news for the side was we didn’t buckle and instead had more of the game in the final few minutes – if another goal had come a second consolation to make it 2-4 was likelier than a fifth for the hosts. Not that it did (if my Aunt etc.), the game finishing 4-1.

Still at least we have one now. Each mountain starts with a pebble, or some such inane gibberish. [ed - we have enough Geologists in the club to know that mountains are not formed by rocks being piled on top of each other!]