Adam's placeholder report Seb’s modified placeholder report:

Coming off a surprising loss grindy win against a restructured familiar Peterborough Nomads team last week caused the Mens 3s to dive into training with renewed enthusiasm once again, which proved a little too much for Ash, and we're all wishing you a speedy recovery. Another local derby day against our more friendly City rivals drove the competitive nature of the team to new heights once more.

Nomads City are a club that we have lots of very close a few ties with (I know, surprising, right?), and some of our players are even able to have fun chats with the opposition as the game commenced. The jovial start to the match didn’t prevent South from quickly displaying their dominance. Effectively pressing the Nomads City defence and forcing an error or two, Charlie won us our first short of the game Man of the Match for doing exactly this all game. The resulting set play saw Menzies expertly deflect the ball straight through the goalies legs to put South on top (x2 Goal King points for style?). At some point Joe slips the ball over the line, which was very closely "watched" in by Shin, arguing with his inner demons about snatching another goal for himself (there will be no mention of double goal king points for Joe, he doesn't need the encouragement).

Later in the half a questionable run of play sent a chest high ball flying across the South D. Ozzy, seeing his life flashing before his eyes, remembering his little dogs at home and wondering if they would survive without him, committed to saving himself and deflected the ball down and away from himself… straight to a Nomad forward who tapped it in while diving on and injuring our valiant keeper Matt Need. George made a very fine save pushing the ball not just over the bar, but over the fence too. Whilst Ozzy, Anns, and Adam all helped clear up some very dangerous balls. You can ask them exactly what was going through their heads, no idea if dogs even came into it.  (Well I can make a good guess for Adam which would be “I’ve just run the length of the pitch, raced past that far too quick child, and make the important deflection to stop the ball going to the waiting forward! That's got to be some MoM votes right there! Now I better sub off…”).

As the game progressed into the later stages of the second half South's domination never waned but frustration rose as the goals did not find the backboard and Joe did indeed find the backboard once more. Short corner after short corner occurred A couple more short corners and with narrow a fair few misses every time from tight angles ensued. Finally, a series of fouls on the goal line cause a stroke strike at the keeper caused him to kick the ball to the space at the top of the D. Ash Seb, with an abundance of confidence strode spinted forward to take it as everyone else ran for the hills off the defender rushing out to try and clear up. Ash Seb looked pulled the ball to the right, then left, then left again, selling the keeper with his eyes that he was going left corner past said defender. The whistle blew and he stepped into it and flicked, the shot rolled slowly but securely was struck beautifully into the bottom right corner with what was described as a “massive wide up” (*video evidence appears to make the shot look faster than it was be missing, but I swear it was a worldie*). The goal secured Souths win and a Lemon for Ash. surprisingly no LoM votes.

A little rugby was played causing a couple injuries to South players and some cards for Nomads No rugby this week (except on TV, which did make teas rather cramped) but the game closed a largely fun and sociable friendly derby (this time I am being completely serious). 2-1 3-0 win for South.