Still reeling that we won.

Some of us need a minute to digest and process. 

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Edited 26/02

The song of the day picked by George Toynton: “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. Seemed fitting considering we were going to be up against a very extraordinarily formidable team. In honesty, we were only going to go to gracefully lose, as mixed competition did not allow for withdrawal without a fine, so we trekked a team of 13 to the bowels of Ipswich.

The first half was pure frantic nerves from everyone (but mainly me) on how this was going to pan out, I imagined 5 goals before half time by Ipswich, but WE scored in the first 10 (unsure by who, but I do remember it being a wowzer). When shock subsided, and we restarted, we went on attack again. With Ali Senior and his posse in the middle, and Ali Junior and his crew at centre back, no-one was getting through from Ipswich. Midfield worked hard to intercept the long passes from their very skilled centre mid, but due to lack of passing (and pure egotism it seemed), they were lackluster orrrrr were we just too on the ball? I think the latter. With our defense distributing from the back to the wings, we managed to get it back up the pitch to score another goal by none other than Emily! 2 nil up, who would’ve thought! Beginning to look even more positive, and working even harder, it seemed we started to annoy Ipswich, who began to push, but alas to no avail, and just before the half time whistle, we scored AGAIN, comfortably sitting on a 3-0 lead. Chuffed was an understatement, but we still had another half to go and who knew what Ipswich had up their sleeves.

Second half, admittedly Ipswich did dominate, by getting an early goal on the reverse, it seemed now suddenly they began to switch on. However, that did not deter us, we ploughed on! With chance after chance being created for our forwards, we could not just get the middle bit of the goal, but to be fair they had a beast of a goalie 2m tall and arms like hockey sticks, it’s a miracle we got 3 through (aim for the left or right bottom corner was the team tactic). Eventually with a scuffle in the oppo’s D and an overly ambitious keeper trying to thwack the ball away midair, Charlotte picked it and flung it over the keeper to put the score 4-1, but after a long deliberation between umpires and much to our team’s contempt it was DISALLOWED. The shock. The HORROR. Reason being it was not “safe.” Charlotte was robbed, and we were in anguish (or I was anyway). Ipswich at some point got another goal from a very unfortunate deflection, and I got an elbow to the head by a very tall man and fell over. After the announcement with 2 minutes remaining, and spirits at a kind of high, we wanted this game over. Just give us the win already, we deserved it, and we did.

POM votes were scattered around the team with special mentions to George T for excellent saves, Kerny for being a great teammate, Ivo for being a good man on his reverse, Ali Junior for his feral defending, and Emily for her goal!

It was a brilliant fighting effort from our South Mixed Bs, and still cannot believe we won.

Watch us freak out again now that we are in the last 32 of the plate, on who we are going to draw next. (Manifesting to the universe that it's not Cambridge South Mixed A).