Cambridge South set out for the new campaign hoping to eradicate their inconsistent pre-season form against newly promoted Ely 2’s. South had put their various social plans on hold, with key members of the squad travelling home from Norwich and even Cornwall (but not Spain?) for this critical opening encounter. Captain McCulloch stressed the need from the off for South to be focused, intelligent, and first to the 50-50 balls.

However, for the first ten minutes it was South who still seemed to be on holiday with Ely winning a series of short corners from some suspect South defending. Fortunately these were dealt with by the disciplinarian himself, George “Ledley King” Wych.

As the half progressed it was South who took the game to their opponents, with their performance ironically befitting of the famous albescent sporting colour their opponents were wearing. Wheels (Russell) was beginning to gas his marker, and it was no surprise when he raced on to a slipped through ball from Matt “Emanuel Adebayor” Readman to speed away from his marker and slip the ball under the keeper’s dive for one nil.

The goal relaxed South, who grew in confidence as the half wore on. Two quick goals from Graham “Roman Pavlyuchenko” McCulloch and the midfield maestro Jack “Luka Modric” Chalk saw that South took a deserving 3-0 lead in at half time.

The message from el capitain was for more of the same- and South duly obliged. Further pressure lead to an early short corner; with the unscripted move of pass to stopper/stopper nail it in the bottom right being performed to perfection for Luka to get his second. Rich “Gareth Bale” Claes soon pitched up with another from a quite mazy run, very much reminiscent of an October night in Milan, as he bamboozled past numerous defenders before slamming the ball into the far corner from the left.

There was still time for two more goals- one, an excellent finish from the top of the D by Luka to earn himself the match ball and a jug (its amazing he still had money left over for his match fees), as well as a thunderbolt from John “Tom Huddlestone” Hawkes which left the keeper with no hope. Special mention must go to keeper Steve “Brad Friedel” Parker for an excellent save late on to ensure the proverbial icing very much stayed on the South cake. Unfortunately, there was a late yellow card for Tom Watson for a couple of over-enthusiastic stick tackles which earnt him the lemon award in the absence of any real comedy gaffes from the remainder of the team.

All in all, an excellent performance, somewhat resplendent of last Sunday lunchtime in North London. South will run into tougher matches over the remainder of the season, no more so than next weekend at promotion favorites Bourne Deeping, but performances like this will mean they will be right in the promotion shake-up at the end of the season. Well done all.