Sometimes its really hard to write a match report because all you want to do is forget about the game. Saturday's match was one of those games. As I really don't have masochistic tendencies I won't go into too many details. Just the facts.

One car only arrived at the ground 10 minutes after the (delayed) start of the match - by which time the outnumbered South were two goals down, albeit to two rather undeserved goals. With a full team on the pitch South then set about making amends. With even numbers of players, it was obvious that South had the more creative and persistent attacking opportunities. Spalding were reduced to pushes and stick tackles to stem the flow. After one such foul, Johnson (F) quickly took the free hit, bouncing it into the D where McCulloch speculatively deflected it into the corner of the goal, with the keeper still assuming it was lifted into the D and therefore wouldn't count. The umpire rightly ignored Spalding's protests and South were back in the game. Determined not to make that assist his main contribution to the game, Johnson (F) duly contrived to get himself yellow carded (once more) for putting in a couple of great tackles that the umpire took a disliking to. Watson meanwhile was getting even more creative - with his own speculative deflection beating the keeper nicely. However, despite his lottery-winner celebrations, the umpire politely pointed out that he was actually several yards outside the D at the time. Indeed he had barely reached the D before starting his celebration.

In the second half South continued to put pressure on Spalding, with Hawkes, Virdi and Chalk exploiting every gap through to the forwards Johnson (R) and McCulloch - and in one case (Virdi) even making use of the much-maligned 'squarial'. Injuries to Wych and then Johnson (F) - on top of the fiasco at the start and a yellow card - meant South were constantly forced to shuffle players around with Williams playing sweeper or centre-back for large periods of the game. Maintaining some structure and order to the team was almost impossible. Despite this, South kept pushing forward, with many attacks being started from the left and right by Aston and Read. One such attack ended in another South goal as Chalk seized on a loose ball with the keeper on the floor like an upturned turtle and pushed it over the line to level the scores.

But it was not to be the comeback that South deserved. After a couple of half-chances went narrowly wide of the Spalding goal, Spalding managed to breach the South defense and score with only 2 minutes left on the clock. Time expired as South faced a rare Spalding short corner - which, in keeping with the way things were going for South that day, of course found the back of the net. A thoroughly undeserved defeat that South can rightfully feel frustrated about. With a full 11-a-side match things would certainly have been different.

What will define this second half of the season is how South bounce back from this. A home fixture next Saturday against Wisbech 3s is the first step of that journey.