Cambridge South 3rds produced their best team performance of the season to maintain their lead in Printwize Division 7NW, deservedly taking the points from this derby meeting with second placed St Ives 6ths, played at Hinchinbrooke School.

After some tight early exchanges, during which Hannes Roux made an important goal-line block from a St Ives short corner routine, South opened the scoring. Tim Waller made one of his typical surging breaks from defence. With the St Ives defence retreating and covering a decoy run from Wilco Dijkstra, Waller pushed on into the circle and put in a cross-shot that the keeper half-blocked. The ball fell to left-winger Paul Mellor, who swept home his first goal for the club.

South doubled their lead on the stroke of half time. Dan Adlington broke down the South right, exchanged passes with skipper David Bridge, and shot from an angle. From this the St Ives keeper produced a good block but the ball ran lose for Adlington to pick up and he drove in another powerful shot from an even narrower angle, for which the keeper had no answer.

The match continued in a similar vein in the second half, with South putting together some fine passing moves. Typical of this was a move that began with a ball won in central midfield, and instantly played out to Rory Johnson, in space, on the right wing. Johnson drove down his flank before slipping the ball across into the path of centre forward Paul Burridge, clean through on goal. The St Ives keeper did well to close down the shooting angle and deflected Burridge's finish wide. Soon after this, a similar move produced the third goal South needed to seal their victory. A pass from skipper David Bridge was touched on by Adlington to Johnson, cutting in from his flank. As the keeper came out to meet him, Johnson calmly slipped the ball home.

St Ives's attack, the top scorers in the division at the start of the day, was mostly kept quiet, with South's defenders, Waller, John Benedikz, Mark Jackson, Jan Brynjolffssen and Andrew Leonard, sticking diligently to their marking jobs. However, keeper Will Benedikz was still required to make a few important interventions. Particularly crucial was a kick-away of a goal bound deflection, whilst the score was two-nil.

Given the overall team nature of the performance, selecting a man of the match would be unfair on the other twelve players in the South squad, who all contributed to this victory.