This was a match played in the dark in more ways than one:

• The Market Deeping floodlights were somewhat understaffed, with a large part of one side of the pitch unlit as a result. After half time it was also somewhat foggy (it was 5pm in December, remember).

• Both fog and darkness applied to Cambridge South's play; although we battled away til the end, the intelligently worked out game plans were left on the practice pitch as we blindy passed to opponents, ignored well placed teammates for the easy ball and failed to close down the skillful Bourne attackers.

Oh Dear!

And it all looked so good for the first twenty minutes. We attacked with purpose and soon got a deserved goal from a well struck Pannu short corner which Creed stopped for Lewis to shoot home via a deflection. This led the umpire to cogitate for an agonising minute before succumbing to the thought waves emanating from all the Cambridge South players. For a while after this, South enjoyed the bulk of possession, with the effervescent Sanjay Agarwala going closest as a brilliant solo run ended with him shooting just wide.

It was but an illusion, as after twenty minutes Bourne broke away and their centre forward crashed the ball into our goal as we gazed on admiringly. This time the ball sped through the netting and the umpire mused for even longer before agreeing with the sporting Poole, who said it was in the goal. Keeper Poole was also a deserved man of the match as throughout the rest of the game he saved many certain goals with his heroic dives at the feet of attackers. Early in the second half, he was unlucky to face a brilliantly struck penalty flick awarded surprisingly to Bourne to give them the lead. Waves of Bourne attacks were thwarted by the excellent Hannes Roux, who was the pick of the defence, although Sutcliffe matched him with one awesome save as he leapt along the goalline to keep out a Bourne shot at point blank range.

For long periods Cambridge South seemed unable to string a move together, except for a few breakaways, via Creed/Greaves on the right, or the skilful Lewis down the left. In each case the passes eventually went astray, as we failed to pressurise the opposition goal.

The final goal was the best of the game, as the best player on the park dribbled through our defence to shoot his team firmly into a deserved two goal lead a few minutes before time. At least we won at table football afterwards, but only because both teams were manned by Cambridge South players.

Note on result: Due to the club's failure to raise a 1st team for the away match at Horncastle, the league has decided to void the 2nd team's result and award the match 3-0 to Bourne. Although in this instance it has only cost us one goal, there will be repercussions as the 1sts game will have to be re-arranged, possibly at the expense of a friendly match. On behalf of the captains, PLEASE keep them informed as far in advance as possible if you are unavailable so we can avoid this happening again.