Things looked ominous when we spotted that Market Deeping all had identical new shirts, socks and shorts on. The away team dominated from the start, and only solid defending, particularly from John Benedikz at sweeper, kept them at bay. The opening goal came against the run of play from a slick Greaves-Lewis short corner routine, with Andy Lewis rifling his shot in from the edge of the D. Sadly this only served to irritate Deeping, who scored three goals in quick succession, mainly due to their quick thinking forwards and the home team being unable to clear the ball rapidly and effectively.

The second half was a similar story. Deeping got a fourth goal and were only prevented from scoring more by some great goalmouth stops from newcomer Nik Oettle and Steve Lane. South came back strongly towards the end, inspired by MoM Nick Wong, who buzzed around in defence, midfield and attack, and the catalytic effect of a couple of substitutions. Wong almost got on the scoresheet a number of times before he managed to pass decisively across goal for John Greaves to turn the ball neatly past the keeper for a trademark three-yarder.

This was not enough to get back into the game, and Deeping got a lucky final goal via a deflection wrongfooting the otherwise solid keeper, John Bartram.

It was good to see CSouth keep going to the end, not giving up, and exploiting different attacking avenues, but inability to win enough 50/50 balls, too frequently giving the ball away in our own half, from set and open play and not covering sixteen yard hits cost us dear.