In their final league game of the season, a depleted South side fielding only six regulars narrowly went down to an under-strength March XI but gave a good account of themselves and were slightly unlucky not to win a point.

A largely youthful March attacked from the off, almost immediately drawing a fine edge-of-the-D tackle from keeper Steve Parker, and South struggled to gain control for more than a couple of passes, although Rob Garrett's electric pace and skipper Chris Baker's grit and determination in close combat won some valuable breathing space. The bronchially challenged and antibiotically reinforced Matt Readman cut out two big March runs on the edge of the circle, once with an inch-perfect backhand and once with immaculate timing in the middle of the striker's backswing, allowing Sanjay Agarwala, enjoying another hard-working outing in left defence, and Baker to finesse the ball away to James Cobbe.

Parker, diving, then clawed down a lifted attempt to his right before regaining position and stunning a fierce strike which was scrambled away by Readman, who then neatly controlled an aerial ball and egg-and-spooned it out of the left-hand corner. There was little respite for Parker, however, as he single-handedly blocked a concerted March assault with three close-range pad and glove saves and then, from March's first short corner, athletically palmed away a top-class drag-flick via the post, buying precious time for Dom Nelson to clear. A second short was stopped by Garrett, who half-volleyed it to safety, leaving South to breathe a sigh of relief that they had survived the first ten minutes unscathed.

Though South still had some difficulty clearing the ball from their twenty-five, more channels opened up, with Russell Johnson swift and active up the left and Agarwala and Readman combining well to feed Baker, who was held up at the left post in the best move thus far. Nelson and Readman still had plenty to do in central defence as March ran hard up the middle, however, and both were clinical and sure-footed in the tackle, even when under the cosh in their own circle. Withstanding this onslaught brought South their reward when Baker seized an opportunity in midfield, switching the ball right to Eliot Read, who found Cobbe moving forward. A fudged clearance from the March back line saw the ball run free to Johnson and his well-weighted pass to Baker was expertly slid home by the skipper as the keeper was drawn across.

A 1-0 lead after twenty-three minutes did not entirely reflect the balance of play but South stuck to their guns. Parker once more denied an open March forward with a well-timed sliding save to his left and Garrett engaged top gear up route one. Baker triggered a natty right-wing move in which Alex Pooles passed the ball to himself behind his own legs, fooling a March defender completely, and a Johnson cross which was deflected wide, together with pressure from Agarwala, Garrett and Baker, signalled a spell of domination from South. Read's direct strike from South's first short was saved, as was a further attempt resulting from the Baker-Garrett slip routine, South's most productive penalty corner option this season. March were quick on the counter-attack, however, and there were narrow squeaks from two dangerously angled crosses as the home wingers scattered their markers. But after Parker had covered a shot that just whizzed past his left post, South took command in the final five minutes of the first half, with Pooles making a hefty central run before being stopped and Agarwala, Nelson and Readman all winning challenges at close quarters, the last-named doing a very effective paso doble to sidestep three oncoming attackers all at once. Garrett made a superb interception play before gliding along an inside channel to find Baker, who ended up in a heap with the keeper to win the first of two shorts. Neither yielded anything concrete, however, leaving the visitors perhaps feeling that their half-time lead was a little too slender for comfort.

And so it proved as South soon found themselves on the back foot after the resumption. All hands were on deck as Nelson (not that one) rescued a tricky situation in the corner and Readman and Agarwala held their lines at the edge of the D with several timely tackles. Parker kicked the ball out of danger to the right, Dave Stock soothed nerves with a clearance to safety and Garrett and Read worked hard to pick up the scraps. March fired the ball in the net from a hit outside the circle after four minutes of the second half but had more luck from a similar situation a minute later when a forward ghosted in near the far post for a beautifully-taken deflection that levelled the scores. Despite the best of efforts of Readman, Agarwala and Garrett, South conceded another short corner which March took from the other side of the goal. Cleverly using the angle, they worked a neat flicked one-two which Parker seemed to have saved authoritatively with his pad but the bees swarmed to the honey-pot and the ball somehow found its way fractionally over the line just before Agarwala's despairing hook out.

South hit back well from this reverse, with a positive move through Garrett, Cobbe and Baker followed by a charge up the middle from Garrett and a last-minute block in the D which deprived Pooles, who always looked threatening near goal, of the equaliser. Stock coolly fought off three men in right midfield before making a deft interception, while Agarwala and Johnson rescued an exposed position in midfield and Nelson continued his assured form with two fine tackles. Baker fought grimly to retain possession in a tight spiral before Johnson and Garrett relieved the pressure, sweeping the play upfield where Cobbe did well to win South's fifth penalty corner. The ball found the net, inconveniently for South via one of their own feet, and though Baker and Read continued to seek openings, the home defence closed ranks and their attackers applied the screw at the other end, scything through the midfield and testing Readman, Nelson and Stock with their urgent running. Nelson cleared sensibly after Parker had stood up to a good strike from a March short and Garrett, running hard enough for two, set Cobbe up and then Baker. The latter found Pooles, who nearly battered his way through the keeper, before South, bizarrely, were awarded a short corner in the same play as Baker was awarded a green card for pointing out that a short corner should be awarded. Er, well, yes. Clearly befuddled by all this, the skipper directed the resulting strike straight at the keeper, who gratefully kicked it away.

As Agarwala moved to a more attacking role with ten minutes to go, South easily defended a penalty corner through the speed of Readman and Garrett before Cobbe slotted it neatly up the right wing to Read, who put in a peach of a cross that hit centre D as Pooles arrived bang on time. The resulting cleanly-hit first-timer was heading just inside the left-hand post but the keeper reached it with an outstretched foot to preserve March's lead. Nelson, who had had an excellent game at the heart of the South defence, was then badly winded in a shuddering collision with a March forward and had to be gingerly led off after an extended hold-up, leaving South temporarily down to ten men before Wilco Dijkstra kindly (and effectively) slotted in near the end to become the first team's thirty-first player this season.

March, despite a strong effort from Baker and Read which guided the ball through Garrett for Agarwala to show his dribbling skills up front, took advantage of the hiatus at the back and, after a telescopic interception from Garrett had failed to check their progress, they moved inexorably into the D past several despairing sticks and, with everything firmly under control, bided their time until Parker had chased them round the circle as far as he could and then calmly put the ball away to double the lead.

Worse nearly followed as the March left-winger broke free into space in the D but Parker's radar was on full alert and he closed him down with geometric precision, buffering the shot and then shadowing the ball until Garrett and Read could spirit it away. Cobbe then hung on to possession up front, Readman (not coughing too fitfully) made a classic interception on the left and Baker just failed to get on the end of a reverse pass from Garrett. Sensing it was time for a last big push, South made the most of a good take and pass from Dijkstra to get Pooles in at the sharp end again. He was thwarted by the keeper as the goal beckoned but won a short which Read, possibly under-used at the set-play, hit very nicely but a bit too straight. A follow-up short, South's eighth, was misinjected but paradoxically managed to catch March off guard as Johnson et al., spotting their chance, raced in to claim the line and pull it back to Read, who whammed it unhesitatingly into the bottom corner like a twenty-goal striker. This gave South the merest glimmer of a re-run of last week's comeback scenario but, sadly, history could not repeat itself as play switched to the far end, resulting in a flicked March penalty corner which Parker swatted confidently away with his blocker just before the final whistle denied Agarwala the chance of what would obviously been a glorious roofed equaliser following a lung-bursting solo run past eight (if not nine or ten) hapless defenders.

Thus ended South's third consecutive season in Division 3NW under the helm of experienced (and now long-standing) skipper Chris Baker, who has done a clear-sighted and committed job in getting South out of the lower division and making them a force to be reckoned with in present company. South's record in 2008/9 (34 points, 69 goals for, 51 against) compares broadly with last season's 41 points (77 goals for, 50 against) and 2006-7's 31 points (56 goals for, 56 goals against), although their finishing position of seventh or eighth will actually be lower than the previous two seasons' fourth and sixth. However, it must be remembered that the team would have been sixth last year but for a last-minute goal in the last game of the season and there are other factors to bear in mind as well. Internal structural changes in the respective clubs meant that Rutland, always strong contenders anyway, were a more difficult proposition than last year and that Alford punched well above their weight for a promoted side. No team was significantly weaker than last year, Ely were certainly stronger and it was always to be expected that March I would make their experience of the higher division tell.

South's availability among key players tended to be rather patchy, especially in the New Year, and this partly explains why their post-Xmas return of 13 points was eight shy of their pre-Xmas tally. Though there were five players who played 18 games or more and seven who played 15 or more (with a particularly honourable mention to "Iron Man" Steve Parker, who was between the pipes for all 21 completed league fixtures), the fact that there were 16 players who played six games or fewer shows the difficulty South had in maintaining a really settled side, which is normally a prerequisite for sustained success.

However, South were still a match for almost every other team, losing badly only to Rutland and Ely (and having to do without key striker Keith Hewitt in all four of those games) and scoring some top-notch victories, notably over Wisbech, Nomads and Alford prior to the break and a tenacious City of Peterborough after it. Of South's 21 fixtures played, three were draws and eight others were settled by a single goal, so there was no shortage of edge-of-the-seat excitement for either players or spectators.

Taking the pattern of the season chronologically, South did tremendously well to get off to a winning start with a last-ditch victory over Wisbech, erasing the memory of last season's first-day defeat against Bourne (which nagged at the collective subconscious throughout), but stalled a little with draws against Peterborough and March II before reviving confidently with three good victories going into the break. The two one-goal defeats directly after Christmas rather took the wind out of any promotion push, with South failing to get the run of the ball against Wisbech and having to contend with multiple unavailabilities against Spalding. Merited defeats against Ely and Rutland were balanced by a splendid win over Peterborough and there were excellent efforts in all the last four games with undeservedly few points to show for it. Even March I, traditionally doughty adversaries, were a bit lucky to get away with four points this season. Indeed, but for the odd goal here and the rub of the green there, South could easily have easily have been pushing Rutland for third place.

As usual, South's defence was generally strong and experienced, even inspired, from keeper Steve Parker forwards. His style and technical accomplishment, the unerring tackling abilities of Chris Graveling and Matt Readman and the no-nonsense chest-out approach of Jim Thorpe were all to be relied upon. Chris Massey in particular, but others also, were able co-adjutors in the back division and South certainly had enviable depth in this respect. Chris Baker was a model of compact, straightforward distribution, Rob Garrett was tirelessly dynamic and had an especially good second half, while both Russell Johnson and Eliot Read made pleasing progress, both attackingly and defensively, on their respective sides of the pitch. Leading scorer in league games was Tassie Tiger Keith Hewitt, who notched 18 goals from 13 games, including a run of 13 in his last five games. Chris Baker netted 13 times from 19 games but no-one else got more than six and Mark Taylor's two appearances gave a glimpse of what the side might have achieved if he had been able to lend his weight to the side more often.

South's defensive record in short-corner situations was very pleasing. They conceded just 12 times from 120 attempts and were never beaten by a direct strike; the benefit of a stable core at the set-piece was evident. On the attacking side, the record was perhaps not quite so convincing, with nine goals scored from 96 attempts and, when the two Bourne games are taken out of the equation, six from 78 attempts. The side managed six short-corner goals in the first six games but only three in the subsequent 15 and it is clear that some freshening-up of tactics is required here. More variations, greater deployment of resources and relentless practice will surely pay dividends and may just make the difference in crucial matches next season.

Next season will see old adversaries Cambridge City IV and Cambridge University III return from Division 2N and two of Market Deeping II, St. Ives II and City of Peterborough V come up from Division 4NW. Predictions of trends, given four new teams out of twelve, are never easy – particularly in view of the cyclical nature of University hockey – but as seven of the eight teams in the middle of this year's Division 3NW were so closely bunched, next year promises, mutatis mutandis, to be a similarly close-run affair.