On the minus side, a long way to drive to get soaked and frozen (my 2010 Ford Focus may not impress many but thank goodness for its heated seats on the return) and then lose 0-7.

On the plus side, the score-line did not reflect the balance of play, despite the fact that we had no goalie, hardly any of our regular squad and only 12 players (reduced to 10 for the last 5 -10 mins.) On paper we had had 13 players but an en route family illness (thanks for the jolly photos of Harry's breakfast second time around Jen) meant we started with 12. A special shout-out for the rarely seen Harriet - she of the famous Chere family - who raced to Braintree to help us out in our hour of need. The silky skills are still there. :)

We actually put on a very spirited display, with everyone giving their all. Braintree sit top of the division and are a good, well-organised team. During the first 5 minutes we actually pushed forward and looked like we were going to score first. (They had warmed up in Santa hats and Christmas jumpers so were perhaps not quite in serious game mode.) They then settled down and battle commenced.

We tried our best to keep them out of the D and to man mark when they did encroach, but we didn't always have the pace, in defence, to prevent them breaking free and slotting the ball into our goalie-less net. No lack of effort on our part though, so well done defence. Katie, I think you said you surprised yourself with your energetic performance, having not played so far this season. I hope you weren't too stiff the day after.

Some nice work from our two youngsters on loan from the 5s, Sadie and Evelyn, who did really well considering the strength of the opposition. We old hands also put in tremendous efforts to play our part and hold the formation together.

We only managed to concede one, possibly two, short corners, and won a fair few of our own at the other end of the pitch. Unfortunately, we couldn't quite get any balls past their experienced keeper.

I'll update with man of the match when the votes are counted but for now, well done all who played on such a cold, wet and grey day. There were plenty of positives to take from the play.

Jane