Not put off by the murky weather, Sunday saw a late afternoon kick off at home - well sort of – for our boys. Confidence from our recent performance gave us a good platform to build on for this game.

That confidence took a little wobble less than 10 minutes in when an early shot found the Dulwich net putting the visitors ahead.

However with the Dulwich resilience and battling attitude that has become the mantra this season, a fantastic display of passing football saw Dulwich get back into the game before the half time whistle with a beautiful through ball from Antonio to the feet of Josh I who calmly cracked it into the back of the net.

A late free kick taken by Zeb from about 30 yards out seemed to be heading nicely towards the target until a freak gust of wind guided it away to prevent the home side from adding to their goal count.

The second half saw the lights come on – literally - as the late afternoon rain kicked in and spectators were treated to skilful end to end football. Battling defenders, strong midfield play, and shot after shot heading toward the Cray Valley goal. With a creeping sense of deja vu the tension was evident on the socially distanced side-line. Some fantastic heroics from the Cray Valley keeper kept the tension until 11 minutes to go when a composed Stav dribbled the ball around the advancing keeper who went to ground, incorrectly pre-empting an early shot, and passing it into the net. I have to say that it seemed to travel very slowly with the Dulwich ‘fan-base' collectively holding our breath until it exploded into sheer relief and joy as the ball finally crossed the line.

The final minutes of the match seemed to tick by at a snail’s pace, even with the continued attacking play of Dulwich Village – there was certainly no evidence of slowing it down for the final whistle. Perhaps it was the knowledge that this might be last match for some time, or maybe the joy of it all starting to come together, but the boys played every last second of that match with the same passion and attacking play on show as when they were fighting to come back from their early concession.

The togetherness of this team even after a couple of bad results a few weeks ago, on show during the long injury break last week was again evident after yesterday’s match as they took part in some filming with the Football Foundation. These boys look like a team both on and off the pitch – and it’s starting to pay dividends in the match results.