A double-header last weekend saw the Blues suffer an agonising league defeat at the hands of local rivals Cambridge City before Brighton & Hove inflicted a 5-1 reverse on the students in the EH Cup.

On Saturday, the Blues made the long journey to the Leys School for an away match against Cambridge City, the current league leaders. This match had extra significance, not only because it was the local derby, but also because a win would take the Blues within a stone’s throw of the top of the table.

Opening exchanges were sluggish, neither side playing with the intensity the fixture demanded. Slowly but surely, though, the Blues came into the game, winning a couple of short corners in the latter stages of the half.

These chances, however, were not converted and with City showing a similar lack of bite at the other end, the interval was reached without score. With the City having shaded the play, this was far from a tragedy for the Blues.

Following the restart, the run of pay was reversed. Excellent interplay between Rupert Allison and the back four gave the Blues a great platform on which to play; the City chased shadows.

Midway through the half a visionary  Nick Parkes pass released Ollie Salvesen, who scythed down the left side before coolly slotting into the bottom corner to give the Blues a well-earnt 1-0 lead.

Spurred on by this, the students continued to dominate for the next 10 or 15 minutes and believed they had doubled their advantage when Gus Kennedy fired into the side netting. Initially, Kennedy was awarded the goal by the umpire. but alas,  the decision was quickly overturned.

With eight minutes left on the clock, however, disaster struck. A foul in midfield was ignored by the umpires and allowed City to break with numbers, on which they capitalised to win a short corner. Their previously ineffective routine struck gold at last, their flicker drilling the ball into the bottom corner.

Two minutes later a similar breakaway saw City lash a loose ball into the top corner. At 2-1 down the Blues pressed hard and won a short corner with barely two minutes to go. Agonisingly, this was not converted and from the resultant play City charged to the other end to win a corner of their own. As the final whistle blew the corner was duly converted to give City a rather flattering 3-1 win.

This result certainly leaves the Blues with much ground to make up towards the top of the table. They will hope to reduce this deficit next week when they host high flyers, Bedford.

Sunday’s cup game saw the Blues face a well-drilled and physically-imposing Brighton and Hove side. Although Cambridge opened the scoring through Felix Styles, they could not withstand the constant pressure put on them by the well-oiled opposition side and quickly began to leak goals.

Despite man-for-man advantages, Cambridge were unable to pull together as successfully as their Sussex opposition and in the end were beaten comprehensively. Nonetheless, there were some encouraging periods of possession and attacking play from which comfort should be drawn.