Old Mead's Fifths Survive Mini-Monsoon To Win Away
Amateur Football Combination Div. 2 - South Old Whitgiftians 2 Old Meadonians 3
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The only Old Meadonians team to survive last week’s mini-monsoon was the fifths who did so courtesy of a visit to Old Whitgiftians whose pitches, based on a porous bed of Wealden chalk, had drained beautifully to give a perfect surface for good football which the two teams duly played. This was a middle of the table six pointer and was throughout evenly and fairly contested.
However, playing with the slope in the first half, Meads were reluctant to get their shots away after falling behind in the tenth minute. Also, their most potent weapon, the long throw of Roger Busby, was wasted due a failure to feed off the stream of balls which were being headed on. Consequently, although shading possession and controlling the midfield, the hosts’ lead looked safe until the thirty fifth minute when Nadeem Awan equalised deservedly.
By this time Whits’ attacks had become sporadic and well contained by Meads’ resolute defence but with five minutes to go to the interval, during one of the hosts’ few attacks, the referee intervened with a mystery penalty which was emphatically converted to restore the lead to the hosts. Up the slope on the restart bets were on the visitors being put under the cosh only for the pundits to be confounded by Meads buckling down, cutting out their hosts aerial route and, during the crucial next fifteen minutes, taking a firm grip on the midfield.
They were soon putting on pressure with neat one twos and nicely weighted passes into the ample support coming up from behind. Now Meads turned the screw by bringing on fresh legs in midfield and up front to enfilade Whits with a series of corners. Within five minutes of coming on Osman Kibida had brought about a justifiable parity and with ten minutes on the clock the coup de grace was administered by Mo Hanif who capped a fine performance, switching the ball onto his unfavoured left leg and passing it into the bottom corner. Mo Hanif was named MoM.
Team: Chalice, Busby, Alison, Porter, Baylis, (Herve), Taylor, Antoniades, Allen, Hanif, Awan, Oneil, (Kibida),
March 3, 2010