London Old Boys Senior Cup Semi-final - Honourable Artillery Company 4 Old Meadonians 1

Back to back fixtures with Honourable Artillery Company, last week at Chiswick in the league, this week in the London Old Boys Senior Cup semi-final at Mottingham, saw a dramatic reversal of fortunes for Old Meadonians’ as their creaking squad finally succumbed to a combination of late additions to Saturday’s sick parade and administrative problems which left them with just one sub on the bench.

Last week’s game left H.A.C. feeling hard done by at not sharing the spoils after they gave as good as they got; at the end of this match, however, they were pinching themselves in disbelief but, despite being bewildered, gratefully marching to the final after being outplayed for huge chunks of a game in which Meads excelled for the most part but failed to adhere to their golden rule, to find the net. They were aided and abetted in this failing by the referee who refused to give two patent penalties and afterwards went so far as to say that if Colin Hawkins had gone down he would have awarded the kick.

Apart from their late goal burst, the hosts shone for brief ten minute periods at the start of each half otherwise finding themselves on the back foot stemming constant pressure. Meads took the lead on the half hour when Mid-fielder Andy Thompson headed a Jack Costello free-kick onto the bar and put in the rebound.

Ten minutes later came the Hawkins’ non penalty and then in time added on, to rub salt in, the hosts equalised when a corner was headed in. On the restart after an initial ten minutes Meads took over once more and H.A.C. seemed to have shot their bolt. However, all Meads had to show for their effort was another Costello free-kick which rocked the bar. From the clearance H.A.C. broke away to show how to do it with a cracker as an accurate cross was swept in. With fifteen to go mid-fielder Will Gerrish developed a third shoulder in the middle of his back for the referee to say that he had been floored fairly. Now the hosts iced their cake with a headed own goal and an added time penalty. The good news is that the time honoured cliché about concentrating on the league takes on greater significance because the top of the table has been blown open by recent results and as Meads’ coach Paul Rumley says whoever can put together a good run in will take the title, with Meads in the hat.

Team: Robinson, Grahame, McCombe, Thompson, Quinn, Glover, Costello, Gerrish, Eguae, Hawkins, A. Jones.

www.omfc.co.uk

March 16, 2011