London Old Boys’ Senior Cup Quarter Final

Old Meadonians 1 Old Thorntonians 0

Old Meadonians, last year’s beaten finalists, reached the semi-finals of the London Old Boys’ Senior Cup with a laboured goal to nothing win over Old Thorntonians who are only doing moderately well in the division below them. However, this was, for Meads, a return to astro-turf, the all weather surface that saw them bite the dust in a five-nil trouncing at the hands of fellow premiership team Old Hamptonians last season, but, more significantly, this Saturday’s venue was Burnham Grammar School in the near Slough, as different as chalk from cheese from the scene of their former downfall in the back waters of Wandsworth. The numbingly spine-chilling minimum F.A. safety margins of three metres distance between touchline and a sturdy one centimetre gauge wire mesh fence at the inner-city site were replaced by a comforting twenty-five metre run off distance, highly appropriate for the leafy suburbs of Slough Safety Town. However, the playing surface itself was only marginally better than the infamous carpet that once disgraced the surface of Loftus Road in that it took so much pace out of the game that it reduced the premiership team to pedestrian parity with the underdogs. Even so Meads might have been three up at half time but had to settle for Craig Jones’ opportunist goal, side-footed in from Jordan Mace’s cross on twenty-five minutes. The second half saw Thorns putting up more resistance while still not making much headway against a Meads defence lacking stalwarts Ali McCombe and Kevin Quinn at the back and influential skipper, Will Gerrish in mid-field, that is until the eightieth minute when Meads’ keeper Gary Robinson had to pull off a magnificent save to prevent Thorntonians producing a travesty with a sting in their tail. For coach Paul Rumley the main plus from the game was the team spirit which was outstanding auguring well for the season’s end game.

February 19, 2014