Amateur Football Combination Premier Division

Old Meadonians 6 (Glover, Champion 2, Bright, Chapman, Brennan); Old Parmiterians 0

In the palmy days of the ‘noughties’ Old Meadonians had a regular first team squad of anything from twenty up to twenty-five and with individual promotees from the reserves would sometimes use as many as thirty five players in a season. Those days, although not too distant a memory, are at the moment, a thing of the past as it becomes more difficult both to develop players from within the club and to sign players of proven ability. This means that the success of the club’s flag-ship first team may well have to depend on a squad of under twenty but one whose members are capable of covering two or more positions to make up for sheer lack of numbers and thus versatility will be the keyword. Hence, last week we saw Laurie Pointer and Matt O’Sullivan, often more used to centre back positions, demonstrating they are capable of taking wide roles and overlapping with the best. However, joint coaches Rory Vermeulen and Paul Rumley could not have expected that their plan would be put to immediate test as they lost five from the squad for last Saturday’s game. But this is nothing compared to the tale of woe which accompanied their opponents and visitors to Riverside Lands, Old Parmiterians who apparently lost ten players between Thursday and Saturday in what could only be termed hyper-decimation. Nonetheless, Meads were in no mood to be either charitable or lenient, clocking up five goals in a super-charged first half, a tally they might easily have doubled with any luck and, despite the fact that they eased up after the break to allow the visitors to show that they could play if given the chance, notching a sixth to rub it in with ten minutes to go. However, all the visitors’ late cottage industry produced was a superb save from Meads’ otherwise sparsely employed keeper Gary Robinson who, finding himself stranded by a viciously dipping lob, arched himself backwards three yards into the net, touching the ball over the bar en-route. The heartening news that Meads’ reserves were winning 4-0 on the next pitch was an extra boost. Ryan Bright was Named MoM.

Squad: Robinson, Pointer, O’Sullivan, Chapman, Mantel, Brennan, Meredith, Bright, Costello, F. Champion, Glover, A. Jones, Quinn

September 24, 2014