Amateur Football Alliance Middlesex & Essex Senior Cup

Old Meadonians 3 Latymer Old Boys 0

Old Meadonians cruised into the quarter finals of the A.F.A. Middlesex and Essex Senior Cup without having to get out of second gear but betrayed potentially debilitating symptoms of boredom while disposing of visitors to Riverside Lands, Latymer Old Boys, from two divisions below them on Saturday.

As sanguine as ever, joint coach Paul Rumley, flying semi-solo, with colleague Rory Vermeulen quarantined away from the dug-out, nursing the remnants of a flu-like malady, brushed off post match suggestions from the press that, before the middle of the second half, Meads looked ‘tired of stuffing turkeys, a month before Christmas’. He refused to be fazed by the colourful language used, with an avuncular, dead-bat, “They did all that was necessary”. However, the visitors, even though they are second in their table, with five wins out of six, as with Meads’ previous crop of this season’s cup opponents, rarely offered more than token opposition suggesting that, in Rumley’s words, ‘they had nothing to hurt us with’ and, if the hosts needed to, they could have stepped up the tempo at any time and reaped the necessary harvest.

Even so, the under dogs didn’t need to give Meads the flying start they donated. They were still sorting themselves out in the second minute when Ryan Bright who never stopped running throughout, giving a diminutive Puck-like impression of that great Wolves and Burnley personification of perpetual motion, Steve Kindon, set off down the right and pulled the ball back for Jack Holmes to flash a half-volley into the net from just inside the area. At this point the visitors woke up but still missed the chance to peg the hosts back, putting over from ten yards in front of an advancing Gary Robinson who then confirmed his excellent form with a timely grab in a one on one.

Meads were back in the saddle when, on the half hour, Bright was brought down in the area only to hurriedly put the spot kick past the post. His immediate riposte was effective but fortuitous: Ed Glover put him away on the left and his cross sailed over the keeper into the far top corner. The second half saw Meads sitting back and also showing a lack of support off the ball but, rather like an elder brother teasing a younger sibling in boxing sparring by offering his unguarded chin as an open target, with utter impunity.

Needless to say the visitors failed to land a blow. On the eightieth minute Meads settled matters when Holmes in-swinging corner was headed in by centre back Adam Goode. Jack Holmes just shaded Ryan Bright for the MoM award.
Squad: Robinson, Goode, Pointer, O’Sullivan, Quinn, Brennan, Mace, Gerrish, Holmes, Bright, Glover, McCombe, McCarthy.


December 2, 2014