London Old Boys’ Senior Cup

Old Tollingtonians 0 Old Meadonians 7

There was a distinct whiff of déjà vu about Old Meadonians’ one sided clash with Old Tollingtonians on Saturday at the latter’s Highgate hideaway in the London Old Boys’ Senior Cup. This harked back to the palmy pre-Christmas days when Meads were supposedly honing their cutting edge and, perhaps whetting their appetites for success by giving the ‘bum’s rush’ to a series of lowly cup opponents. I say ‘supposedly and perhaps’ because the jury is still out on whether Meads’ early cup campaign might not have softened them up with lush life, when, after a stirring post Christmas watershed A.F.A. Senior Cup win over Southern Amateur League Champions, Old Owens, last week they were ousted from the A.F.A. Middlesex & Essex Senior Cup by Polytechnic, having all but fallen on their own swords facing their young, fit but slightly callow neighbours from across the A316. Tollies are struggling in a division three below Meads and played like it to give the visitors an easy passage. It leads one to wonder how they ever got to the fourth round. Meads’ first came after a twenty five minutes extensive reconnoitre and was a result of a good three man build up which set Dave Brennan free and his thirty yard diagonal cross was headed into the top corner by the flying Ed Glover. Number two followed five minutes later and again it was Brennan the provider meeting Jones’ run into the area with a slide-rule pass for Jones to score from ten yards. With five minutes to go to the interval Jones added his second and Meads’ third with a cracking twenty five yard free-kick into the top corner. The second half was fruitful (for Meads) one way traffic with sub Jack Holmes chasing a forlorn hope ten minutes in, to cause problems between the home keeper and right back and end up walking the ball into an empty net for Meads’ fourth. Jones notched his hat-trick and the fifth with a solo effort and Glover and Brennan added numbers six and seven. There was still time for tragicomedy as, in the last minute, Ed Glover homed in on a one on one which the keeper blocked, Glover’s follow up hit the post and just as he was going to put the ball over the line the referee whistled for full time. Dave Brennan shaded Craig Jones for the MoM award.
Squad: Robinson, Mace, Chapman, McCombe, (Goode), Quinn, Shea, (Holmes), Brennan, Gerrish, Gowers, C. Jones, (Bright), Glover.

January 29th, 2015