Amateur Football Combination Premier Division

Old Suttonians 2 Old Meadonians 1

Following their defeat in the A.F.A. Senior Cup the previous Saturday Old Meadonians added three more players to the injury list to bring the total absent from their squad to ten and expose them a last lap of the league programme strewn with banana skins, the first being provided by this Saturday’s opponents at Ewell, Old Suttonians, lurking menacingly two places below Meads but with a game in hand.

Sutts have also enjoyed extended cup runs which have, fortunately for them, not had the same debilitating effect on their squad but against a patchwork visiting team they still had to rely on lightning striking twice to give them their slender victory. In his post match briefing Meads’s joint coach Paul Rumley was quick to point out that the four players promoted from the reserves, Dave Miller, Adam Boynton, Alex Jones and Nick Wilson acquitted themselves admirably and deserved to come home with a point. He also thought the visitors had shaded the first half which was scoreless. Five minutes after the restart Wilson struck a beauty from the edge of the area, which bent the bar but stayed out. On seventy minutes, however, came the hosts’ first stroke of luck when centre back Adam Goode, having just robbed his opponent, then trod on the ball to leave an open goal available.

Ten minutes later an extremely rare miscalculation of wind velocity from Meads’ keeper, Gary Robinson left him only able to touch the ball onto the underside of the bar and into the net to give Sutts a two goal lead. Meads continued to press for Goode to make amends for his previous slip and volley home a long throw in from Aidan Chapman for his third of the season, but despite Wilson being unlucky with a sweeping shot from a Dave Brennan cross Meads could not find the equaliser.

Squad: Robinson, Mace, McCombe, Goode, Miller, Boynton, Chapman, Shea, Holmes, A. Jones, Wilson, Brennan, Quinn.

April 22, 2015