Amateur Football Combination Premier Division

Old Minchendians 3 Old Meadonians 1

A new campaign in the metaphorical cold light of dawn saw an inexperienced Old Meadonians’ squad comprising seven promotees from the reserves thrown in at the deep end and given a rude awakening against a battle proven Old Minchendenians at Southgate on Saturday.

If you add to this a broken leg for a debutant and two goals in the last five minutes snatching two points away, then you have a true baptism of fire. After a cagey opening for both sides, Meads drew first blood when a trade mark in-swinging corner from Jack Holmes was ushered into his own net by a home full back, twenty five minutes in.

Just five minutes later came absolute catastrophe as midfielder Danny Ly fell awkwardly and had to be carried off with a broken leg. Although Meads were in shock, they still looked capable of holding on till the interval. However, Minches had other ideas, equalising as the referee was putting his whistle to his mouth. The start of the second half gave no indication of impending doom as Meads logged up three or four untaken chances within the next ten minutes. On seventy minutes they even had what looked a good goal mysteriously disallowed as a corner was stabbed in from the six yard box but still alarm bells didn’t ring.

In the eighty fifth minute a Minches striker was given too much leeway and then brought down in the area for the penalty to be slotted. The coup de grace was almost immediately administered as in their desperation to equalise Meads forgot their defensive duties for an unattended striker to skate in on hard done by Gary Robinson in goal. It’s all very well to say that Chelsea have already lost more games than in the whole of last season, because Meads have half Chelsea’s number of games to turn things round.

Squad: Robinson, Mace, Chapman, Goode, Holmes, Gowers, Ly (Mantel), Boynton, Allen, C. Jones, Wilson. Subs- not used, De Coteau, E. Glover.

September 16, 2015