Amateur Football Alliance Middlesex & Essex Senior Cup First Round

NUFC Oilers 4 Old Meadonians 3

Old Meadonians were given ‘the Bum’s Rush’ to exit from the Amateur Football Alliance Middlesex & Essex Senior Cup in the first round by new kid’s on the block, NUFC Oilers at the Oilers’ Greenford stronghold on Saturday. Those who thought that the NU stood for some hitherto unknown off-shore activity of Norwich Union, their conjecture backed up by the vivid ‘Aviva’ yellow hue of the hosts’ shirts, were about to be disavowed with a vengeance. The hosts turned out to be another alumnus based club of Nottingham University graduates and played appropriately cultured football to match.

However, this was not before their guests upstaged them with a superbly crafted goal as Meads’ twin strikers Matt Allen and Nick Wilson sped onto each others’ wall passes down the right wing before Allen supplied a third minute lead. The Oilers then showed one of their inner strengths, by not being phased and putting their well oiled machine in motion to ripple forward with the seamless football which was to confound Meads’ contrasting ‘make do and mend’ in reply.

Just ten minutes later a home striker outpaced Meads’ ponderous defence and was brought down by keeper Gary Robinson’s mistimed tackle for a penalty which was converted. Now the visitors were forced to resort to cumbersome cross field passing at the back in a desperate and unavailing effort to thwart the Oilers’ covering and this lead to the hosts taking the lead when a pass out of defence was intercepted, yielding safe passage through to unsupported Robinson.

Meads instant reply came from their mercurial triumvirate up front, this time with Craig Jones doing the honours. High drama continued apace for the Oilers to regain the lead with an unmarked header at the far post only for Wilson to latch onto Will Gerrish’s through ball and equalise ten minutes after the restart. Now Meads’ seemed to take the upper hand as they besieged the hosts and were unlucky on a number of occasions. The Oilers then found a third and decisive wind to demonstrate their superior chance conversion rate when their right winger ghosted onto a cross to score with a superb diving header on eighty five minutes.

October 8, 2015