Old Meads Rise To The Top Of the Table

Amateur Football Combination Premier Division: Old Meadonians 4 Old Wokingians 2

Four league wins on the trot, five in all competitions this season saw Old Meadonians rise to the top of the table by two points after beating visitors to Riverside Lands, Old Wokingians, in a six pointer on Saturday.

Meads started with left back Charlie Cain on the bench nursing a fractured thumb and Jack Costello deputising for him at left back which, while the defensive qualities remained intact, meant that connection with mid-field stuttered. After twenty minutes it was all change as first Costello and then Matt Britner, limped off, for Cain and Simon Richardson to come on. The hosts’ first goal came on the half hour when centre-back Aiden Chapman intercepted the ball on the halfway line, brought it forward through several tackles to the left hand edge of the area, drew the right back to him and slipped Craig Jones’ through on his left to clip the ball past the advancing keeper into the far corner.

Five minutes later Nick Wilson made it two as he reacted sharply to volley in a loose ball from fifteen yards and take the hosts to half-time in comfort. At the start of the second period Meads were guilty of relaxing their grip to give Woking a sight of the rabbit by taking their foot off the accelerator. By the hour the visitors had levelled the scores, firstly with a free header from a corner and almost immediately afterwards when their central mid-fielder hammered a low shot which skimmed into the corner of the net from fully thirty yards.

However, this week Meads’ management made the right decision in bringing back Jones to torment a tiring defence. Ten minutes later he broke on the left and fed Ryan Bright on the goal line ten yards from the near post. What happened then was a dazzling shimmying ten yard dribble by the mid-fielder, first taking him past two defenders and the keeper and even then he had to beat two more defenders before he could pop the ball into the net. Despite this effort it was Nick Wilson who shaded the MoM award by glancing in Cain’s cross with a soaring header at the far post to add his second after a game of unflagging effort.

Squad: Greening, Campbell, Chapman, Britner (Richardson), Costello (Cain), Shea, Gowers, Bright, Richards, Jones (Glover), Wilson.

October 18, 2016