Meads Open Up Nine Point Lead at Top of League

Amateur Football Combination Premier Division: Old Dorkinians 0 Old Meadonians 3

Old Meadonians have opened up a surreal nine point lead at the top of the Amateur Football Combination Premier Division. For the rest of the league, the order of the day seems to be ‘dog eat dog’, the surprise team that has emerged from this chaos to take second place is Old Parmiterians who a week ago showed themselves to be fractious while being calmly snuffed out by Meads at Chiswick.

However, now is not the time to tempt providence by counting chickens, as there is still a long haul till the end of the season and, with Meads still being interested in three cups, the prospect of a packed fixture card is daunting to say the least.

On Saturday beneath the brow of the ‘Table Mountain’ of Surrey, Box Hill, it was residents Old Dorkinians who were out of the blocks first on a slick surface given an extra degree of pace by morning sleety rain. In the circumstances it took the visitors twenty minutes to adjust to the 3, 5, 2 line-up needed to accommodate the absence of Matt Brittner and Michael Richards with niggling injuries, giving Simon Richardson a chance to start up front, Nick Jones and Lawrie Pointer the short straws of filling in at right and centre back respectively.

The most notable absentee, keeper Gary Robinson was replaced by former first teamer Simon Greening and as if the pot had not been stirred enough the departure of central mid-fielder Daniel Donovan on ten minutes with a dislocated shoulder following an awkward fall further complicated matters. From twenty minutes on Meads began to corner more of the ball but it was not until five minutes before the interval that they took the lead when Ryan Bright chased what appeared to be a lost cause, just beating the charging keeper to a through ball to nick it into the net.

The half-time message was to keep up the work rate for what was to be a difficult 45 minutes against a strong team. True to form Meads, on the restart Meads took up where they had left off and on the hour Ryan Bright ghosted past three defenders to the goal-line and cut the ball back for Craig Jones to sweep in his twenty-first of the season to make it two nil. Now the hosts were tiring and Meads capped things off when Simon Richardson’s flick on spread-eagled a wide defence for Nick Wilson to race thirty yards through the middle and lash the ball into the roof of the net for Meads’ third. After his pace had caused consternation all afternoon Wilson’s goal shaded Ryan Bright to take the MoM award.

Squad: Greening, N. Jones, Chapman (Capt), Pointer, Cain, Shea, Donovan (Gowers), Bright, C. Jones, Wilson, Richardson

February 15, 2017