Old Meads Toppled From Their Perch

Amateur Football Combination Premier Division: Old Suttonians 3 Old Meadonians 2

For the first time since December Old Meadonians are not top of the Amateur Football Combination Premier Division, having been toppled on goal difference by this season’s Arch Nemesis for Meads, Old Parmiterians, the team that perpetrated the horrendous foul on Meads’ goal keeper, Gary Robinson at Riverside Lands in February in a quarter final of the Amateur Football Alliance Senior Cup, to leave him on crutches since that date.

It can hardly be a coincidence that up to then Meads’ seamless defence had shipped but a handful of goals and, since the removal of Robinson, the lynch-pin of that defence, they have conceded seven goals in three matches, albeit two of them cup semi-finals. Meanwhile Meads have had to press into service five keepers to understudy Robinson and, while none of them has put a foot wrong, the team’s erstwhile defensive integrity has been put under pressure increasingly and its cover has been stretched to near breaking point.

On Saturday, against third placed Old Suttonians at Ewell, Meads were behind the eight-ball after only twenty minutes. By this time they had already conceded two and their hosts, whilst still having to fend off determined and concerted pressure from the visitors, nonetheless were mounting penetrating breaks by utilising every ounce of space available to pull Meads’ defence this way and that. Even so this was a game of ‘ifs and buts’: even before Sutts had notched their first, Meads’ striker Craig Jones had hit the bar from the edge of the area on five minutes. Then, in a disastrous fifteen minutes, Meads’ markers successively lost themselves, firstly for a successful free header to be conceded from a corner for Sutts’ opener and almost immediately a similar tangle had allowed a loose ball from a long throw to be poked home with keeper Simon Greening left stranded in no-mans land.

Shortly afterwards, Jones’ timing deserted him for his volley from ten yards to be just over and the home keeper outsmarted him in a one on one before, with a bit of reverse swing, he put Meads back in the game at the interval with a neat header from Jake Gowers’ cross. This relief was ephemeral as, five minutes after the restart, poor marking allowed a cross to be potted from ten yards to reintroduce clear water between the hosts and pursuit. For the remainder of the game, although Meads had more controlled possession than Sutts, the hosts continued to use space up front to even things out and cause angst.

At this point, once more sod’s law struck when neither the referee nor his assistant clocked the fact that a long throw had touched a defender and not a Meads’ forward before Ed Glover tucked the ball in from what they erroneously deemed to be an off-side position. These serpentine twists and turns continued to the end with John Shea nodding in another long throw with five minutes to go and Nick Wilson boring in from the right to pull his left foot drive outside the near post with the last kick of the game.

Post match the collective feeling was that Meads would bounce back again and no refuge would be taken in forlorn excuses since ‘If ifs and ans were pots and pans there were no need for Tinkers’.

April 7, 2017