Old Meads Test Out Their Sharpened Claws

Amateur Football Alliance Senior Middlesex and Essex Senior Cup: Old Meadonians 7 Latymer Old Boys 1

Old Meadonians tested out their sharpened claws on hapless Latymer Old Boys from two divisions below them, as what was, for most of the first half of this A. F. A. Senior Cup clash at least, a phoney war of attrition, because the hosts chose to take their foot off the accelerator, became a one sided massacre during the second half with five sharp shooters getting their names in the scorebook.

The hosts were still smarting after being dumped out of the London Old Boys Senior Cup last week and decided that skipper Aidan Chapman, after finding his feet last week following a month out with a groin strain, should start as Lawrie Pointer’s partner in the centre of the defence and ensure safe passage.

In one of the most explosive starts for some time the visitors had to kick off twice in the first three minutes, once to start the game and, having not been allowed out of their own territory from the start, again, after an opportune long range strike from ten yards outside the area by Meads’ adventurous left back Charlie Cain forced them to pick the ball out of their net. Before a further two minutes had elapsed Ed Glover had put the visitors’ keeper at the mercy of normally clinical Ryan Bright, but this time his twinkly toes tied themselves in knots for the goalie to gratefully clutch the ball to his bosom. However, this frenzied opening slowly morphed into trench warfare as the visitors were allowed to join in and even have an equal share of the ball with Meads’ cool defence keeping them at arm’s length.
HT 1- 0
The interval talk from manager Luke Graham, an interesting variation on, “Once more unto the breach”, challenging the team to prove themselves worthy of a quarter final cup place by being more ruthless in front of goal was obviously the stinging spur needed and consequently saw a transformation from the dull pre-break meandering to something more like the dynamism designed to force capitulation as Meads came to their senses and applied the screws.

First a series of shimmering one touch moves seemed to mesmerise the visitors. The hosts on the other hand were awake to the rich pickings available and swarmed all over Lats. Firstly debutant new signing Luke Taylor’s bouncing bomb breached the dam for Stuart Holt to launch an avalanche with a lightning hat-trick in fifteen minutes, a soaring header from ten yards, then a free-kick from twenty five and finally an explosive eight yarder from Matt Allen’s pull back to burst the net.

Next Bright atoned for his earlier leniency, this time by circling the stranded goalie and with ten minutes to go Allen steamed in from the right to squease the ball in from a narrow angle. The visitors were rewarded for the perseverance with a deflected shot from just inside the area.

The MoM award went to Luke Taylor in a changing room wreathed in smiles.

Squad: Beharrie, Costello (Mace), Chapman, Pointer, Cain, Taylor, Gowers, Bright, Holt, Glover (Money), Allen.

November 17, 2017