Ruthless Meads through to the final

Amateur Football Alliance Middlesex and Essex Cup Semi Final
Winchmore Hill 0 Old Meadonians 5

Old Meadonians revealed their best attacking form with a five goal demolition job on luckless Winchmore Hill, hosts at the Paulin Ground on Saturday, to go emphatically through to the final of Amateur Football Alliance Middlesex and Essex Cup.

Despite the fact that the score did not flatter the visitors, the hosts were unlucky not to get at least one in reply. In early probing exchanges they attacked on the wings with pace, had an early goal disallowed for offside and brought out a good reflex save from Meads’ keeper Kris Sayers.

At the other end the visitors’ Dwayne Rhone hit the bar and Colin Hawkins pulled a shot just wide. It was Hawkins who broke the deadlock on twenty five minutes. Lurking sharklike thirty yards out, a sudden diagonal dart took him clear of his marker and his stunning bolt from the blue came down off the angle of the post and bar for his prescient partner Ed Glover to head in the rebound.

Winchmore Hill fought back with three corners in quick succession which rocked Meads without bearing fruit. The first fifteen minutes of the second half were decisive. On ten minutes Hawkins got clear on the right and bored in to score from a narrow angle. Five minutes later he repeated the dose, this time through the middle after a defensive mix up to make it three.

Still Meads were not content to sit back and Glover cut in from the right to dispel any doubt. By now Hawkins was nursing his hamstring but his hunger for his hat trick produced a finger-tip save from a lob and another twenty yarder skimmed the bar. He came of with five minutes for his replacement Steve Bowring to cleverly squeeze number five across the goal into the far corner.

Team: Sayers, Salanson, Wapshott, Hanley, Costello, (Quinn), Kearney, Bond, (Pointon), Rhone, McGuinness, Hawkins, (Bowring), Glover.

If you feel you would like to be a member of this progressive and friendly club why not visit their website www.omfc.co.uk

David Stanners

March 2, 2005