Amateur Football Combination Premier Division

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Amateur Football Combination Premier Division

Albanian F.C. 1 Old Meadonians 5

In the confident but still guarded words of Old Meadonians’ joint coach Paul Rumley, “Meads are now a well oiled machine” and it is nigh on impossible to gainsay what is almost certainly a truism, that is without chancing laying up hostages to fortune, as Meads’ winning streak reaches eleven matches with a combined league and cup goal difference approaching the forties.

What their missing ingredient has been for as far back as two seasons and into the early part of this one, is goals from sources other than out and out strikers, leaving hard working stoical strikers carrying a major share of the burden of registering in the score-book, until quite recently. However, with three goals coming from the mid-field on Saturday this problem appears fixed.

Nonetheless, pace is the weapon Meads have in spades and at Albanian’s Woodside Park home the initial damage was still done by front man Peter Eguae, playing deep on the left behind Ed Glover and Craig Jones on this occasion, but even so his raw pace generated a momentum which the hosts never managed to contain. Just ten minutes in, he was upended forty yards out and Jordan Mace’s in-swinging free-kick saw Aidan Chapman just beating fellow mid-fielder, Andy Thompson, to head in at the far post.

Five minutes on Jones made it two after being put in by a bewildering series of ground passes to round the keeper and a further ten minutes later, Meads’ third came from Thompson’s head as he beat friend and foe to a Mace corner. The hosts did stage a brief comeback for the ten minutes to half-time but even their consolation was a scrappy affair. When the visitors failed to clear a long throw, the ball ricocheted briefly around the area until put out of its misery. In the dying minutes of the first half a goal-line clearance saved the hosts from further embarrassment, leading to instructions in the interval which were not to allow Albanian back into the game as they wouldn’t need a second bidding.

Thus it was business as usual resulting in the visitors putting on a dazzling show of supportive play rendered even more spectacular by the state of the pitch. Again, ten minutes after the restart, the ball was in the hosts’ net, having gone with one touch passes from right back, John Shea to sub, Dave Brennan and on to Thompson who fed Jones to get his second with a low shot into the far corner. Almost immediately centre-back Ali McCombe crashed a header against the bar, but the gem of Meads’ handful came with ten minutes remaining.

This time left-back Kevin Quinn released Brennan for him to come dancing past three tackles, put the ball past the keeper and run behind the goal to celebrate with his massed family support. Aidan Chapman and Peter Eguae were named joint MoM.

Squad: Robinson, Shea, Pointer, McCombe, Quinn, Mace, Thompson, Chapman, Eguae, C. Jones, Glover, Brennan, Gerrish.

 

 

February 13, 2013