Feisty Performance Garners Welcome Win For Old Meads

Amateur Football Combination Premier Division : Hale End Athletic 0 Old Meadonians 2

On the back of last week’s stunning win which put them into the A.F.A. Senior Cup final, an Old Meadonians squad, further reduced by injuries, produced a feisty performance to garner a welcome win in what was a mid-table ‘six pointer’ at Hale End on Saturday.

The result of this game was not as cut and dried as the score suggests, with the visitors’ keeper and back three having to defend stalwartly from the whistle and the hosts spurning several chances to take an early lead. In fact Hale End failed to take advantage of wind and slope in the first half conceding dominance from a quarter of an hour in until fifteen minutes from the end when Meads lay back on a comforting two-goal cushion.

When they decided to join in, in the first half, Meads were no luckier than their hosts, with Owen Wolfe having a twenty yard shot well saved and centre-back Alex Hugh Jones just over with a header from a corner.

On sixty minutes, however, a trademark goal from striker Leon Smith broke the deadlock as he outpaced the defence to run onto a superb sixty-yard angled pass from Will Gerrish and round the keeper. Five minutes later a four man move put him in again for the ball to be just wide of the far post and it was his striking partner and namesake Kevin Smith who settled matters by beating a square defence to a lob over the top, taking the ball on his chest and magnificently volleying into the top corner from eighteen yards.

The management gave the MoM award to veteran centre-back Len Wapshott.

Team: Toyne, Wapshott, Hugh Jones, Pointer, Jones, (Rhone), P. Lovell, Gerrish, Wolfe, McGuinness, L. Smith, K. Smith.

March 18, 2008