Amateur Football Combination Premier Division

Old Meadonians 1 Old Parmiterians 1


Old Meadonians suffered a bit of a big dipper, as the political adage which equates a week with ‘a long time’ was neatly transposed into football as the scoring spree of their previous outing became a goal drought at Riverside Lands against Old Parmiterians, an underrated side who surprised their hosts in belying their league position and thoroughly deserved their hard earned point on Saturday.

With a lengthy injury list and the reserves playing an important cup final, the necessary embargo on plundering the second team squad left Meads’ coaches Paul Rumley and Rory Vermeulen having to play three players at the recuperation stage who were neither fully recovered nor totally match fit.

Thus, although the same fluid, four, five, one line-up was employed, since the personnel were different and this system relied on mobility which on the day was limited, short of employing motorized wheel chairs, Meads were never going to achieve the same result.

It didn’t help matters that, while neither side completely mastered the blustery prevailing wind, Meads were facing it in the first half and, though they kept the visitors at bay for the first forty five minutes, they just didn’t have the legs to glean advantage from the modified zephyr of the second period and the crowd had to be satisfied with the ‘oohs and ahs’ provided by near misses. Meads’ goal was simply worked classic, but a false dawn just ten minutes into the game, as front runner Ed Glover, roving deep on the right, picked the ball up on the halfway line, made room to feed Jack Costello on his outside and mid-fielder Misha Mantel timed his run nicely to sweep in Costello’s teasing cross from eight yards.

Ten minutes later John Shea worked himself clear on the right and Glover just failed to get the finishing touch to his centre but that totalled the positive result from what was a mostly attritional battle. Parms’ equaliser twenty minutes after the restart came from merited good fortune as the wind

April 10, 2014