Amateur Football Combination Premier Division

Old Meadonians 6 Enfield Old Grammarians 1

Visitors from outer space investigating the state of London’s grass roots football could not have chosen a better venue to put their analytical powers to the test than Riverside Lands last Saturday. However, if they had checked the pre-match tables they might have been misled into thinking that the contest between hosts, Old Meadonians, at present sitting on top by virtue of a superior goal difference and second placed Enfield Old Grammarians, both having won their trio of opening games, was to be a hard fought clash of Titans.

The clue to anticipating the result was in the comparison of the two teams’ goal differences: at the start of this game ‘built from the back’ Meads had a healthy goals-for tally of fourteen coupled with a meagre one against, while, although Enfield had a scored an excellent thirteen, they had leaked a telling eight the other end. Once more Craig Jones was in the vanguard but it could hardly be termed a ‘Sharpe Forlorn Hope’ as he and Ryan Bright jointly set up a ferocious feeding frenzy during a five goal first half in which Meads chewed up the limp pretenders to the throne, spitting them out in little pieces and finally these two unstoppables kept each other up to the mark with matching hat-tricks.

From the opening whistle Meads dominated the midfield pinging the ball around the pitch to ensnare bewildered Enfield who didn’t which way to turn. It was Bright who sowed the seeds of the rout on ten minutes, cutting in from the left to curl his low right footer round the desperately diving keeper into the far corner. His goal was capped within five minutes as Craig Jones stormed in from the right and, just when we all thought he would close in for the kill, at the edge of the area he unleashed a fierce big dipper into the far top causing Manager Rory Vermeulen to aver that we wouldn’t see a better gaol anywhere and Craig’s relatives to wonder when the A.FA. was going to cast off the cataracts from its eyes.

The odd occasion when the visitors got the ball in the middle of he park Meads’ pack of wolves in mid-field fell on them with relish to separate them from the ball and relieve them of any duty to go any further. To this defensive blanket was added the tackling back of Craig Jones and Bright and Ed Glover who, when he wasn’t lazering great gashes in the Enfield defence, was also tackling back with ferocity. Before half time Craig Jones had added two and Ryan Bright one to complete Meads’ nap hand and in a lower key second half Ryan Bright played catch-up and the visitors were consoled. Craig Jones and Ryan Bright were named joint MoM and Jones had to wear with pride The Wig, for allegedly touching an alleged Dave Brenan bound goal from an alleged off-side position, allegedly!

Squad: Robinson, Pointer, McCombe, O’shea, Mantel , Bright Chapman, Gerrish, Brennan, Glover, C. Jones, O’Sullivan, A. Jones, Meredith.

October 8, 2014