Amateur Football Alliance Middlesex & Essex Senior Cup

Polytechnic 3 Old Meadonians 2

On Saturday Old Meadonians travelled across the A316 to The Quintin Hogg Memorial Ground to face near neighbours Polytechnic in the A.F.A. Middlesex and Essex Senior Cup but found their hosts less than accommodating and well able to repel a fifty minute siege, which was the direct result of Meads having to chase the game from the twenty fifth minute on and to counter attack with pace.

It could have been so different if the visitors had been justly rewarded for their first minute attack which gave them a corner from which Aidan Chapman saw his firm header clip the top of the bar and go over. Another corner to Meads followed immediately to set the tone for a twenty minute blitzkrieg which had Poly holding on.

At this point the hosts reaped the ultimate dividend from their first sustained foray into enemy territory: Meads keeper Gary Robinson deflected a dipping cross shot onto the bar and the ball looped out to fifteen yards out on the right where it was met by a crashing volley by Poly striker Bojan Jelovac, giving Robinson no chance. Ten minutes later Poly were two up and Meads’ chase was on.

The second came gift wrapped from a muffed free-kick. This was intercepted by James Cree who ran through a non existent defence to slot past a hard done by Robinson. From the resultant kick off Meads were unlucky when Dave Brennan was put in on the Poly keeper who saved with his trailing boot but, not to be denied, Meads shortened the odds with five minutes to go to the interval when Craig Jones reacted to a loose ball five yards out to score and, as the ref put his whistle to his mouth, skimmed the far post with a narrow angle cross shot.

Meads’ encampment around the home area for the duration of the second half continued to be fruitless until with ten minutes to go right back Adam Goode brought them parity with a header into the roof of the net from Jack Costello’s corner. Even then the visitors’ joy was cut short as with a couple of minutes to go Poly won the match with the best goal of the game: Centre-back Nick Brandford brought the ball thirty yards out of defence, played a quick one two thirty yards from goal to put him clear and finished crisply from just inside the area. A worthy winner.

Squad: Robinson, Goode, McCombe, Chapman, Holmes, Costello, Gerrish, Shea, Brennan, C. Jones, Bright, Gowers, Mace, Quinn.

January 20 2015