Newsletter w/c 07.12.20

Fixtures Sat 12.12.20

Team Selection

Results Sat 5.12.20

Team	Opposition	R	Score
1sts	Old Suttonians	L	1-0
2nds	Hampton 2s	L	3-1
3rds	Economicals 2s	L	2-1
4ths	Old Thorntonians 5s	L	2-0
5ths	Witan 2s	L	4-2
6ths	Wandsworth Borough 5s	L	5-3
7ths	Postponed	–	–
8ths	Old Wokingians 8s	W	2-1
Sat Vets	Postponed	–	–

Match Reports

Old Meadonians 0 – 1 Old Suttonians

It was a cold and crisp day down at Riverside lands against a Sutts team that should’ve been dispatched in week 1. The day didn’t start too well with Gordy fuming only 6 players were there by meet time. It did put a smile on the face of fines commissioner Xav after a dry patch over the past few weeks (This being the main reason that he has to write this report, captain Caino unhappy he has to dip into his pocket again). Only upwards from here..surely.

The lateness of players led to a change in the starting 11 moments before KO. This didn’t seem to be a problem for the boys as they dominated the first 20 as per. However it didn’t count for much with only one clear cut header that Xav should’ve done better with. Shortly after 7 corners in a row and Brighty’s voice going up an octave as nobody was getting on the end of his ‘lovely’ balls into the box (surprised he didn’t celebrate them), Sutts broke and Matt couldn’t find his feet on a slightly boggy surface to clear. A long throw was flicked on and headed with 0.5% power towards the corner of the goal. The boggy surface doing us no favours as debutant keeper Connail lost his feet only to watch the ball trickle over the line, 1-0 Sutts.

Frustration looked to take over for Meads after a mix of bad decision making themselves and refereeing ones. Brighty attempted to con the ref going down too easily in the box on a few occasions, which eventually went against him as he was cropped by retreating midfielders. The ref waved away the pleas but shortly after Meads finally got a decision. Kimpton cropped their winger from behind, remarkably getting a toenail on the ball saved him from a red card, and even a yellow as he went unpunished! (Xav is fuming as he still hasn’t had to pay a fine this season). With no subs, this put Sutts down to 10 men, surely it was only a matter of time now.

Meads started the second half on the from foot and introduced Jay to the midfield and Medish out wide who would’ve had their already carded full back on toast if he’d packed his studs! Luckily Joe R did and found himself in behind only to go down too easily (according to the ref). Their full back didn’t take kindly to Joe’s appeals, punches were thrown before stamping on his leg. Thankfully for Meads, Medish was there to calm the situation down and after trying to fight most of their team, the ref was again kind and only gave their full back a second yellow. Sutts down to 9, time to throw the kitchen sink now!

30 minutes to play, Meads were hammering at the door with little success and poor execution in the final third. Connail was making up for his slip up in the first half with some great saves to keep Meads in the game. Poor decision making again from the ref and Meads, as Xav was put through to find an onrushing keeper, he passed sideways to Medish instead on taking it on himself only for the ref call another questionable offside. Frustration growing but still plenty of time to get a couple of goals.

Sutts sat back and soaked up the pressure. Meads were pushing forward with a 3-2-5, Brighty took the ball from the left hand side to the middle of the box only to strike the post and the ball roll agonisingly along the goal line. It was starting to feel as though it wasn’t going to happen. Jay was getting frustrated with Brighty, Brighty was frustrated with Jay, some unkind words were said. Luckily Jay had his dad on the sideline to stick up for him and save some tears!

The last 10 minutes played out with chances for Meads but their keeper seemed to be in the right place to save everything. Overall, similar to the reverse fixture, we needed to make more of the many opportunities we had and be more physical throughout the game. Lots of words spoken at full time, a massive missed opportunity and something to put right next week away to Dorks.

Things to note from the day:
Don’t mess with Kimpton
Medish loves a fight
Matt enjoys a G&T and a dance
Brighty has an overpriced coat
Caino hates paying fines
Management left 2 strikers on the bench when pushing for an equaliser against 9

The best thing from today – topping up the fines kitty after a few months off

MoM – Connail
Wig – Connail

OMFC 3s 1 v 2 Economicals 2s

All in all, not much to write home about on this hard fought but ultimately in vain defeat against the league leaders, with little incidents of note. Although having lost to this lot 6-2 at home in the last game before lockdown this was a much improved performance. It can be summarised as follows:

Good:

• The quality of the pitches. Upon arrival at the ground Steve, making his debut for the 3s coming up from the 4s, was taken aback by the sight in front of him declaring with French enthusiasm in the WhatsApp group, “wow these pitches are amazing”, thinking he’d gone from the conference to the Prem in stepping up to the 3s. That dream was soon shattered when we found out they put us on the pitch in the far corner, and sorry Steve even that was far better than anything else we’ll play on…
• Solid debuts from Steve and Cahir, who showed non-stop running, some others could take note of the work rate…
• Jack Sanders’ 30 yard lob of their keeper that got us back in the game in the 2nd half. No mentions of an overhit cross here…
  

Bad:

• Getting half way through handing out the kit and releasing there were only 11 pairs of shorts (what have you done with them Lloyd?), so having to send Lee back to his house to get his own pair. Luckily he only lived round the corner from their ground, hence coming back from a 2 year hiatus to help us in this game…
• The 2 goals we conceded in the first half when the overall play was pretty even. Both could have been avoided if we’d reacted a bit faster, the first coming from a counter when we lost the ball in midfield and didn’t transition back quick enough, the 2nd not closing down quickly
  enough when a loose ball from a corner came to their player on the edge of the area (still a nice strike by their player to beat Josh though)
• There being no pub session afterwards as everyone was too cold to sit outside and no one wanted a ‘substantial meal’

Old Meadonians Wildcats 0 – 2 Old Thorntonians

The Wildcats returned to action post lockdown with a home game against familiar foe Old thorns knowing a win could get us to the summit of the congested league table and the heady heights of Amateur Football Combination Minor Division 3 South were found to be a bridge too far on a crisp Saturday down the lands. 

Cahir, Shae and Stevie V had been rewarded for their consistency with a promotion to Alans Aces, so returning to the Wildcats were dad’s army stalwart Quinny, Jordan back from injury and Charvey. Rusty surprised us all by showing up early but then not making it to the pitch until late as he wanted to sit in his car smoking with the heating on as it was too cold. As per I was hanging to fuck so went with 5 at the back hoping to be a passenger and the plan was working with Thorns offering little and the Midfield pairing of Luke and Rob seeing a lot of the ball, ably supported by overlapping Wingers, Toby, Kody, Aidan and Marlon. 20 minutes passed by with literally nothing happening until a break down the right from Kody when the ball ‘definitely’ did not go 5 yards out for a goal kick and was crossed in to Rusty 6 yards out, surely 1-0….

So…. 0-0 at Halftime it was, Laurent making a smart save just before the break and some lively breaks from Harrison and Marco leading to promising if not clear-cut moments. More of the same and surely, we can get a result.

The second half followed a similar pattern to the first with a lot of ball but little quality from the Meads, safe to say if Betfair had a ‘giving the ball away’ market it was worth a score at decent odds. As has been the Wildcats issue this season, a lack of killer instinct was bound to come back to hurt us. A long throw came in, Laurent rose like a Salmon but caught like Teflon and Jordan missed the ball and got a lot of man, penalty. 0-1. We did manage to get the ball in the net, but Marco’s header was disallowed much to Quinny’s amazement which led to me shouting at least 5 times ‘Quinny leave it’ but to no avail, into the Sin Bin he went… Age brings maturity apparently… We huffed and puffed but ultimately did sod all and got caught on the break to seal a second loss on the spin.

MOM votes were spread across 5/6 different players, but Rob just shaded it from Marlon and Luke. WIG was never officially decided but pretty sure you can work out who deserved it. Answers on a postcard. Luckily, everyone else dropped points in the league so a win against top of the league next week can get us back to the position the mighty Spurs are occupying in the PL (yes, I am dining out on that still).

Squad – Laurent – Clemo – Quinny – Jordan – Marlon – Aidan – Rob – Luke – Toby – Kody – Rusty – Charvey – Marco – Harrison

PS. I did miss a report for our last game against Guildford due to being in such a bad mood post game, this sums up the result.

Old Meads VIII  2-1 Old Wokingians

Team Sheet:Ed Joe Stan Jim Charlie Jean Dillon Henry Paul Mo Ben W Ant Max Adam

Short version: The first 20 minutes were good for Meads and then the game petered out… it ended 2-1 to Meads.

Longer version: There was no weather report this time from our weatherman, so I’ll do my best to fill in the blanks. It was a crisp but fresh sunny afternoon, light breeze and blue sky and as the first game back after a month of sitting at home in the dressing gown completing Pornhub, it had “pints sat outside the pavilion afterwards” written all over it. 

For the first 20 mins Meads showed confidence on the ball, keeping possession and using the wingbacks effectively in a 5-2-3 formation to widen the attack. After more attempts to score than Clemo in an old people’s home, Paul did the honours, opening up the score sheet with a clean header from a corner, 1-0 Meads. Just before half-time, Weekes’ finished with a cheeky chip over the keeper but it was not given – unofficial sources say that Weekes was in an offside position prompting a “VAR style” no goal decision. At half time, it felt like Meads should’ve been at least 2 or 3 goals up, the second goal was going to be crucial, but it came midway into the 2nd half for Meads with a Weekes assist, leading a charge up the pitch and passing across the edge of the box to Ant who calmly played it forward and slotted it in the top right bin, a class finish. 

Some frustration set in after Meads hit the crossbar twice with Charlie’s header and Henry’s freekick before a lofty ball went in for Wokingians, typical of Wokingians, 2-1. Arguably Meads had two potential penalty decisions go against them in the 2nd half as Jean narrowly missed a chance for his first bit of meat for the season with a studded tackle from the GK and Weekes got tripped and bitchslapped by the ghost of Maradona I think, either that or a Wokingians player put in a rough tackle on him. The last few minutes ended with the Mo Salah of Meads being shown a blue card which I believe means “wanker of the game” or “WiG” as we know it. 2-1 Meads, overall a well earned first win back. A good effort to get the win. 

MoM – Ant 
WIG – Mo