London District Senior 5 a side Football Competition
Sat 5th March.
During my time as both a Boy and an officer in the Company I have got quite used to travelling halfway across London in the pursuit of London District success, however on this particular occasion London District surpassed themselves. This year the competition was to be held in Streatham, South London, for those of you who have no idea where it is, cross the river, drive through Brixton amongst other places and keep going!.
After picking up a our colleagues in the 9 a side league (2nd Enfield ) we left in what I thought was good time for a half six start. A slight miscalculation of the time front saw us arrive 1 hour 45 minutes later, having found the 11th Enfield who were equally as lost as we were and I should point out heading for the wrong venue!.
After arriving and checking in with a somewhat upset and dare I say it retentive convenor, the 3rd found itself in the usual position of being in the middle of the group of death.
Surrounded by two teams from the 70th London and teams from the 48th and 10th London, I was beginning to wonder if the evening could get any worse, and then it snowed - you see the bright sparks in London had organised the competition outdoors!!!!!
So onwards in a blizzard to game one - 3rd Enfield Vs 10th London.
It is the custom this year for any 3rd football team to start slowly and they duly obliged, and after a tight but uneventful first half the score was 0 –0
It was during the second half that I realised that tonight was going to be one of those nights. Two impressive strikes by Tom Winfield saw the 3rd ahead with 1 minute 30 to go and things were looking good,
Sloppy defending then resulted in the score being 2:1 with 30 seconds to go and then the worst possible event a equaliser with 1 second on the clock—I feel the need to point out here that punching a metal fence hurts!
With 1 point on the board next up was the 70th London A team, the winners of this competition for the last 11 years!!. After 2 minutes of the first half I could see why as we were two down, and by half time four down. The 2nd half was slightly better and we only conceded 2 more but we did manage a consolation goal.
Our next opponents were the 70th C team (yes they managed to field 15 + seniors!!!!) and a very tight and sometimes brutal game ensued. Never let it be said that the 3rd goes down without a fight and on this occasion there nearly was one, 2 injuries and a minor scuffle later and the 3rd came out the wrong side of a 5-4 score line. Up last was the 48th London and after a minor reshuffle in the
positions due to the injuries received in the last game the 3rd were unlucky losers 1-0 .
It is worth noted that by claiming a point in the group stage the 3rd faired better than the 1st and 2nd Enfield who had heavy losses in all of their group games.
Massive thanks and Well done goes to the team of:
Tom Boorman, Rob Gardner, Tom Killey, Tom Winfield and Richard Arrowsmith
who battled on in very difficult conditions and against some very tough opposition, a credit to the Company.
We will be back next year, and who knows?
The eventual winners were the 70th London A team.
Kevin