Sparticans 1 - 2 London Edwardians 5s (A)

Scorer: Grant, K

Sunday saw an unfortunate end to an enjoyable cup run for the Sparticans this season. Playing a day later than usual seemed to confuse some of our team, who were found carrying out all sorts of unaccustomed domestic duties on Saturday and would prefer this glimpse of normal life to be a one off. When Sunday came, we ventured to Honor Oak Park to play Edwardians. The journeys were pretty awful, and reminded us why we are so happy to play in a south west London league, but our mix of youth and experience arrived eventually and off we started.

Edwardians were better during the first period and took the lead. Skippy Bell then experimented with a new formation, which seemed to involve not having a left midfield. Eventually the chaos subsided, we settled into 4-5-1 and took the game to our much younger opposition. After we’d wasted some corners, we put one away with a well worked move. Frustratingly Eds then scored a breakaway goal and we turned around in arrears.

The second period saw unfortunate injuries to skippy and Gaz, and more tactical changes. Again we had a number of corners but were unable to convert past a frustratingly competent goalkeeper. We huffed and puffed but ultimately couldn’t score an equaliser and Edwardians moved to the next round.

During our debrief, we reflected on a disappointing result as we had the measure of Edwardians during the game and whilst their goals were well taken, we could easily have shaded it. Moment of The Match went to Matt ‘not had a card this season’ managing to pick up two in the same incident and Spartican of The Day, on a tie break, was awarded to cup specialist Ollie B who had a great game. Runner up was Levi, one of our own, who celebrated his 18th birthday on Saturday night and still put in a stellar performance. We found ourselves remembering back to when we could do this (sometime last century) and watching the opposition’s boat race wistfully before departing.

Once again the cup has been an enjoyable side line for the Sparticans, playing different teams with nominated umpires such as on Sunday, who controlled the game well, and having a range of regular and irregular players line up for us. But unfortunately we’re done for 2022/23 and can only wish the 4.5s well in their quest for the T4 cup after their dramatic shuffles victory on Saturday night.