Under 17's Reach London Cup Final ... By Jamie Todd, Manager

In our first game we were drawn away to Beckenham youth a challenging fixture to start with as they have won their league and cups for the past two seasons running and it was made doubly hard as our goalkeeper Jon Hatzimasouras was away on international duty along with our mighty centre half Charlie Staples but these voids were filled expertly by Ben “Andy Murray” Pearce and Jamie “mini fab” Todd respectively.

This was a tight game in which we went 1-0 down after really dominating the play and creating by far the better chances but we carried on plugging away and got our reward early in the second half with a goal from Arran Bailey then we continued to dominate and there was only going to be one winner and the winning goal came from Assani Niyongabo

In our next game we we’re again drawn away to a team from north London called Bush Hill Rangers the first half was a tight tense affair with few chances for either side but after about ten minutes into the second half we got a fee kick on our left which was swung over towards the far past and expertly meet by Bobby Pearce on the volley from a tight angle about fifteen yards. 1-0 to the Lane then after a couple of tactical substitutions for the management myself and Tom Rolt we really pressed on for the second. That came from a well worked corner which captain marvel Billy Coombs rose like a salmon to make it 2-0 at the far post Bush Hill came back at us but some good defensive blocks from Olly Bass and Josh Warrington made sure that there was no late onslaught from a team that hadn’t been beaten in their league or conceded a goal for nearly two seasons and we were through to the semi final.

Into the semi’s we went facing Our Lady Youth from our own league which was no easy draw as there are topping our league and we have struggled to beat them over the past few seasons. We came out of the traps flying and were 2-0 up after about twenty minutes with goals from Arran Bailey and the big man Devere Stewart which came from some good work down the left from Ben Pearce.

We continued to dominate the chances for the rest of the first half playing some attractive football, The second half came with a bit more pressure from Our Lady with some good defensive work from the whole team and an outstanding display from our goalkeeper Jon Hatzimasouras we kept it really tight right till the end but Our Lady scored seven minutes of injury time but that wasn’t enough to stop us progressing into the London Cup Final

The final is going to take place at the Mile End stadium on Sunday the 21^st of February kick off at 14:30 please come and cheer our boys on !!!!!