Old Parkonians1st XI 0 - 2 SAL Representative XI

On a beautiful sunny Sunday morning the rep side turned up at Oakfield ready to take on the Old Parkonians in a match to celebrate a 100 years of Roy Bellman. On paper the sides looked pretty even, half the rep team had hammered UCL in the Greenland Cup Final the previous day, and half the Old Parks side were still hammered from their centenary dinner the previous evening!

The rep side made all the early running, passing the ball around with ease and only sterling work from Park's ex rep keeper, Dominic Turner, kept the scores even. Veteran defender Trevor Nicholls was, on more than one occasion, grateful that his defensive partner Richard Bernstein had only the one bottle of vintage port at the dinner and was able to prevent both Jack Newton and Anthony Mann from opening the scoring. Soon after the restart however, the rep side did manage to score and it was well worth waiting for. Viv Jeffrey fed Sam Sullivan wide on the left who evaded two challenges before cutting inside and unleashing a truly unstoppable shot past the hapless Turner.

Within minutes the SAL were 2 up when a move that had been practised earlier paid off. Basically I try and distract the linesman by asking him how long to go, Jamie Bird passes to Anthony Mann who is marginally on/off side (delete where applicable) Mann gets to the by-line and crosses to Bird to slot home despite Messrs Nicholls and Knappman's polite enquires regarding the linesman's paternal/optical situation.

Parks seemed to step up a gear after the second goal with Mark Jamieson and Tim Cross working tirelessly in midfield and should have capitalised during this period as Rep team keeper 'Alex' Sullivan was called upon with two fine saves. The final whistle was received with cheers from both sides who then repaired to the bar for a well earned hair of the dog and the traditional 'soup & boiled egg' buffet. My thanks to all the rep team players, many who had travelled across London to help Old Parkonians celebrate their day, and special thanks to Old Owens, who provided 6 players for the side.

Report by Bob Leeds (taken from www.southernamateurleague.co.uk)