MGBSFL: Sunday football round-up: week 23:

by Andrew Sherwood

NL Raiders A and Oakwood A booked their place in the final of this season’s Cyril Anekstein Cup, while Scrabble’s unbeaten start to the season was ended in stunning style…

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PETER MORRISON TROPHY QUARTER-FINAL DRAW

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SUNDAY’S RESULTS AT A GLANCE (SCROLL DOWN FOR FULL REVIEW):

CYRIL ANEKSTEIN CUP SEMI-FINALS:
FC Team A 1 North London Raiders A 3
Hendon United A 0 Oakwood 5 (VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS & PHOTO GALLERY)

PREMIER DIVISION:
Harmen 2 Maccabi London Lions A 2
Redbridge Jewish Care A 7 Camden Park 1

DIVISION ONE:
Los Blancos 5 FC Team B 5
Oakwood B 0 Faithfold B 3
Redbridge Jewish Care B 4 Real Sosobad 2
SPEC FC 4 Brixton Old Boys 1

DIVISION TWO:
Faithfold C 0 Athletic Bilbaum 3
FC Team 4 Catford & Bromley Maccabi 3
Hendon United B P L’Equipe P (WATERLOGGED PITCH)
Maccabi London Lions B 6 Scrabble 1

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HENDON UNITED A 0 OAKWOOD A 5

WEEK 23 PHOTO GALLERY:

HENDON A 0 OAKWOOD A 5

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WEEK 23 MATCH REPORTS:

MACCABI LONDON LIONS B 6 SCRABBLE 1

REDBRIDGE JEWISH CARE B 4 REAL SOSOBAD 2

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UPDATED LEAGUE GOALSCORERS CHART

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TEAM OF THE WEEK NOMINATIONS:

GOALKEEPERS:
REUBEN RAPSTEIN (MACCABI LONDON LIONS A)
JONNY BLAIN (OAKWOOD A)
SCOTT SHEAR (REDBRIDGE JEWISH CARE B)

DEFENDER:
SAM DEANER (ATHLETIC BILBAUM)
ADAM KLEIN (MACCABI LONDON LIONS A)
DANIEL BEHAR (MACCABI LONDON LIONS B)
NICK LANDESBERG (MACCABI LONDON LIONS B)
JOSH PISTOL (NORTH LONDON RAIDERS A)
ALEX LEE (OAKWOOD A)
SCOTT MCKENZIE (REDBRIDGE JEWISH CARE B)

MIDFIELD:
DANIEL GOLDHILL (ATHLETIC BILBAUM)
CRAIG COLE (FAITHFOLD B)
CHARLIE COHEN (MACCABI LONDON LIONS B)
ELIAS COHEN (MACCABI LONDON LIONS B)
JAKE HYMAN (MACCABI LONDON LIONS B)
RICKY ENGLEMAN (NORTH LONDON RAIDERS A)
BEN JOSEPH (NORTH LONDON RAIDERS A)
KYLE BENTWOOD (OAKWOOD A)
DANIEL BEAN (REDBRIDGE JEWISH CARE B)
ELLIOT ESPINOZA (SCRABBLE)

STRIKER:
JONO GAON (LOS BLANCOS)
JAMES GOLD (MACCABI LONDON LIONS A)
JOSH BLOOM (MACCABI LONDON LIONS B)
JORDAN MARKS (NORTH LONDON RAIDERS A)
SAM CANTOR (OAKWOOD A)
DANIEL GARFINKLE (REDBRIDGE JEWISH CARE A)
DAVID FIALKA (REDBRIDGE JEWISH CARE B)

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TEAM OF THE WEEK

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GOAL OF THE WEEK NOMINATIONS:

1) CHARLIE COHEN (MACCABI LONDON LIONS B)
Jake Hyman received the ball on the half-way line, flicked it over a player, before playing a reverse pass to Bloom, who squared up to his man, rounded him and unselfishly squared the ball for the arriving Cohen to tap in

2) ED GREEN (ATHLETIC BILBAUM)
Rob Rodney played a perfect through ball, slicing through the Faithfold centre-backs, which saw Green run through, took the ball around the goalkeeper and sliding it home into the empty net

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SAVE OF THE WEEK NOMINATIONS:

1) JONNY BLAIN (OAKWOOD A)
Dived full stretch to turn away Zac Lewis’ 20-yard curling shot which was heading for the far corner

2) SCOTT SHEAR (REDBRIDGE B)
A breathtaking double-save. Terrifically saved the initial shot, before reacting again to save the rebound

3) JOSH GERTNER (LOS BLANCOS)
Produced an outstanding double-save, which his manager described as being potentially one of the saves of the decade, let alone the week

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK NOMINATIONS:

1) SAMUEL MARCHANT (MACCABI LONDON LIONS B)
“We’re delighted to bring their perfect start to an end, and we truly showed them today how to play football. It wasn’t that they were poor, we were just exceptional.”

2) RICKY LAWRENCE (SPEC)
“Nick Wallis produced the greatest goal line clearance ever witnessed.”

3) JASON STEIN (OAKWOOD B)
“It’s potentially the worst I have ever seen Oakwood B play and we’ll get absolutely no where making that amount of individual errors. I’m shocked at that performance, but I guess it will happen every so often. We didn’t get the ball wide anywhere near enough and when we did our play in the final third was, quite frankly, rubbish.”

4) RAY ABRAHAMS (SCRABBLE)
“I haven’t found Rowley Lane a happy hunting ground for us, a few months ago we got hammered by Brady in the cup and today we suffered our first defeat of the season.”

5) MITCH YOUNG (FC TEAM A)
“A total defensive shambles and the less said about the game the better.”

6) SAMUEL MARCHANT (MACCABI LONDON LIONS A)
“A superb performance from everyone involved today, with the maltesers being shared around the changing room after the game.”

7 JONATHAN ISON (LOS BLANCOS)
“It was potentially one of the saves of the decade, let alone the week.”

8) DAVID GARBACZ (HENDON UNITED A)
“I really hope Oakwood go on to win the final . They totally deserve a trophy after coming so close in recent years – plus in doing so they will stop Raiders winning the treble which no one wants to see!”

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CYRIL ANEKSTEIN CUP SEMI-FINALS: (number in brackets represents Division in team)

FC TEAM A (PREM) 1 NORTH LONDON RAIDERS A (PREM) 3
Two goals from Ricky Engleman – along with an own goal saw the holders through to the final.

Raiders manager Rob Richman told jewishnews.co.uk: “This was a really superb performance, up there with the best we’ve played all season. To a man we were focused on securing our third consecutive Anekstein cup final and that is exactly what we achieved. There were some very good performances with Pistol, Engleman and Marks deserving praise, but Ben Joseph was streets ahead of anyone on the pitch. He ran the game from the first minute to the last minute and his ability in creating the third goal was truly brilliant.

“We’ve faced Oakwood in the semi-final of the Anekstein for the last two years and each year I’ve felt the quality on show would befit a final so I’m very excited for what will be a classic. To beat Hendon at Hadley is an achievement in itself but to do it 5-0 is particularly impressive, we congratulate them and look forward to seeing them on April 17th.”

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HENDON UNITED A (PREM) 0 OAKWOOD A (PREM) 5
The O’s put on a five-star performance as they ran riot at Hadley to book their place at Wingate.

Sam Cantor scored twice, with Brad Wine, Dan Selwyn and Simon Davies completing the scoring.

Os’ manager Daniel Kristall told jewishnews.co.uk: “Having played so well against Hendon in the previous league meeting, where we were very unlucky to only come away with a draw that day, we were even more determined to put that right. It was a game where the first goal was always going to be key. Added to that, the goal just before half time which was certainly our best “team goal of the season.” – the build up play and the finish was superb.

“We expected a second half bombardment from Hendon, especially given their quarter-final heroics against Redbridge but it never came and the third goal certainly knocked the stuffing out of them. I genuinely think they were shocked at the manner in which we over powered them all over the park.

“We look forward to a showpiece final against Raiders, where the best two defences will go head to head. We feel that we have a point to prove that day against, having taken them to within a minute of winning our league meeting a few weeks ago.

“If we hit the heights of Sunday’s performance, I really don’t see anybody getting close to us. Our focus now shifts back to the league where we face a tough FC Team in a fortnight.

“Good luck Hendon in the rest of the league season. I am sure David will rally his troops and we may even meet them in the Morrison later in the season. I am sure they will bounce back as they have too many good players not to.”

Hendon manager David Garbacz told jewishnews.co.uk: “Without wishing to take any of the credit away from Oakwood, this was undoubtedly the worst Hendon performance in many a year. Coming as it did in a semi-final that we had fought so heroically to be playing in made it even more disappointing.

“Goals one and three were crucial and they both came from two terrible defensive errors. The first goal was always going to be massive with patience the key in a game like this and for 30 minutes the match was totally even. They scored a well-worked second just before half-time but even at the break we fancied ourselves to come back into it. Goal three though was a total killer and after that we then went on to gift them two more as we failed to launch any sort of comeback and simply allowed ourselves to be out fought and dominated throughout the second half. Our forwards had nothing to feed on and we simply could not get the ball out of our half to create any chances which was a combination of their excellence and our poor play.

“Saying all that, Oakwood were superb overall  and after going ahead never looked back and totally deserved their success. They pressed us and harried us into mistakes and broke up play very cleverly with a series of fouls  whenever we did look like breaking out. They were strong and played as a unit and tactically got it spot on as well. Everyone connected to Hendon needs to shoulder some responsibility – perhaps this type of defeat against a team like this was inevitable as the likes of strong leaders such as Josh Lipman and The Bentleys and Motti Colman have left over the years  – we really could have done with some of their competitiveness today.

“It will be difficult but we will need to pick ourselves up quickly and try to go again this season – the year is still far from over and we owe it to ourselves to see out the season well and to keep these type of days to a minimum. We are still in the Morrison and obviously that now is our main priority.

“I really hope Oakwood go on to win the final . They totally deserve a trophy after coming so close in recent years – plus in doing so they will stop Raiders winning the treble which no one wants to see!”

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS

PHOTO GALLERY

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UPDATED LEAGUE GOALSCORERS CHART

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PREMIER DIVISION:

FIXTURES & RESULTS:
TABLE:

HARMEN 2 MACCABI LONDON LIONS A 2
Fifth hosted fourth and with only a point separating them going into the game – it was little surprise this game ended in a share of the points.

Lions fought back from going 2-0 down to earn their point, thanks to goals from Ben Winters and James Gold. Manager David Pollock told jewishnews.co.uk: “We needed the game to be 120 minutes long as for the first half an hour we weren’t in it. It was a good solid Harman performance, they are better then their league position.”

Dom Cheniart and Ollie Sade had put Harmen 2-0 up.

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REDBRIDGE JEWISH CARE A 7 CAMDEN PARK 1
Redbridge moved to within five points of top spot as five goals from Daniel Garfinkle helped them to this emphatic win.

Steve Summers and Dean Nyman were also on target, with manager Jon Jacobs telling jewishnews.co.uk: “Turning up with 10 players and seeing a player pull a hamstring after 10 seconds is not conducive to producing a game but fair play to Camden, they gave as good as they could.

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DIVISION ONE:

FIXTURES & RESULTS
TABLE

LOS BLANCOS 5 FC TEAM B 5
Fifth hosted sixth with a point the difference between the sides, so a draw was probably an inevitable result.

Jonathan Breger scored twice for Team, with Richard Salmon, Lorian Madanes and an own goal earning them a point, for whom player-manager Mitch Young told jewishnews.co.uk: “A total defensive shambles and the less said about the game the better.”

Jono Gaon helped himself to a hat-trick for Blancos, with Sam Cramer and Adam Hersh also netting. Manager Jonathan Ison told jewishnews.co.uk: “It was a game of two halves. One goal in the first 45 minutes and nine in the second.

“We only have ourselves to blame for not winning this as we had plenty of opportunities to kill the game off, but unfortunately didn’t take all our chances.

“FC Team have a massive weapon at their disposal in the form of one of the largest throw-ins in Jewish football (rivalling our own Josh Gaon), they got two goals from it and another from a cross that somehow found its way into the net.

“The game wasn’t pretty at times, with the wind not helping matters, but the second half certainly wasn’t boring! The major positive is that it was great to see Jono back among the goals!”

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OAKWOOD B 0 FAITHFOLD B 3
Bottom-placed Faithfold produced one of the performances of the day as they shocked title-chasing Oakwood with this stunning win

Jamie Kent scored twice for the Greens, with Ben Portnoi also on target, for whom manager Rob Shooman told jewishnews.co.uk: “We were nothing short of terrific, it’s been a while since we have had all the players fit and available and it showed, apart from the first 10 minutes of the first half and 10-15 minutes midway in the second. We controlled the game, playing some delightful football against an intimidating side, it wasn’t that they were bad it was we were just better.

“Three goals in the first half won us the game with the second half mostly under our control, we missed one or two opportunities in the second half that was a little disappointing but our goal was never really threatened. Our back four and goalkeeper were very solid, our midfield fought for everything and never stopped closing down and our front two were constantly threatening.

“A top drawer performance from a very together Team against a good proven side, I’m very proud of them.”

O’s manager Jason Stein told jewishnews.co.uk: “We were appalling today in the first half and at 3-0 down it was a big ask against a stronger-than-usual Faithfold.

“It’s potentially the worst I have ever seen Oakwood B play and we’ll get absolutely no where making that amount of individual errors. I’m shocked at that performance, but I guess it will happen every so often. We didn’t get the ball wide anywhere near enough and when we did our play in the final third was, quite frankly, rubbish

“We’ve lost fair and square but the way in which Faithfold scored their opener really hurts. For the referee to give a goal he has to be 100 percent sure the ball has crossed the line and there is simply no way he could have been. Both sides agreed there was an element of guesswork involved and that hurts. He inssited he was absolutely certain but I find that hard to believe.

“We’ll have to lift ourselves off the floor now in what is seemingly a league no one wants to win.”

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REDBRIDGE B 4 REAL SOSOBAD 2
Redbridge moved up into mid-table thanks to this thrilling win.

David Fialka scored a hat-trick, with Dan Andrews hitting their fourth. Sam McCarthy and Jamie Crawford had drawn Sosobad level.

MATCH REPORT

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SPEC FC 4 BRIXTON OLD BOYS 1
SPEC moved to within a point of top spot as they put an end to Brixton’s recent good run of late.

Craig Cohen, Daniel Amram, Elliott Wallis and Ashley Burns all found the back of the net, with player-manager Ricky Lawrence telling jewishnews.co.uk: “After playing absolutely terribly in the first half we got our act together in the second and were good value for the victory.”

Dan Kuber netted Brixton’s consolation.

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DIVISION TWO:

FIXTURES & TABLES
TABLE

FAITHFOLD C 0 ATHLETIC BILBAUM 3
Bilbaum leapfrogged Faithfold in the table as they took the three points.

Ed Green claimed their opener, as he latched onto Rob Rodney’s defence-splitting ball, to round the goalkeeper and score, before Green played provider for the second, flicking the ball over the last defender, to send Jacob Brunner clear, who ran onto the loose ball and slotted it into the bottom right hand corner.

The killer third goal arrived after a bizarre misunderstanding between the Faithfold goalkeeper and referee led to Brunner slotting into an open net to claim his second of the morning.

Manager Nick Shinder told jewishnews.co.uk: “It was another strong and complete performance with only the battling wind hampering our style. It was unfortunate that our dominating performance was clouded by the focus on the strange goal at the end. Now we head to Catford, to continue our winning streak!”

Faithfold manager Rob Shooman told jewishnews.co.uk: “It was a game of two halves, decided by the wind. We weren’t able to take advantage of it in the first half, Bilbaum did in the second half. There wasn’t much between the teams but well done to them for winning.”

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FC TEAM C 4 CATFORD & BROMLEY 3
Team won the battle of two of the bottom four sides – and did it in dramatic style.

Catford fought back from trailing 3-0 at half-time – thanks to Jamie Sinai’s double and player-manager Jeff Gotch’s strike – only for Team to then go on and claim the win.

Gotch told jewishnews.co.uk: “We got it to 3-3 within 20 minutes of the restart, but then got hit by a sucker punch with ten minutes to go against the run of play. We were by far the better team and should never have lost, I’m not happy.”

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HENDON UNITED B P L’EQUIPE P

MATCH POSTPONED – WATERLOGGED PITCH

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MACCABI LONDON LIONS B 6 SCRABBLE 1
Scrabble’s 100 percent winning start to the season came to a stunning halt after the Lions showed why they still shouldn’t be discounted from the Division Two title race.

Jake Hyman, Nick Landesberg and Charlie Cohen all scored two each, with manager Samuel Marchant telling jewishnews.co.uk: “The boys knew what today meant for us, and we fully committed to the game plan we had worked on all week. We know as a team what we are capable of and it truly showed today.

“Scrabble were limited to maybe two chances all game, one which was taken. In the second half we missed seven one-on-ones, and in reality, it should have easily been double figures. We’re delighted to bring their perfect start to an end, and we truly showed them today how to play football. It wasn’t that they were poor, we were just exceptional.

“Every single player on the pitch gave it their all and it was wonderful to watch. We made a team with such an amazing league record look distinctly average, and their really was a gulf in class between the sides on the day. It was a big result for us as we want the promotion spot, and with ten games to go, everything is in our hands.”

Scrabble had equalised through Danny Sherman, with manager Ray Abrahams telling jewishnews.co.uk: “We put a strong side out today with Josh Bentley at the heart of the defence but for the first time this season we just weren’t ‘at the races’.

“All credit to Lions for beating us on the day and ending our 16-game winning run since September and they looked really sharp, but we noted that they made about six or seven changes from the side we met earlier this season and some of these players they selected were top quality and had to be on another level to have any chance of matching us as my lads have been first class all season.

“We’ve got five games left now with 15 points to play for and our target is 10 points which would guarantee us the title and some silverware. I can promise you that I will be looking for a positive reaction from my players in our next game away to L’Equipe on Sunday and we will be back.”

MATCH REPORT

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