Essex F.A. Premier Cup

2nd Round

Saturday 2nd November 2019

Kick Off 13.30. On Time !

Runwell Sports 2 Clapton Community 1, attendance 112

46’ 1-0

54’ 1-1 (pen)

73’ 2-1

@ Runwell Sports & Social Club

St. Luke’s Way

St. Luke’s Park

Runwell

SS11 7QA

No Admission or Programme.

I had my eye on this match when it was originally played a couple of weeks ago. Clapton Community won 2-1, but it came to light afterwards that roll on/roll off substitutions were used, which is not permitted in this competition, so the match had to be replayed.

Runwell Sports (they were formerly named Runwell Hospital, which you would still think is the case, with all the signage around the ground still having ‘Hospital’ displayed) play in the Essex Olympian League, sitting third from bottom of Division 1 (level 2) with just one win from six matches played. Clapton Community, despite being an Essex club, play in the Middlesex County League, Premier Division, which is one level higher than Runwell. They are currently twelfth in the league table, but have played the least number of matches of all the clubs and are ten points behind the leaders, but do have three games in hand.

Clapton Community are a break away club from the original Clapton F.C. and are fan owned. They get very big home crowds and certainly have a large away support, that many clubs higher up the pyramid can only dream of. They had at least three quarters of the crowd today, which included a very loud contingent of ‘ultras’ who sang for the entire match, although very few of the songs were in English. Today’s crowd was a very impressive 112, although well short of the 157 that were reported to have been at the first game.

With the overnight rain causing many postponements, I thought I might have to resort to watching a game on a 3G pitch, but Clapton Community tweeted at 11.15 saying that Runwell were reporting no problems pitch wise, so I headed off to Essex. The rain was torrential as I joined the M25 and there was loads of surface water for the first ten miles or so. As I approached the Dartford Crossing the rain was down to just drizzle and as I headed east along the A13 it had stopped and patches of blue sky were appearing. I arrived at the ground in plenty of time, just in case I needed to head off elsewhere, but was pleased to follow two coaches into the car park, which were the away team and a supporters coach, so it was looking good. The pitch was perfect and both teams even did their warm ups on it, rather than on one of the handful of side pitches here.

The first half was absolutely dire. It came to life four minutes before halftime, when a bit of a scuffle, initiated by Clapton, saw each team having a man sent off. From the resulting free kick, Clapton saw a header rebound off the crossbar in what was the only effort on goal from either side in the half. Runwell opened the scoring within seconds of the restart and we finally had a game on. Clapton levelled from the penalty spot following a foul by the home ‘keeper and both teams went for a winner. Runwell went 2-1 in front when a free kick on the left hand touch line was played into the box for an unmarked header from six yards. Clapton pressed for an equaliser, but just couldn’t find the finishing touch to a number of good chances. The final whistle saw a pitch invasion from the home supporters, many having clearly been in the clubhouse enjoying a beer or two whilst watching England in the ‘kick and clap’ World Cup Final earlier in the day. We even had a streaker during the second half, running around in nothing but a pair of boxing gloves!