London F.A. Junior Cup 4th Round

Tuesday 9th January 2018

Kick Off 20.15 Actual 20.17

Altis 1 United London 1 (2-4 pens),  attendance 91

11’ 0-1

61’ 1-1

@ London Marathon Community Track

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

London

E20 2ST

£3 Admission, including Programme, 12 pages.

This match was brought forward from Saturday, in an effort to make it a ‘Ground Hoppers match’, also being the first midweek game staged at the stadium. It certainly worked, as around 70 of those present were ‘Hoppers’. The stadium is next door to the London Stadium, now home to West Ham United, and was built to act as a warm up track when London staged the 2012 Olympic Games.

I opted to travel by car, rather than risk the long winded, and far more expensive journey by train. The only downside to this is that the nearest parking was close on 20 minutes walk away, in the Westfield Shopping Centre (£6.70 for up to 3 hours), but with the game finishing just after 22.00, I was still home before 23.25.

Altis play in the Amateur Football Combination, Senior Division 2 North (third level), whilst the visitors are from the Essex Alliance League, Premier Division. The match was pretty even, but the visitors had a great chance to win it at the death, when the Altis ‘keeper was red carded for a foul outside the box a minute into stoppage time. The resultant free kick was blazed over the crossbar, then with almost the last kick of the match, a point blank effort was also put over the bar when anything on target would surely have beaten the stand in ‘keeper. So, straight to penalties. Altis missed their first two kicks, and that was it for them, as the visitors wrapped it up by scoring their first four.