1/5/2008

Sport

FOOTBALL: Met Police couldn't pick up the points

Met Police                                           0
Dulwich Hamlet                         2

Jon Daly, the dependable Met Police midfielder, was presented with an award before the game to mark his retirement from playing football after 355 appearances for the first team.

He was made captain for the game but even he could not raise the Police enthusiasm whose thoughts were obviously on the play-off games next week.

Dulwich Hamlet missed four absolute sitters during the opening 12 minutes.

Meshach Nugent fired wide from 15 yards. Charlie Taylor and then Darryl Plummer drove over the bar from 20 yards, while Nugent  had a shot cleared off the line.

Then, finally, defender Ryan Bernard, from all of 25 yards, struck the ball so firmly that it was in the back of the net in a blink of an eye.

Five minutes later and Nugent drove home from 18 yards out for the second.

The Police came back in the second half and showed more enthusiasm, with Steve Flinn’s volley from 30 yard going just wide of the far post.

From 35 yards, Steve Pottrill sent over a long cross to Leon Johnson. He should have found the Dulwich goal from an eight-yard header but it sailed well wide.

The game should have been all over on 85 minutes when  Dulwich Hamlet’s subustitute, Henry Darko, somehow hit the post with an open goal in front of him from only 10 yards out.

Jon Daly as always led by example and, well into stoppage time, his header from a corner was brilliantly saved by Dulwich goalkeeper Jamie Lunan.

First printed in: News & Mail Series