FA Cup 1st Round results

It won’t be four FA Cup wins in a row for Fred.

Aardvark Abacus 5 v 1 YTFIB
Cheese Makers 2 v 3 Athletico Phoenix
Mega Buck Bandits 0 v 0 Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
Real Muppets 0 v 3 San Dimas High School
The Cow-Faced Juniors 1 v 1 Trusted By Millions
The Fabulous Artisans 3 v 2 Fred West Landscape Gardening XI
The Wateringhole Society 0 v 4 Markian United
Wheel Madrid 1 v 3 Claymore Athletic FC

Replays

Nil Satis Nisi Optimum 0 v 3 Mega Buck Bandits
Trusted By Millions 5 v 0 The Cow-Faced Juniors

Nobody has won the FA Cup four seasons in a row, and they still haven’t. Fred’s bid for a four-timer went down despite him being two up against the Artisans. Salomon Rondon got the holders straight out of the blocks and into the lead on two minutes and Leroy Sane doubled the lead with twenty minutes left. Jesse Lingard pulled Ben back with an excellent strike with six left and Kyle Walker and Angelo Ogbonna cleans completed the turnaround to send the Artisans through. There was another late show which saw the Phoenix through at Cheese Makers expense. This one was goalless until 71 minutes when Athletico’s Jan Vertonghen hit a long-ranger that was deflected in. Glenn Murray kneed an equaliser on 87 minutes and Steve Cook’s header in injury time had Matthew ahead. There was time for the game to change again with Vertonghen and Eldin Jakupovic getting the cleans to give Brian the win.

The Muppets won’t be winning a treble this season after going down to San Dimas. This was another game of late goals, Danny Welbeck put me in front with 11 minutes left, Allan Nyom and Antonio Rudiger added unanswered cleans. YTFIB are having a decent season in the league, 10th place after week 17 is their best since I’ve being doing this, but they were no match for the Aardvarks this week. James Milner gave Julian a first-half lead from the penalty spot but Rajiv van la Parra replied six minutes after the break for Ady who added four clean sheets for the big win.

Claymore added to Wheel Madrid’s woes by knocking them out 3-1. Paul had led in this one too, through Jay Rodriguez on 25 minutes, before Andre Carrillo replied eight minutes before the break. A second half Sergio Aguero brace clinched it for Clive. Talking of second-half braces - Harry Kane got a three-minute close-range version in the win for Markian over Wateringhole. Gylfi Sigurdsson added a goal from distance to make it 3-0 and leave Kiran to concentrate on the league.

Two games still to sort out. The CFJs drew with Trusted, Bernardo Silva scored for Beef with eight minutes left, Daryl Janmaat’s clean forced the draw. Mega Bucks and Nil Satis need to go again too. The only incident of note was Hal Robson-Kanu missing a penalty for Dave. Not what you want to do when your manager is about receive a WSFFL record transfer fee.

In the replays...

Both replays proved very one-sided. Mega Bucks had put Nil Satis away in 25 minutes with goals from The Ox, Valencia and Noble while Trusted had to wait until the second half to get the better of the CFJs. Andre Gray and Bernardo Silva got the goals, Tim Cahill, Ben Mee and Phil Jones got the cleans.