PCMT 1st Round results - The holders go through

Cheese Makers 1 v 4 The Cow-Faced Juniors

Garth Crooks’ Team of the Week 1 v 2 Trusted By Millions 

Mega Buck Bandits 4 v 2 The Wateringhole Society

Nil Satis Nisi Optum 1 v 5 Claymore Athletic FC 

Real Muppets 0 v 2 The Fabulous Artisans 

San Dimas High School 3 v 2 Aardvark Abacus 

Wheel Madrid 2 v 1 Stanley and Gracie United 

YTFIB 1 v 1 Markian United

Replay

Markian United 2 v 2 YTFIB

Second Replay

YTFIB 2 v 2 Markian United

Third Replay

Markian United 1 v 1 YTFIB

Fourth Replay

YTFIB 0 v 2 Markian United

It’s customary to start with the holders so let’s do that. Wheel Madrid won their first game of the season, beating SGU 2-1. Chris Wood and James Maddison scored either side of half-time for Paul, Aaron’s only reply was a Virgil van Dijk clean. Like the Wheelmen, San Dimas are without a win in the league but made progress in the cup. Yankubah Minteh’s first goal equalised the Aardvarks’ opener, Dan Burn’s clean was the winner and stopped my run of five straight first round defeats in this competition.

Ollie’s first WSFFL cup match ended in defeat. Fabio Carvalho was left with a tap-in in the last minute to deliver a 2-1 win for Trusted. The other unbeaten league team, the Muppets, also fell at the first hurdle. The Artisans beat Ryan’s team 2-0 courtesy of a Jarrod Bowen goal and Diogo Dalot clean. 

Big winners of the week were Claymore who beat Nil Satis 5-1. Paul was eight minutes from a replay after Jeremy Doku’s belter but Clive stunned him with four cleans. Next biggest win was the CFJs' 4-1 result over Cheese Makers. Bryan Mbeumo’s penalty put Matthew in front but three first half Cows strikes turned it round and Rayan Air-Nouri finished the game in injury time.

The Wateringhole continued their shocking run in this competition, going down 4-2 at Mega Bucks. Kiran has won just one PCMT game in ten seasons. He was undone this time by three Mega Bucks cleans. Dave has never made the final of this one. Is this his year? One replay after YTFIB and Markian finished 1-1. Nathan Collins early goal being equalised by Lucas Paqueta.

In the replay - After Yves Bissouma’s low strike put Ian ahead Julian turned it round through goals from Facundo Buononotte and Jamie Vardy from the spot. Just as YTFIB were thinking about the next round Ferdi Kadioglu’s clean earned Markian another bite of the cherry.

It was also 2-2 in the second replay - Goals from Jamie Vardy and Alex Iwobi had Julian in charge but cleans from Lacroix and Kadioglu earned Ian another crack.

Things were different in the third replay, it ended 1-1. Antoine Semenyo’s smart turn and shot fired YTFIB ahead after nine minutes but Ian’s team were level courtesy of a fierce drive from Ferdi Kadioglu that went on off the far post. And that was that. Until next week.

When it was finally settled in Ian's favour, 2-0. It’s over! Darwin Nunez scoring on the breakaway after 20 minutes and an Alejandro Garnacho stunner settling it with eight minutes left.