The 2nd XI are Away to OW Shaftesbury FC. Venue: Wimbledon Common Extensions, SW15 3QF. Kick Off is at 2.00pm
The 3rd XI are Away to Croygas Falcons FC in the League Shield. Venue: Croygas Sports Club, Mollinson Drive, Wallington SM6 9BY. Kick Off is at 2.30pm.
The 4th XI are at Home to Sutton High Res FC. Venue: Poplar Road. Kick Off is at 2.30pm.
Best wishes to all of the Ruts teams this coming weekend.
UPDATED Saturday 29th February
The Football Committee has disbanded the 1st XI, following ongoing and unresolved concerns. However, the Club will restore their ranks to 4 teams again from next Season, and continue competing in Intermediate Football.
All of our Matches have now been Postponed.
The 1st XI drew 2 – 2 at RHOBFC. Scorers TBC. Apparently we played with 10 men for 80 mins after an early dismissal.
The 2nd XI’s League Cup ¼ Final win was the Ruts highlight of the day. Joint Manager George Tidey reported as follows.
A depleted 2nd XI turned up for their quarter final vs NPL Res FC, with 5 regular players missing for one reason or another. Large credit to, Tommy and Owura, who stepped up from the 3rd and 4th XI respectively.
The Ruts made a bright start and it wasn’t long until Kevin Foster turned his man inside out and drew in a foul inside the box. The penalty that followed was put away by the in-form Baker.
A resilient NPL side got hold of the game not long after the Ruts goal and went ahead with a slalom run through the middle of the ruts defence. 1-1. Just before half time, a nice piece of football saw the ball fall to Will Mortimer who slotted the ball past their keeper. 2-1 at half time and deserved.
The 2nd half kicked off and Ruts had two big chances within the first 10 minutes, which went awry. Then, as we all know, Football has a funny way of biting you on the bum and with 8 mins to go, NPL scored from a clever free kick. 2-2 full time.
A cagey extra time saw chances at both ends but to no avail. Penalties.
Stand in keeper and joint manager Jon Mapp shone bright in green and stopped the NPL’s first after Baker had scored his second penalty of the day – only for Mapp to save the following NPL penalty too!! It seemed there was no way back for NPL as the Ruts lads stood strong and won 4-1 on pens seeing them into the Semi-Final. This was a superb and resilient performance, with plenty of heart and team spirit. This is what the Ruts is all about, Get in!
The 3rd XI Away Match was Postponed.
The 4th XI hosted AMY Res FC at Poplar Road. This was a closely fought contest which could have gone any of the 3 ways possible.
Prasath Jeyakanthan pounced early on when the visiting keeper spilled the ball and the Ruts held their lead until midway through the second half.
The Visitors grew stronger as the game went on and with the wind in their favour too, they levelled and soon after struck again to secure the 3 points. Plenty of positives for the Ruts to take from this match though.
Best wishes to the Ruts Youth teams tomorrow.
The Weekend Ahead – Saturday 22nd February 2020.
UPDATED – 4th XI KO Time has changed again.
The 1st XI are Away to Royal Holloway Old Boys FC. Venue: Royal Holloway College Sports Centre, (Noble Field), Prune Hill, Egham, Surrey TW20 0ES. Kick Off is 3.00pm.
The 2nd XI are Away to NPL Res FC in the League Premier Shield Qtr Final. Venue: NPL Sports Club, Queens Rd, Teddington, TW11 0LW. Kick Off is 2.00pm.
The 3rd XI are Away to Croygas Falcons FC in the League Junior Shield. Venue: Croygas Sports Club, Mollinson Drive, Wallington SM6 9BY. Kick Off is 2.30pm.
The 4th XI are at Home to AMY Res FC. Venue: Poplar Road. Kick Off is at 2.30pm.
Best wishes to all of the Ruts teams this weekend.
With the 1st, 3rd and 4th XI’s matches all Postponed, the 2nd XI knew that Storm Dennis was absolutely no contest for the Poplar Road pitch and their match went ahead as scheduled.
In a close and well contested first half the Ruts secured a 2 – Nil half time lead against Old Boys Clapham FC, this was thanks to a Steve Berry goal following a decent team move in the 27th minute, then in the 34th minute Alex Blenkinsop impressively doubled the Ruts lead.
The second half was equally well competed between the two sides and the Ruts thought they’d added a 3rd goal, although it was ruled out for Offside.
Around the 70th minute Ryan Kennett came off of the bench only to be back in the dugout very shortly afterwards, From our position it did not look anything like a Red card offence, possibly yellow at worst, although we are hoping OBCFC will be sharing footage with us to confirm either way.
The visitors fired a decent goal back to make the finale tense. The Ruts circumstances were then compounded when Baker saw yellow, followed by a nonsensical sin-bin, which left the lads to see out the match with 9 players. Pleasingly, the lads held firm and defended resolutely to secure a well deserved 3 points.
Joint Manager Jon Mapp claimed ‘ this was a well ground out 2 – 1 win for the Reserves to leapfrog Old Boys Clapham. The effort shown by the boys after going down to 10 and then 9 was exceptional. It’s now time to check my blood pressure’.
UPDATED – Saturday 15th Feb.
The Weekend Ahead – Saturday 15th February 2020.
The 1st, 3rd and 4th XI Games are Off.
The 2nd XI are at Home to Old Boys Clapham FC.
Venue: Poplar Rd. Kick Off is at 2.30pm.
Come on down to support the 2nd XI today.
We achieved a clean sweep, although it was a day of L’s and not W’s.
The 1st XI bowed out of the Surrey Cup at the Semi Final stage at Battersea Ironsides FC. Charlie Andrews scored the Ruts consolation goal. Good luck to BIFC in the Final.
The 2nd XI suffered a miserable day too, as they went out of League Junior Cup against Warlingham FC.
Joint Manager George Tidey reported ‘after a brilliant display last week, the 2s were looking to build on their performance in the cup. However, a decent save by our centre back saw us reduced to 10 men, just 10 minutes in to the game. This was a tough battle after the resulting penalty was scored and the visitors continued to put pressure on us. The match ended 4 – 0. So on to next week, back in the League’.
The 3rd XI went down 5 – 3 at Tooting Bec ‘B’ FC. Scorers TBC
The 4th XI put in a decent shift at Shelton Athletic FC. The lads bounded in to an early 3 – 0 lead, before conceding a penalty shortly before the break. After the interval the hosts levelled, before the Ruts managed to briefly restore their lead at 4 – 3. The hosts then upped their own performance and ended up winning 6 – 4. The Ruts can be proud of their overall display and rue 2 conceded penalties, plus sleepy defending at 2 corners for helping the points slip away. Sonnie and Adam both impressively bagged a brace each.
