Their day consequently got worse, as they bowed out of the League Shield at Croygas Falcons FC, going down to a very hefty 10 – 0 defeat.

The 4th XI hosted Sutton High Res FC at Poplar Road in an entertaining game. The Ruts conceded two first half penalties which were both converted. The first was very harsh, whereas the second was unquestionable. Despite the game being largely even, the Ruts entered the interval 2 – 0 down

The OR’s were flying at the start of the second half and were unlucky not to reduce the arrears, as a number of decent efforts were fired in on the Sutton goal, the pick of the bunch was a long range Bolt effort which unfortunately hit the crossbar.

Soon after Billy Finnis struck brilliantly from distance to make the score 1 – 2. Although the Ruts plans to turn the game around were swiftly blown as SHFC struck promptly on the break to make the final score 3 – 1 to them.

Best wishes to the Junior Teams tomorrow.

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.

All of our Matches have now been Postponed.

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 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’.