STC men's 1st XI advance to the 2nd round of AoC national cup

The STC men's 1^st XI advanced to the 2^nd round of the prestigious AoC national cup with a 3-1 win over Harrow college/Wealdstone FC. 

A very fast paced start to the game saw STC having the better of the early exchanges, and will probably feel unfortunate not to be in the lead with Filip Grahovac having a shot saved and IIyass Benaim missing a golden opportunity at the back post. After this Wealdstone grew into the game without really troubling the back line which was being marshalled well by the centre back duo of Gio Telfer and Nifise Odiari. The deadlock was broken in the 28^th minute when a pin point ball over the top by Ivan Vilimanovic found Nick Tavares who out paced the covering defender and expertly lobbed the ball over the advancing keeper. In the dying moments of the second half we were indebted to goalkeeper Leon Agani who made a magnificent point blank save. 

Whatever was said at half time really galvanised the players as they stormed out the blocks with goals in the 46^th and 49^th minute seeing them move into a 3-0 lead. The first of these was another for Tavares who was on hand to slot between the keepers legs after good build up play by Vilimonovic and Grahovac. The third came from a long throw by Telfer that was not properly dealt with by the Wealdstone back line and Grahovac was on hand to neatly finish above the desperate dive of the visiting keeper. As the game grew on the full time football academy of Wealdstone's fitness started to show and we had to defend deeper and for longer spells, this we did with distinction - Ayub Hassan working tirelessly in midfield, Ned Malit making some eye catching tackles and Agani on hand to make a couple more important saves. Wealdstone pulled 1 back late on but it was St Charles who advanced to the 2^nd round of the national cup.

A quite remarkable result considering this team had no training sessions going into the game and had only come through internal trials 48 hours before the game. 14 of the 16 players involved yesterday were making their debuts for the college and all 16 involved should be proud of their efforts but know there will many more challenges to come over the course of the season. 

Final score St Charles 1^st XI 3 - 1 Wealdstone FC (Harrow)