Chairman’s Cup Final

WD Athletic claimed the Chairman’s Cup with a hard-fought 2-1 win over Watford Labour Club on Sunday.

It was the typical clichéd 'game of two halves' with WD dominating the opening period and their opponents the second. But despite an excellent second-half recovery from Watford Labour, it was not enough to prevent WD winning the trophy.

The game almost started in dramatic fashion when, straight from the kick off, Mark Bedford broke through one-on-one with WD goalkeeper Ray Gerrard, and he just managed to block the effort to prevent a goal in the first 20 seconds. That was pretty much as good as it got for Labour in the first half though, with WD looking the more fluent side.

Aaron Berry saw his header flash narrowly past Labour goalkeeper Dominic Wade and inches wide and soon after Alex Gilmaney saw his run and shot from the right miss the far post by the narrowest of margins.

With Labour struggling at times to get out of their own half, WD finally broke the deadlock ten minutes before half time when Jed Booth saw his half-hit effort from the edge of the box take a deflection but that was enough to wrong-foot Wade, and as he tried to readjust himself, the ball struck the back of his foot and flew into the net.

The lead was doubled three minutes before the interval when Mark Keane's run and pull back from the by-line was handled in the area by Chris Bignell. Pat Turner stepped up with a shuffle to dispatch the penalty.

Whatever was said in the Watford dressing room at half time seemed to have the desired effect with Labour looking like a totally different team after the break. They had far more of the ball as WD were content to sit back and defend their advantage.

Eighteen minutes into the second half, Charles Linsley struck a tremendous shot from about 20 yards out which struck the crossbar and bounced out with Gerrard beaten. But four minutes later Labour pulled a goal back when following a goalmouth scramble, a shot from John Barker cannoned back off teammate Paul Collett and past Gerrard in almost slow motion fashion.

The final minutes of the game saw Labour encamped in the WD half of the field, but they seemed unable to find away through the defence.

But in the final action of the contest five minutes into injury time Mark Bedford saw his fierce shot tipped away by Gerrard for a corner to prevent a certain equaliser. As the corner came to nothing the final whistle sounded on a good final played in the right spirit between the two sides.

WD Athletic: Gerrard, Hall (Byron 38), Keane, Halifax, Kimpton (Armstrong 69), Gilmaney, Sutch, Booth (Hunt 38(Hall 82)), P. Turner, A. Turner, Berry.

Watford Labour Club: Wade, Mountain, Bignell (Hurwood 73) Dennis, Phaure, Smithard (Conibeere 64), Hurwood (Thornhill 64), C.Linsley, Barker (R. Linsley 90), Bedford (Adams 36), Collett. Not Used: Rowson.

Premier Division

Old Danes Athletic suffered a first defeat of the season in the league to Bovingdon and it is one that leaves their once almost certain title hopes hanging by the slimmest of threads.

Goals from Harry Woods and Mark McNicholas means Bovingdon have themselves secured third place in the table, but the league committee is currently conducting an investigation after the game was played without any corner flags.

Bushey Grove did what they needed to do by beating bottom side Cassiobury Revolution 5-0, although the game was closer than the scoreline suggests, as Revolution - playing with the bare 11 men - managed to contain their opponents until the 25th minute.

The Bushey goals came from Paul Kenwright with a hat-trick and a brace from David Smith.

The win means Bushey have gone of the table on account of a better goal difference of plus five than Old Danes. This means Old Danes would not only have to beat Grove in the final league game of the season, they would have to do it by six clear goals, although this scenario is dependent on the outcome of the league's investigation into the Bovingdon versus Old Danes game.

Prince George beat Hertfordshire Lions 4-3, meaning Lions' defeats in their final two games have seen them slip away to finish in fifth place in the table.

Martin Sanservrino struck a hat-trick for Prince George with the other goal coming from Luke Everitt’s 32nd of the campaign. Adam Thornhill, Joe Turberfield and a Louis McNamara penalty were on target for Lions.

Division One

United’s dreams of winning every league game were ended by runners-up Bedmond, who defeated them 2-1.

Jordan Davies scored both goals either side of George Mundy’s equaliser for United.