North London Raiders came back from the dead to produce a stunning comeback against Southgate Harmen to win 3-2 in the Henry Swerner Masters Cup.
Raiders found themselves with a mountain to climb as they trailed to goals from Southgate Harmen’s Lloyd Becker and Alex Bourne with just half an hour remaining. The loss of Kevin Lotzof to injury, with no substitute available then reduced them to 10 men, but this galvanised them into action, and a hat-trick from Darren Cohen saw Raiders through to a 3-2 win.
Jubilant Raiders co-player-manager Richard Sacks said: " With no subs it looked maybe a case of seeing the game out. However, the boys had other ideas and if anything it galvanised everyone together.
"We won every first and second ball and Dazza scored a second half hat-trick to see the mighty Raiders into the last eight."
Nik Roman, Mark Klinger and Jon Bruck saw South Mancs through to the next round as they saw off Marshside 3‐1, with Dan Cuby’s long‐range effort earning Marshside’s solitary consolation.
And goals from Steve Krieger (2), Tony Platman and Marc Schneiderman gave EDRS Stonegrove a 4‐2 victory over Scrabble.
Elsewhere, Robert Botkai fired a brilliant four-goal salvo as Temple Fortune cruised to a 6‐1 win over Glenthorne C in the Nathan Horwitz MMFL Division 2 Cup, sponsored by Atlantis Travel. James
Ryan (2) completed the rout.
Fortune manager David Goldberg said: "This was another great team performance. I cannot remember when we last won two in a row.
"We played some great football and james and Robert linked up very well upfront in particular. The defence were terrific as a unit this week and all in all we thoroughly deserved this victory."
Howard Wallis grabbed a consolation for Glenthorne.
RESULTS
HENRY SWERNER MACCABI MASTERS FOOTBALL LEAGUE CUP
South Mancunians 3 Marshside 1
Southgate Harmen 2 North London Raiders 3
Scrabble 2 EDRS Stonegrove 4
NATHAN HORWITZ MACCABI MASTERS FOOTBALL LEAGUE DIVISION TWO CUP, SPONSORED BY ATLANTIS TRAVEL
Temple Fortune 6 Glenthorne United C 1
HAT-TRICK HERO
Darren Cohen (North London Raiders)
Robert Botkai 4 (Temple Fortune B)
