MACCABI MASTERS FOOTBALL LEAGUE DIVISION ONE
CHIGWELL ATHLETIC 5 NORTH LONDON RAIDERS 5
Richard Slater insists Chigwell Athletic’s title hopes remain in their own hands following an incredible comeback against defending MMFL champions North London Raiders.
Chigs found themselves 4-0 down at half-time after NLR hat-trick hero Saul Conway and Adam Harvey took the game by the scruff of the neck, with Dan Hodes and Wayne Davidson also registering for L’Orange.
Raiders made it 5-0 after an hour and Chigwell looked dead and buried but the arrival of Hadley Silver from the bench, boosting a line-up including Alex Levack, top-scorer Adam Stolerman, Steve Summers and Dean Nyman, somehow managed to haul Chigwell back into the game.
Stolerman, who scored nine times in Chigwell’s previous match, fired a hat-trick and Summers, whose match for Redbridge Jewish Care in the Cyril Anekstein Cup fell victim to the weather, added another.
And it was Levack, the brother-in-law of Chigwell boss Slater, who completed a memorable comeback with a stunning 25-yard half-volley sparking scenes of wild celebration.
"Obviously, as you can imagine, we all went mad," Slater told JC Sport: “To be honest at 5-2 I could see Raiders were gone. We started the second half on the front foot. All the goals were top class.
"We pulled it back to 5-4 with 13 minutes to go. I knew it was just a matter of time as it was one-way traffic.
"NLR’s biggest mistake was bringing off Saul Conway at 5-0. They had absolutely no outlet at all, as Ben Simons was meat and drink for Davis and Joel Berg at the back."
Chigwell could even have won it in the dying seconds but Nyman shot from an acute angle instead of squaring to Steve Summers or Adam Stolerman.
Slater believes a “change of shape at 3-0 down” paid off. He said: “We went from 3-5-2 to 4-3-3 which made a massive difference, and changed a few personnel at half-time, with myself and Hadley Silver coming on.
"We weren’t at the races during the first half and Raiders dominated us but our class shone through in the second half. We had too many top players to get beat 5-0.
"It was an amazing, remarkable comeback that shows we never stopped believing. At 5-3, after Steve scored, I knew we wouldn't lose the game.
"The league is still in our hands. If we can win seven or even win six and draw one the league is ours."
