Rayners Lane 1
Willesden/Constantine 5
Manager Fergus Meaney deserved a better performance than this for his final match as Lane manager.
Meaney has been with the club for 15 years -- 12 as a player and three as manager -- won Middlesex County League championship last season and steered Lane to runners-up spot this term.
But he announced to the club committee at Christmas that he was standing down at the end of the season.
He had hoped to end on a high, but the title slipped away to Willesden, and the same team stopped Lane collecting any silverware by lifting the League cup at Harrow Borough's Earlsmead ground on Saturday evening.
Lane could have scored in the first minute when Danny Oriot went wide down the left and tried to square the ball which looked like it had been deflected in but trickled along the goal-line to safety.
They continued to look dangerous, but in the 20th minute a long ball was put down the middle and although Junior Smith won the header it ricocheted off another player who rounded keeper Pete Randall for Willesden's opener.
On the half hour Willesden's centre half was sent off after an off-the-ball incident involving Lane's Danny Mills. The referee and linesman did not originally see the punch but the crowd and the fourth official did and after some delay the defender received his marching orders.
Down to 10 men, Willesden showed steely determination and within two minutes of the restart Smith was again caught out of position, allowing an attacker through to fire home number two.
Lane got back into the game when a cross from Gary Donnelley was handled by a Willesden defender and Tony Verni stepped up to convert the penalty.
With the slope in their favour, Lane looked to be in with a chance, but then Lane old boy Theo Manderson cut in from the left and his scuffed shot ran under Randall to make it 3-1.
As Lane pushed forward, Willesden took advantage of the extra space which had been created to score two more goals.
RAYNERS LANE: Randall, Coakley, Smith, Bird, Verni. Oriot, Cott, Hordern, Donnelly, Mills, Metcalfe. Subs Bignall, Mitchell, Creegan, Cowerd, Middleton.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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