Junior Lions claim historic win

London Maccabi Lions Under 12 Whites became the first Jewish junior winners of the Herts County Challenge Cup, the most prestigious competition in junior football.

Herts County Challenge Cup
Maccabi London Lions 1 St Albans City Youth U12 North 0
Sunday, 7 May, 2017

Playing on a dry and bumpy pitch at the Herts county ground the Lions coped impressively throughout against the physical St Albans City. After settling down, they began playing their expansive brand of football and went close early on through efforts from Jesse Tapnack, Josh Nathan and Rafi Burns.

The Lions continued to dominate throughout the second half, with the midfield of Luc Levene, Amit Waiss, and Jesse Tapnack playing some excellent football. Further efforts from Zan Appleson-Fidler and a ferocious Zack Miller free kick were expertly saved.

After having little to do goalie Sam Jacobs was called into action with less than ten minutes to go when St Albans were awarded a hotly contested penalty.  Jacobs helped tip the ferocious straight down the middle shot onto the cross bar. From that momentous save the Lions went down the other end through a typically forceful Shraga Simons mazy run, beating four players before laying it off to Zan Appleson-Fidler. His shot was parried onto the bar before Josh Nathan rounded off his man of match performance by coolly slotting home from six yards, to rapturous cheering from the travelling Lions fans.

The rest of the match passed off without any further alarms thanks to the defence of Charlie Gordon, Shraga Simons, Ezra Aaron, Nathan Mann and Charlie Dagul superbly marshalled by captain Zack Miller, and after 4 long minutes of injury time the whistle blew and the Lions boys began celebrating their landmark victory.

Team:
Ezra Aaron, Zan Appleson-Fidler, Rafi Burns, Charlie Dagul, Charlie Gordon, Sam Jacobs, Luc Levine, Nathan Mann, Zack Miller, Josh Nathan, Shraga Simons, Jesse Tapnack, Amit Waiss

Co-managers:
Andy Miller and Steve Gordon