CUP FINAL PREVIEW: Jolof Sports face Old Esthameians in season-closing Premier Division Cup Final

The Premier Division Cup reaches it’s conclusion for the season at Dagenham & Redbridge FC as the Essex Alliance League’s season draws to a close on Tuesday night. League champions Jolof Sports face their second-placed rivals, Old Esthameians as we look ahead to the cup final and provide some insight into who might be crowned winners on the night.

Premier Division Cup Final
Jolof Sports vs Old Esthameians
At Dagenham & Redbridge FC, 7.30pm Kick-Off

This final brings together the top two sides in the Premier Division this season with already crowned league champions, Jolof Sports, face the runners-up, Old Esthameians, in a mouth-watering looking final.

As we look back twelve months to last season’s cup final in this competitions, Jolof Sports were finalists once again as they took on May & Baker EC A in the opening final of the year. Baker led early but Guy Tahin levelled for Jolof to take them in level at half-time. Despite having plenty of the ball in the second half, it was Baker who settled the match scoring with twenty minutes to go to take the silverware back to Dagenham with them.

For West Ham-based, Jolof Sports, this season represents a real breakthrough year for Tacko and Ahma’s side who have shown greater consistency this season and taken advantage of sides around them not performing as strongly to be crowned the league champions with a whopping seventeen league wins this season along with just three defeats. Their league double over the previous champions, Chingford Athletic, proved the catalyst for their run to the title which they ultimately won by eight clear points. They’ve shown equally good form in this cup competition with their run to the final start with a first round victory at home to London Falcons (3-1) before edging a high-scoring encounter at Blue Marlin where they won 6-4 in the quarter-finals. Then in the semi-finals they took on close rivals United London at home where they came from a goal down to win 4-1 with Jeffrey Cobblah scoring twice and single strikes from Armel Njonga and Muhammed Ndow booking their place at Dagenham. Their man to watch is the diminutive Jeffrey Cobblah who has continued to find the back of the net regularly with a goal haul of 30 this season from just 24 appearances.

Taking on Jolof Sports on Tuesday night are a side who have had a quite remarkable first season in the Essex Alliance League in the form of Newbury Park-based Old Esthameians. Danny Morgan’s side had a difficult first part of the season and were reeling in the lower reaches of the league with a winless first six matches of the season. Their season took a turn for the better around the end of October as they slowly made up ground and eventually transformed their season into one that saw them end as runners-up behind their opponents, a tremendous achievement. One of the results that illustrated their turnaround was their opening result in this cup competition where they beat Chingford Athletic away, 3-2, in the quarter-finals before hosting another tough side, Grove United in the semi-final. That semi-final saw a near perfect performance from them as they eased through with a 9-2 victory against Grove with Neil Robinson’s hat-trick, braces from Danny Morgan and Jake Evans and singles from John David-Bradley and Frankie Markham doing the damage and sending their side through! Their man to watch is the man in the goals, Danny Morgan, who has struck a remarkable 33 goals in a mere 19 games which have catapulted his side up the league tables in the process and into this cup final too.

The league games between these sides see one win to each side with Old Esthameians having won their first encounter 3-2 back in December before Jolof Sports returned to secure the league title in their second encounter in April, a 3-0 victory. This is therefore set up as a tantalising finale to what has been a great season for both sides, each with very contrasting styles of football. Their eventual league position suggests that Jolof Sports start this match as the favourites but E’s upturn in form marks them down as dangerous opponents and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Whatever the result, this is the game to watch in these finals!

Congratulations to our appointed match officials on this final, a reward for the continued hard work put in by our referees across the season. The man with the whistle is the experienced Mike Locke and he will be ably supported by Paul Kemp and James Goodman from the touchlines. Completing the quartet, James Allaoui will handle the fourth official duties on the evening in support of his colleagues.