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CUP FINAL PREVIEW: Division 1 Cup Final

CUP FINAL PREVIEW: Division 1 Cup Final

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This Sunday marks our fifth and final weekend of cup finals season with the last of our matches taking place at Thurrock FC.

All of our showpiece cup finals will once again be taking place at Thurrock FC’s wonderful Ship Lane ground, just a stone’s throw from the M25/A13 & Lakeside. There will be bar and refreshment facilities available on the day which you are all welcome to make use of.

All of the clubs involved have been allocated tickets which they are required to sell so please contact your clubs for tickets in the first instance. We also have a supply of tickets on the turnstile on the day at a cost of £5 each.

We now look ahead to each of the games and provide some insight into who might be crowned cup winners on Sunday.

Division One Cup Final – 10.00am Kick-Off
Aldborough Hatch vs Chingford Celtic

This last final brings together two Division One’s finest sides as fifth-placed Aldborough Hatch look to cause an upset against the already crowned league champions, Chingford Celtic.

For Newbury Park based Aldborough Hatch, this match continues a fine club tradition of reaching numerous finals, the most recent of which were in 2015 where they were winners of this competition, beating Archers Athletic. It’s been a season of ups and downs during which Ben Moore’s Hatch side were very much in the running for league honours for a large part of the season but eight defeats proved a few too many and they had to settle for a solid fifth-placed finish. Their run to this final has taken in a nervy quarter final 3-2 win after extra time against Valley Park, before taking on local rivals Barking & Dagenham Wanderers in the semi-final. A brace from Jey Sivapathasundaram and strikes from Terlochan Singh and James Marrable in the semi-final proved the difference between the sides as Hatch booked their place at Ship Lane for the final. The key men to watch out for are leading scorer James Gibbings who has eighteen goals this season and their vastly experienced duo of Singh and Sivapathasundaram who bring their big-match experience to this side.

This final also marks a return to Thurrock for Tom English's Chingford Celtic who were last there in 2014 when they were runners-up in the Corinthian Cup Final against Coral. It has been a fruitful season thus far for Celtic, having returned to the Corinthian League this season and been crowned champions of Division One. Their chase for that title was the definition of excitement as they were locked in battle with Barking and Emerson Park until the very last few minutes of the last league game, before eventually winning 2-0 to take the crown. Their run to the final at Thurrock has taken in two high scoring encounters as they saw off Warren United Reserves 6-2 in the quarter-final before hosting rivals Barking in the semi-final. A remarkable seven-goal performance from Robert Teppett in that semi-final saw them run out 7-3 winners and secure their return to Ship Lane. Looking through the Celtic statistics reveals the two big names to look out for, namely their semi-final hero Teppett with 22 goals in all competitions and the 18-goal Ross Chimes who both clearly know where the back of the net is and are the men to watch.

Both of these sides have come from a division this season that has been extraordinarily unpredictable with almost all of the top seven sides having led the division at some point. That therefore makes this a very difficult match to predict an outcome for. Chingford Celtic rightfully hold the tag of “favourites” given their more consistent league form but you wouldn’t back against Aldborough Hatch and their experienced core of players giving this a right go. Either way, we very much look forward to this match!

Congratulations to our appointed match officials on this final, a reward for the continued hard work put in by our referees across the season. Howard Brown, is the man with the whistle and will be ably supported by Mark Goddard and James Goodman on the touchlines.

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