The men’s first team were knocked out of the Anagram Records Trophy in sudden death penalties after a see-saw game against NW London.
The tie, switched to Haringey Borough’s Coles Park stadium on a Saturday night, attracted the smallest crowd ever for a competitive CCTV men’s first team due to the £8 entrance fee.
NW London, probably the favourites for promotion in the league and faring well in several cups, deserved to lead 1-0 at half-time, though they’d been helped by a defensive error on our part.
The Tons had threatened little, although Liam Smyth and Fred Taylor have shot over and Lewis Owiredu caused problems down the wing.
It looked to be all over at 2-0 early in the second half but the Tons grew into the game and mounted a superb fight-back.
Firstly, Arthur Wright was quickest to a cross and lobbed past the keeper, then Julian Austin guided a looping header into the corner of the net.
CCFC carried on pressing for a winner, something that had looked unlikely earlier, but it wouldn’t come, while Jack Francis made a superb smothering save at the other end to keep us in it.
But 2-2 and straight to penalties, and though we got our noses in front, it was NW London who held their nerve to win it 5-4 and progress to the next round.
For the Tons, there’s still two cup semi-finals to come, as well as a league challenge.
Player of the match
With no CCFC fans in the ground, the player of the match was selected by the management, choosing sub Samba Badjana.
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