HARROW BEATEN BY MICHEL PLATINI AND CO

By Shola Adenekan

Michel Platini made sure that the season of Harrow Campus’ premier football team ended in disaster. Platini scored the final goal for Hackney Community College to knock Harrow A out of the SESSA plate competition with a 5-4 defeat on Wednesday.

Harrow started well, taking the lead after 14 minutes. Viren Walia single handedly took on Hackney's defence to score a smashing goal.

Two minutes later Richard Smith’s brilliant run through Hackney's defence ended in failure after he shot the ball straight into the hands of the fumbling goalkeeper.

However, the boys from East London grew in confidence, and took the few chances that came their way. At the end of the first half Harrow were 3-1 down.

The second half was nothing but a thriller, goals from Jim Leach, Jaz Deol and Richard Smith evened up the game at 4-4.

The best was still to come. Michel Platini rose to the challenge of bearing a famous name by waggling past one man, jerking past another two and finishing well by rolling the ball past the hapless Harrow goalkeeper.

Harrow were the architects of their own doom by sitting back to defend instead of looking for the wining goal.

Harrow's team manager Onslo Rahman said: "It was a disappointing game, I felt we should have taken something from it."

Harrow missed out on the reward of a semi-final clash with Kingston University who had earlier beaten Westminster University's City Campus team 6-5 in another nail-biting encounter.

The SESSA Plate competition was the team's last chance of a trophy this football season.

Harrow A (4):
Gough, Leach, Bux, Jensen, Edwards, Deol, Wright, Sorumshalem, Garala, Walia, Smith
Subs: Knight, Yatin, Shek
Goals: Walia, Leach, Deol, Smith
Manager: Onslo Rahman

Hackney Community College (5):
Mantondo, Penton, Borghys, Deriya, Ozkurt, Saglam, Abdulrahaman, Cort, Platini, Hayes, Ali
Sub: Adem
Goals: Cort(2), Abdulrahaman(2), Platini
Managers: Danny Brade, Chris Quidley

Referee: Andrew Morrison (Westminster)