Chummy Linski watched his side throw away an eight-point lead in this chaotic semi final. Matt Ritchie opened the scoring in this game, steering home when he found himself unmarked to put Duncity in the lead. Ctrl Alt hit back instantly with an assist from Yannick Bolasie. Craig Dawson had already lost his clean sheet and by the 76th minute it definitely needed a wash as he was down to minus two putting Chummy's side into a 3-2 lead. Duncity struck back through a Jo Gudmundsson assist but Dawson let another in to bring Dirty's team back down to two points. Sensationally, CADL collected clean sheets for Mawson and Mee, making the score 8-2. At the halfway point Duncan needed a stroke if luck and that's just what he got when Willian's shot took a deflection and crept inside the left-hand post. A rare clean sheet for Petr Cech restored parity at 8-8 but Chummy went back in the lead with a Christian Eriksen assist. With one match left and plenty of players on each side to play this semi final could have gone either way but we had to wait until the final minute for Olly Zinchenko to collect his first clean sheet on his debut for Duncity to pinch the game by a point. Dirty Dunc heads off to his third consecutive cup final after taking part in the last two Jeff Stelling Shields.
An unconfident looking C NUT FC knew they had to pull all the stops out to beat a rampant Sardine City looking to win the grand slam. And Cookie's side got off to a bad start with Andy Robertson losing his clean sheet to a goal that brought two points to Sardine City via Romelu Lukaku's assist. Ten minutes later Robertson let another in make the score 2-(-1) to City. The Fishmen extended the lead when Cenk Tosun applied a quality finish 14 minutes before the Big Tarkowsi's clean sheet was confirmed. With a nine-point lead not many would have bet on a Cookie comeback. If lady luck had been with the C NUT boss then they may have just pulled it off. Some sort of revival looked to be on the way after Shkordan Mustafi powered in a header early doors in the first game on Sunday. C NUT fans were looking forward to him doubling his score with a clean sheet but he was subbed two minutes short of the 75-minute cut off point. In the last game of the weekend Raheem Sterling effectively finished off the game with an assist. Vincent Kompany kept a clean sheet for C NUT but it was too little too late. Sardine City's win has set up a repeat of the last Jeff Stelling Shield Final in 2017 and Sardine will be hoping for a repeat of the result in his merciless pursuit of all four titles.
Salah took the Dog for a walk
Sardine's arch enemy has always been Fruitcake but now it seems he has bigger fish to fry in the shape of Scott E Dog. The Fishmen have become the scourge of the Mutts - first beating them to the finish line in the Tosspot League, then knocking them out of the inaugural Jillytub Memorial Trophy. This was the fourth head-to-head meeting between sides this season and although this was City's first win in those games they definitely have the upper hand. Sardine is the holder of the Jeff Stelling Shield too, and just like the SSPA title itself, no one has ever won the knockout cup competition twice on the trot.
Wandering Dog have won the knockout competition once but that was way back before smartphones were invented in 2008 when they saw off King's Road United with a pulsating 14-10 victory. After suffering that late Raheem Sterling equaliser in the first game they never really got going in this replay. Jimmy Tarkowski secured a comfortable clean sheet to put Sardine City three up and it stayed like that for much of the weekend. The SSPA's top scorer, Mo Salah, then doubled City's advantage with a goal. Time was running out when Wayne Rooney scored to give Scott some hope. He just needed Toni Valencia to keep a clean sheet to force another replay and give the SSPA Chairman a fixture headache problem he'd never had before. But it wasn't to be for the Canines as the Ecuadorian ended up with a negative point.
So Sardine joins Dirty Dunc, Cookie and Chummy 'The Champ' Linski in the semi finals.
Dirty Dunc cantered into the semi finals with this routine victory over Fruitcake. He has reached the final for the last two years, winning one and losing one, and looks hell-bent on making it three on the trot.
A Vic Lindelof clean sheet was soon rubbed out by Harry Kane's ninth goal of the season to leave honours even after the 3.00pm kick offs. Then Willian's first goal of the campaign gave United a 6-3 overnight lead. Dominic Calvert-Lewin gave the Fruitcakes some hope of snatching a victory but November Mini Auction free signing, Steve Davis, scored to leave Fruitcake requiring snookers.
Duncity's Davis left Fruitcakes requiring snookers
Cookie's pin-up poster boy does it again
The Fiscal Street faithful were hopeful that this would be the year their team would finally have a decent cup run. The SSPA founders have yet to reach a final in 18 attempts and will have to wait at least another year after Sergio Aguero put this pulsating encounter out of their reach.
Clean sheets for David De Gea and Charlie Daniels had given Taxbore Wanderers an early lead of 6-2 - an Andre Gray goal and a minus one for Kurt Zouma making up C NUT's points. Things really livened up when Dusan Tadic began taking control. He scored to reduce the arrears for Cookie but Sigurdsson widened the Gylf between the two sides with a goal that bounced off both posts and the bar before crossing the line. Tadic then got an assist to take his personal total for the game to five points. Aaron Ramsey got an assist for the Bores when he was bundled over in the box but Shkodran Mustafi's sixth clean sheet of the season kept Cookie in touching distance, just a point behind. Not for the first time it was left to Kun to coolly slot home from the penalty spot.
Rewind back to the end of October when Sardine City went to the Kennel and secured a famous six-all draw to be the only team to take any points off Wandering Dog in this season's Tosspot League. City went on to win that competition. A month later and they're at it again with a late, late goal from Raheem Sterling stealing Dog's thunder and forcing a replay.
Tony Valencia had got the ball rolling for Wandering Dog with a clean sheet but a goal that was worth five points to Sardine, a Mo Salah goal assisted by the Ox, put him 5-3 up. However, Dog came biting back with two assists for Plastic Bertrand to give Scott the two-points advantage. Then came a glut of Arsenal clean sheets, Cech and Monreal for Wandering Dog and Bellerin for Sardine City to make the score 13-8 to Scott. Being five points in arrears with just one game to go in the weekend can be a tall order at times but not with Raheem Sterling in a Manchester City attack that has scored 40 goals in 12 games. Sure enough, he was bundled over for a penalty and with six minutes of the weekend remaining he bundled the ball into the back of the net to send the travelling Pilchardites into ecstacy.
Frenzied Pilchardites go crazy
A load of algebraic nonsense
Despite a 12-3 win in the Tosspot League earlier in the season Chummy Linski must have thought his number was up in the Mathematics Derby. If league form was anything to go by this should have been an easy win for Scouser Lee but by now he will know there is no logic to fantasy football.
Manuel Lanzini picked the perfect time to claim his first points of the season to put Ctrl into a 2-0 lead. Richarlison restored parity for Lee FC but Alfie Mawson's clean sheet soon had Chummy back in front. It was a dire affair with neither team playing neat little triangles in midfield and Lee FC looking a bit square at the back. Nothing much happened until Jesus came into the equation with an assist that ended Lee FCs chances by contributing to the sullying of their two Huddersfield clean sheets. Another Manchester City goal later on would compound Scouser Lee's pain by resetting his score to zero.
Taxbore Wanderers 7 FC Bugs Bunnies 0
Lee FC 7 Mighty Wanderer 6
Smegma United 4 Wandering Dog 14
Duncity United 15 Croydon Casuals 5
Armitage Shankers 1 Ctrl Alt De Leat 10