A dominant Christ’s side eased past Magdalene into the second round following a very convincing performance on Saturday afternoon.

As the sun shone throughout the cold November afternoon, so did the Christ’s midfield, controlling possession and stringing together some fluid passing moves. The gulf between First and Third Division football was shown to be extensive: Christ’s were quicker to the ball and more adept and comfortable once they had it.

It wasn’t long before Harrison, fresh from scoring his 50th competitive goal for the CCAFC, latched on to a through ball and finished perfectly, slotting it low into the far corner. It would be a display for Harrison to remember with two similar finishes seeing him through to a first half hattrick and Christ’s to a 3-0 half time lead. Magdalene were simply unable to keep up with the tempo and the movement of the top division side.

The second period continued in similar fashion. The Christ’s defence, eyeing up their second clean sheet in a row, continued to hold firm whenever Magdalene tentatively pushed for a consolation goal. Despite admirable endeavour, the Third Division side failed to seriously threaten the Christ’s goal, their only chances coming from the odd corner and occasional long range effort.

The game was effectively finished when Christ’s Williams found his way into the top corner. From then on, traffic was entirely one way with the Christ’s players desperate to get themselves onto the scoresheet. St George was the lucky one, bagging a brace of well taken goals from inside the opposition penalty area meaning that Christ’s finished six goals to the good. It could, however, have been many more.

Elsewhere in the first round of the cuppers competition there were few shocks with most of the big teams making it through comfortably. Trinity dispatched Kings 5-0 while Downing saw off fellow First Division side Catz. First Division strugglers Caius were comprehensively put to the sword by Homerton having fielded a weakened team. Corpus managed to notch up the biggest win of the day putting ten past Bottom Division side CATS and CSPVA. They face tougher opponents in Round 2 in CCCC who put five past Robinson.