{"id":28326,"date":"2026-08-28T05:24:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T04:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/meridian-1-0-halbrook-cup-report\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T05:24:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T04:24:39","slug":"meridian-1-0-halbrook-cup-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/meridian-1-0-halbrook-cup-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Meridian 1\u20130 Halbrook: Whitfield sends the club into round three"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sam Whitfield\u2019s second-half header settled a tight League Cup tie under the Kingsway Park lights and sent Meridian into the third round for the first time in four seasons.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Halbrook, two divisions below, defended in numbers and had the better of the first half. Iversen saved from Deane on 23 minutes and Marchetti hit the bar from a corner on the stroke of half-time.<\/p>\n\n<h3 id=\"the-goal\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The goal<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It came on 63 minutes. Reid\u2019s corner was headed back across goal by Bekele and Whitfield, unmarked at the far post, nodded in from a yard. <strong>It was his first goal in the competition.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCup ties against lower-league sides are about patience. We did not panic at half-time and we got what we deserved.\u201d<\/p><cite>Rafael Duarte, head coach<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n<h3 id=\"notes\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Notes<\/h3>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Tom Ellery made his first-team debut from the bench.<\/li><li>Meridian are in the third round for the first time since 2022.<\/li><li>The third-round draw is on Monday evening.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Attention returns to the league with the visit of Stanground on Saturday.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A second-half header settled a tight cup tie under the Kingsway Park lights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_spx_person_id":0,"_spx_fixture_id":28230,"_spx_pick_id":0,"_spx_eg_facts_label":"","_spx_eg_facts":"","_spx_figure_caption":"","_spx_news_feat":"","_spx_video_url":"","_spx_duration":"","_spx_views":"","_spx_presenter":"","_spx_media_state":"","_spx_start_at":"","_spx_media_status":"","_spx_episode":"","_spx_subject":"","_spx_subject_role":"","_spx_story_year":"","_spx_duration_seconds":0,"_spx_view_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[193,251],"spx_comp":[],"spx_fixture_ref":[],"spx_series":[],"spx_format":[],"spx_video_kind":[],"spx_show":[],"spx_sport":[],"spx_flag":[],"class_list":["post-28326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-match-reports","tag-league-cup","tag-sam-whitfield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"spx_comp","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_comp?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"spx_fixture_ref","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_fixture_ref?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"spx_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_series?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"spx_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_format?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"spx_video_kind","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_video_kind?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"spx_show","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_show?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"spx_sport","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_sport?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"spx_flag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_flag?post=28326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}