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THE SUNDAY LEAGUE TEAM WHO HAVE BEEN |
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FINAL BARNET SUNDAY LEAGUE DIVISION ONE TABLE |
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Edmonton Blades v. Hornsey & Highgate - VOID MATCH (Abandoned) Hornsey & Highgate v. Kedares Town - VOID MATCH (Fixture Unplayed) |
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NAME |
APPEARANCES |
GOALS |
NAME |
APPEARANCES |
GOALS |
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Joe AGBOOLA-SILVA |
1 |
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Andreas KRITICOS |
10 |
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Johan AHIPEAUD |
1 |
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Chris KRITICOS |
4 |
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Henry AKINSANMI |
6 |
1 |
Robert LATTY |
1 |
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Nathan ALLEN |
1 |
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Valentine LAURENCE |
4 |
1 |
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Curtis BAALAM |
16 |
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Miles LEVY |
9 |
2 |
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Grant BAKER (GK) |
13 |
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Chris LUE |
4 |
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Jack BANGS |
24 |
7 |
Ayo MATTHEWS |
28 |
11 |
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Ivan BASS |
17 |
5 |
Tre MAXWELL |
2 |
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Leon BERNARD |
6 |
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Marc McAULEY |
1 |
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Ben BOOTHROYD |
1 |
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Rhys McKAY |
7 |
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Taurean BRYAN |
11 |
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Khaheem McKENZIE |
2 |
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Raj BUMBRA |
5 |
1 |
Leon McKENZIE-McKAY |
12 |
2 |
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Daniel CASCOE |
11 |
1 |
Jamie MEHMET |
6 |
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Lucas CASCOE |
4 |
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Tobi MICHAELS |
2 |
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Ruairi COLES |
1 |
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Nana OBENG |
10 |
3 |
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Tom CROAKE |
16 |
3 |
Josh ODUKOYA |
2 |
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Ben CULORA |
2 |
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Harold OFORI |
27 |
1 |
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Daniel DALEY |
19 |
4 |
Hal OZKAN |
5 |
1 |
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Sean DERRICK |
1 |
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Vishal PATEL |
20 |
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Abz EL-HABASSI |
2 |
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Tyronne PETRIE |
16 |
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Sergio GARCIA |
1 |
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Stephen ROUSSETY (GK) |
3 |
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James GIBBS (GK) |
2 |
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Bruce SCOTT |
2 |
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Richard HARRIS |
3 |
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Brandon SOLOMON |
3 |
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Lexton HARRISON |
28 |
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Tyriquee SOLOMON |
1 |
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George HOUSE |
17 |
4 |
Godfrey TAY |
3 |
2 |
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Anees IKRAMULLAH |
22 |
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Allan TOPPIN |
1 |
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Ralph KATIKAZA |
1 |
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Zac TROULLOUS |
2 |
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Aiden KAVANAGH |
8 |
2 |
Jordan UMPIRE |
4 |
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Keiran KAVANAGH |
1 |
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Oshade WATSON |
12 |
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Lawrence KILL |
2 |
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Sam WOOLLEY |
8 |
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CLICK ON THE OPPONENTS' NAME TO VIEW A MATCH REPORT & THE YOU TUBE LINK TO VIEW HIGHLIGHTS |
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Date of Match |
Opponents |
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Competition |
Result |
You Tube |
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Sunday 6th August |
Away |
Pre-Season Friendly |
Lost 1-2 |
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Sunday 13th August |
Home |
Pre-Season Friendly |
Lost 2-3 |
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Sunday 20th August |
Home |
Pre-Season Friendly |
Lost 2-3 |
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Sunday 27th August |
Home |
Pre-Season Friendly |
Won 5-1 |
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Sunday 3rd September |
Away |
Pre-Season Friendly |
Lost 3-5 |
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Sunday 10th September |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Drew 1-1 |
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Sunday 17th September |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Won 5-0 |
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Sunday 24th September |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Won 3-0 |
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Sunday 1st October |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Won 3-2 |
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Sunday 8th October |
NO MATCH ARRANGED |
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Sunday 15th October |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Lost 1-3 |
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Sunday 22nd October |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Lost 0-5 |
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Sunday 29th October |
Home |
London FA Sunday Junior Cup, Second Round |
Lost 0-5 |
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Sunday 5th November |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Drew 3-3 |
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Sunday 12th November |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Drew 0-0 |
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Sunday 19th November |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Lost 2-6 |
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Sunday 26th November |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Senior Cup, Second Round |
Drew 2-2 (Lost 1-4 Pens.) |
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Sunday 3rd December |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Junior Cup, Second Round |
Lost 0-6 |
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Sunday 10th December |
GRANGE PARK |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
POSTPONED (Snow) |
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Sunday 17th December |
NO MATCH ARRANGED |
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Sunday 24th December |
NO MATCH ARRANGED (Xmas Eve) |
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Sunday 31st December |
NO MATCH ARRANGED (New Year’s Eve |
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Sunday 7th January |
GTFA |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
POSTPONED (Waterlogged Pitch) |
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Sunday 14th January |
Away |
Friendly |
Lost 1-4 |
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Sunday 21st January |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Lost 2-6 |
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Sunday 28th January |
Away |
Friendly |
Lost 2-9 |
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Sunday 4th February |
NEW BARNET |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
POSTPONED (Waterlogged Pitch) |
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Sunday 11th February |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One Double-Header |
Lost 0-1 |
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Sunday 11th February |
Home * |
Barnet Sunday League Division One Double-Header |
Lost 2-3 |
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Sunday 18th February |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Drew 2-2 |
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Sunday 25th February |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Won 2-1 |
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Sunday 4th March |
BURDETT |
Away |
Inter-League Challenge Cup Quarter-Final |
POSTPONED (Snow) |
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Sunday 11th March |
Home * |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Lost 2-3 |
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Sunday 18th March |
KEDARES TOWN |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
POSTPONED (Snow) |
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Sunday 25th March |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Won 2-0 |
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Sunday 1st April |
Home |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Lost 2-3 |
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Sunday 8th April |
Away |
Friendly |
Drew 1-1 |
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Sunday 15th April |
Away |
Barnet Sunday League Division One |
Lost 0-2 |
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Sunday 22nd April |
Away |
Inter-League Challenge Cup Quarter-Final |
Won 4-1 |
MATCH NOT FILMED |
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Sunday 29th April |
NO MATCH ARRANGED |
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Sunday 6th May |
NO MATCH ARRANGED |
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Sunday 13th May |
NO MATCH ARRANGED |
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Sunday 20th May |
Away |
Inter-League Challenge Cup Semi-Final |
Lost 0-2 |
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* Played on Opponents’ Home Pitch |
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CHAIRMAN’S BLOG - Saturday 9th September 2017 |
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Following our high For me as a Club Secretary, Pre-Season is a busy time sorting out our players registrations. Currently, the Barnet Sunday League's procedure for signing up new players is for the Club Secretary to type out the form on a PC with the player's name, address, date of birth and the club they played for last season entered, then the forms are printed off for the players to sign. They then have to be posted by 'snail mail' or hand-delivered to the League Registration Secretary's house in Cockfosters, which is about a 25-minute drive from where I live. The details from the form are then processed onto the League's Football Mitoo website and then copied from there onto the F.A.'s Full-Time website that the League also use. A five-digit registration number for each player is automatically generated by Mitoo and that number then has to be written down on the teamsheet before the Kick-Off of all League matches. As I am also the Barnet Sunday League's Website Secretary and one of their Full-Time Administrators, I often have to help the League Registration Secretary with these modern processes as it is not easy for somebody in their 70's whose first language is Italian. One of the biggest problems for him (and indeed anybody else) is that on Mitoo you enter the player's surname first, followed by his first name in the box underneath, but on Full-Time you enter the player's first name first, then his surname in the box underneath. Mitoo does not display registered players names publicly, but when logging in, it displays them surname first. Full-Time also does that when administrators login to see the list of who is already registered, but on public display it has them all with players first names first, albeit in alphabetical order of surname. It is therefore very easy for League Registration Secretaries to get confused if they are using both systems, as the Barnet Sunday League are. We therefore had Taurean Bryan, Miles Levy and Rajpal Bumbra registered (and publicly-listed on Full-Time) as Bryan Taurean, Levy Miles & something like 'Bum Algebra' until I logged in and corrected it, while Lawrence Kill was down as 'Kill Laurence'. I know I sometimes upset League Officers by being a bit outspoken, but that is somewhat extreme ! What some Leagues are now doing for player registrations though is actually allowing Club Secretaries to use their Full-Time logins to register their own players online. This is now being encouraged by County Football Associations, in our case the London F.A. in conjunction with the F.A.'s Whole Game System, otherwise known as 'WGS'. This is because ideally, Referees need all clubs to register their players on WGS (or at least use the 'Data Cleansing' tool which copies them all over from Full-Time) because when they caution or dismiss a player, they have to login to WGS and report it on there as a mandatory procedure. If the player isn't listed, they then have to fill in the player's name themselves...and then invariably spell it wrongly, causing all sorts of problems. One classic example of that for us (albeit several years ago) was when a Referee somehow managed to spell Steve Cokell as 'Stepahen Cocan'. Although it initially had it's flaws, WGS is now much-improved and it is actually an excellent system for clubs to register their own players, especially if the League uses it to vet each player during the registration process in case there are any undesirables. As the Leagues we have played in have never allowed us to use it to register our own players though, I don't know exactly how that works, but presumably the system automatically flags up anybody who is sine due suspended and therefore cannot play again until money owed is paid. However, when a wrongly spelt name is entered, that player will slip through the net...and that is the problem with the system. Yes, numerous people entering data into it who cannot spell, whether that be Club Secretaries, Referees or League Registration Secretaries. It is not just that though. Some players will also deliberately give their new club Secretary a false surname and even a false address or date of birth so that WGS ignores their previous disciplinary record and registers them as a completely new player. For all the Club Sec knows, they may have previously assaulted a Referee. Another common problem more genuinely nowadays is the increasing amount of players using double-barrelled surnames because their parents never married. They register with one club using both, then the next club they just use their mother's name because they no longer get on with their father (or vice-versa). The biggest problem with WGS after that is once the Club Sec has found out that his new player's name is spelt incorrectly, it cannot be changed once it is on the system. It is greyed out, as is the date of birth. Only an address and contact details (e-mail/phone numbers) can be changed. Some Club Secretaries therefore delete that player from their list and then re-register the player as another new one in an effort to correct the spelling, but what happens then is that the player's original spelling & FAN number is still on the system. When that player then gets cautioned or sent off, the player gives the Referee the original spelling of his name or the Referee simply writes it down wrongly because the player is annoyed and won't spell it out for him. The Referee then logs in to WGS to record the booking and enters the player's name in a search box, then a list appears of five possibles as to who he means, and he doesn't know which one to choose. Also, when a player changes clubs because he has moved to live in a different area, that then also creates a new FAN number for him when it is not supposed to. Our own Tom Croake is a perfect example of that, as he played Youth football in Enfield, then moved to Clacton where he played for FC Clacton, then moved back to Enfield to work and started playing for us. Three different teams. Three different addresses. Three different FAN numbers. But the same person ! Also, a lot of our players are now at an age when they sometimes live in three different houses within the space of a year. They start off living with their parents, then they move out to live in their own flat, then they move to live with their girlfriend. All in different areas in and around London. In some cases players will sign for three different clubs during that period (Saturdays & Sundays) and use different addresses for each one...and sometimes different surnames, invariably because of double-barrelled names or spelling mistakes by the Club Secretary/Manager. I very much doubt that whoever devised WGS actually envisaged these sort of things happening because they probably have a traditional English name and a stable home background themselves. Some people (including myself) think that the FA will make a WGS player registration & Full-Time integration mandatory for all FA-affiliated Sunday Leagues within the next couple of years. Others (including our League Chairman) insist that they won't. If they do, I'm not sure how they are ever going to resolve the spelling and double-barrelled surnames problem, but whatever way registrations are done, people are always going to make mistakes with the input of data. Although registering players can be a problem, at least the Barnet Sunday League has four divisions this season with at least 10 teams in each, including 10 new teams in total. However, various Essex Sunday Leagues, the Hackney & Leyton Sunday League and also the East Herts Corinthian Sunday League are really booming with twice as many new clubs joining them. Some Leagues have even introduced an extra Division to cope. This appears to be because there are plenty of pitches still available in that part of the Greater London area whereas in Barnet and particularly Enfield, a large number of Council pitches are no longer in use due to Council staff cutbacks and sell-offs for housing. Also, many private grounds in Barnet & Enfield (like our own Edmonton Sports & Social Club) have had to increase their pitch fees to around £100 per match because of increased costs imposed on them by the local Council. This has forced some long-established teams to leave those venues and play on cheaper council pitches instead, therefore lessening the availability of pitches in our area even more. Enfield Council now has an even greater problem after travellers broke in to Firs Farm in Edmonton recently and vandalised all the pitches and changing rooms, putting them all out of action for the foreseeable future and forcing the Edmonton Sunday League to use all the remaining pitches at Enfield Playing Fields for this season for their Firs Farm-based teams instead. This has now meant both the Barnet Sunday League and the Edmonton Sunday League will find it difficult to get any more new teams to join them this season because they have nowhere to play. That leaves just 10 teams in our division instead of the ideal number of 12, and with at least one of those 10 teams failing with their administration quite a bit because nobody wants to be the Club Secretary, that number could go down even further. In those Essex and East Herts Leagues though, because there are so many pitches available, new clubs are forming in huge numbers because they are taking advantage of the FA's 'Grow The Game' grant which pays their pitch fees for their first season. A lot of these new clubs then fold up at the end of that season and then re-form for the following season under a different name to get the grant again. And so it goes on, all because the pitches are available for them to do that. The Leagues that cover those areas are therefore booming, while the Leagues in Enfield & Barnet are really suffering. There are some new 3G pitches being built, but nowhere near enough to meet the demand from an ever-increasing population in those two Boroughs, while the cost of hiring those 3G pitches for a season is nowhere near covered by the 'Grow The Game' grant. With the Edmonton Sunday League now down to just 21 teams, it certainly looks likely that both Leagues will have to merge into one at some stage, which will be very sad for both, but there just won't be enough pitches to go round for either League to expand on their own. |
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CHAIRMAN’S BLOG - Friday 13th October 2017 |
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Although we were without Raj, Leon and one or two others for our next match the following week Away to N The following week saw us play our first Home match of the season at the Edmonton Sports & Social Club where we took on fellow promoted side GTFA. For this one we arranged a proper photo shoot to publicise our new kit sponsorship, while we had also received our sponsored rain jackets courtesy of Bristol Street Motors (Waltham Cross) in time for this match, so not surprisingly we had well over 16 players turning up to sample all these goodies. GTFA though only had a bare eleven due to three of their better players serving suspensions for sending-offs towards the end of last season, and we took full advantage of that by notching a comfortable 3-0 win, despite GTFA copying Kedares Town's tactics by defending in numbers against us, presumably because we beat them 5-1 the last time we played them. In fact this match was like a Premier League top six team playing at Home to a bottom six team who come and try to park the bus but are always going to lose. With the top six team having gone 2 or 3-0 up, the game is then 'dead' from somewhere in-between the 45th & 60th minute onwards and the last half-hour or so is just played at half-pace with the players of both sides strolling about, taking breathers and just trying not to get injured. It was a very warm and sunny day though, which obviously contributed to that. We then had everybody (apart from Tyronne Petrie) staying for a drink afterwards as we had the 'Lounge Bar' to ourselves with no other adults matches or Norsemen Youth Eastern Junior Alliance games taking place, so that was excellent for team spirit and it was one of the main reasons why we decided to move to the Edmonton Sports & Social Club three years ago after 28 years of playing on a Council pitch and having to drive to pubs afterwards. Tyronne had to head off to Wembley straight after the match though, as he had tickets to watch American Football, which is certainly a sport that will never grab my interest, but each to his own. Meanwhile, off the pitch, the usual disagreements between myself and the League Chairman continue in terms of the use (or not) of certain modern technological procedures to ensure that clubs do not get fined for administrative failures, which if they do, threatens their future participation in the League and therefore does the remaining clubs no favours at all if and when those 'defaulting' clubs drop out. We of course have encountered that ourselves from playing in a division in the Waltham Sunday League that ended up with only four teams remaining by the end of February because of others withdrawing after running out of money from having to pay numerous fines, and we really don't want to have to suffer from that again. As far as the Chairman is concerned though, the League procedures that are in place at the moment, and particularly the match-day teamsheets, have been working perfectly for the last 30 years and should not be changed whatsoever. He very much prefers to teach clubs a lesson by fining them for rule breaches, thereby (in theory) stopping them from doing it again, and I can certainly understand that way of thinking. The problem is that it invariably doesn't stop clubs from doing it again because they simply don't agree with the current 'old-fashioned' procedures, so they continue to ignore the rules & guidelines and then just fold up once the money runs out. At the last League Management Committee meeting there were a ridiculous amount of fines having to be imposed for teamsheet irregularities, including an £8.00 charge for ourselves after Manager Tony McKay failed to realise that Emergency Signing Abz El-Habassi had to sign the teamsheet as well as the registration form. It was just a minor indiscretion really, but it was one that wouldn't happen if the League used the triplicate carbonated teamsheets that every club (bar none) wants, whereby each team has their own teamsheet instead of the current system where they have to wait for their opponents to give them a shared teamsheet and they then find that they haven't got time to fill it in properly, thereby incurring a fine. The Chairman does not want to hear these complaints from the clubs though, as he quite rightly feels they should be adhering to the current rules & procedures, which were all made quite clear to them at the start of the season. The problem I have personally though, is that in addition to being on the Committee as the League Website Secretary, I am also a Club Secretary, and it just so happens that every match we play, the opposing Club Secretary/Manager comments (without me asking) that the current teamsheets are a pain and that they wish ID cards could be brought in to replace player signatures. In addition to that, they basically just want to do all their admin work using their smartphone, particularly as some of them are builders, scaffolders, roofers and plumbers and they do not do an office job where they have access to a computer. As there are no other clubs from Division One represented on the Committee, I therefore give the Chairman their feedback at the meetings so that their suggestions can be discussed, but every time I do that I am told that discussions regarding the use of modern technology will have to take place on a date in the future as there are too many fines to go through which will take up too much time. I know the League Chairman will not like me putting suggestions into the minds of other Club Secretaries who may read these Blogs, but the following is what all our players and Management Committee members want, and from the teams we have played so far since joining the Barnet Sunday League, it is what every club (bar none) wants. If they agree with what I am saying, there is nothing in the rules to stop them proposing changes to the League's procedures for Season 2018-2019 as long as they are submitted to the League before the 31st March. Those proposals then need to be discussed by the League Management Committee to see if they are feasible or not, and it is they who should then decide. Not the Chairman on his own...as is happening at the moment because he is continually avoiding the issues at every meeting. What we as a club want from the Barnet League is an improvement in certain standards to match a Non-League Step 5-7 setup in Saturday football. Every team we face nowadays turn up well before the kick-off and undertake a properly-organised warm-up session. It is totally different to how Sunday morning 'footie' (as the League Chairman regularly calls it) was back in the 1970's when the current teamsheets were probably first used...judging from its Times New Roman font !? Back then, players wandered out onto the pitch two minutes before the kick-off with a fag in their hand and did no warm-up whatsoever. There was only one substitute allowed in those days and every team played 4-4-2, so the complex team-talks that we have today were not needed and signing the teamsheet just before the kick-off was not disruptive like it is now. Most teams we face have at least three substitutes and include a number of players who have played at that Step 5-7 level on Saturdays, while a number of the League's Referees officiate at that level as well. That is why they want Step 5-7 triplicate carbonated teamsheets for each team with columns for shirt numbers and goalscorers to be entered, but with the column for player signatures to be removed. It is what they are used to on a Saturday. The clubs also want better pitches where local councils bother to cut the grass and open the changing rooms, or failing that, they want more teams who use private grounds to be encouraged to join the League...which they will do if the League is publicised well enough and they can see progress being made with the use of modern technology. The clubs also want to see Referees caution and send off players when it is obvious that they should do so. Instead, we have a small number of older Referees in our League who actually cannot do that because it is now mandatory that they have to go online and login to the F.A.'s Whole Game System to report all cautions and dismissals. Some of them do not have a smartphone and/or a personal computer and do not have an e-mail address, so they referee matches and let 'everything' go ! We have had two of those Referees already this season and we were fortunate that both matches were fairly contested by both teams, but clearly that situation should not be allowed to happen in this day and age. What our League has to realise is that competitive adults Sunday League football is no longer the bottom rung of the ladder in terms of player participation. The FA's 'Just Play' and 'Flexible Football' initiatives are ! That is where players cannot commit themselves into playing for a team every week because of work & family commitments, and that is where all the stereotypical overweight and ungainly Sunday League Pub Team players of the 70's & 80's have gone. Competitive Sunday League football today is the equivalent of the 'Semi-Pro' Athenian and Spartan Leagues on Saturdays back in the 70's & 80's in terms of club organisation on and off the pitch. The standards have impd enormously because players have to be more dedicated now if they want to play every week. To that effect, we also want to see all teams playing with properly numbered shirts, the same coloured shorts and socks, and providing two proper match balls. That is where they should get fined if they don't, but the League currently turn a blind eye to all of that. Improve the standards on the pitch and more well-run teams will join the League in preference to others. No question. As for the pre-match and post-match administrative work for Club Secretaries, here is what most of them seem to want... Instead of signatures, all clubs want 'ID Cards' whereby they take a selfie photo of each of their players and e-mail or text/WhatsApp it to the League Registration Secretary, who then keeps the photo stored with the player's details that have already been texted in. Most other Leagues are now doing that by using the FA's Whole Game System. Clubs then want to be able to click somewhere from their smartphones before the kick-off of each match to see the names & photos of all their opponents players (if they suspect they might be playing ringers)...that is if the FA allow it via the Data Protection Act. All Club Secretaries nowadays almost certainly know how to take a photo on their smartphone and e-mail or text it to somebody, so that won't be a problem. Knowing how to rename the photo with the player's name might be, but if clubs screw up in that respect or they fail to send in a photo, that player will not be registered. If the clubs want us to use this system as they say they do, then they will all need to do things properly, otherwise there will be a whole host of non-fulfilments of fixtures at the start of next season. As for the Referees, what they all want (apart from the League Chairman, who is a Referee himself) is an online report form on the League website using the same login password that only the Referees themselves know. The Bromley & District Saturday League (which our League Registration Secretary referees in) uses this form and they have a 100% success rate. No more filling in of paper forms in the rain on the final whistle, and no expectation of them having to fill in another (sportsmanship) form when they get home, both of which our Referees complain like hell about at the moment whenever they do our games. It is too early at the moment to know whether any of these procedure changes are feasible for next season, but in my opinion, the League will be a whole lot better for the clubs and Referees if these ideas can come into effect. Yes, it may result in more work for League Officers, but there are people waiting in the wings who are willing to come on board and do those jobs if the current incumbents refuse to do them themselves. |
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CHAIRMAN’S BLOG - Saturday 11th November 2017 |
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That defeat was not the best preparation for our next match at Home to Churchbury, as they were top of the table coming into this match and had scored 23 goals in their previous three matches with forward/winger Jamie Stevens scoring a hat-trick in each of them. Even though we had beaten them on all three occasions we played them last season, we knew this was likely to be a different story as we had Taurean having to play in goal again and Ayo, Anees, Aiden and Miles Levy all unavailable. With all those other players from last season missing as well, we were simply not good enough and crashed to an embarrassing 5-0 defeat. It was the first time for nearly two years that we had been outplayed according to the final shots count (and on corners as well, as they had eight to our one). It was very similar to most of our matches in Division One of the Waltham League when we invariably had an outfield player in goal and ended up losing every week, normally by only one or two goals, but sometimes by this sort of margin, and it was not a nice feeling at all having to go back to that type of situation. We then lost forward/attacking midfielder Hal Ozkan straight after the game as he decided he had had enough after only being brought on as a substitute for the last 20 minutes, which had been a regular occurrence for him so far this season. He only had himself to blame though, as he had put on a ridiculous amount of weight since the end of last season, and although he had scored some important goals for us and was a useful player, Manager Tony McKay simply couldn't start him because he was too unfit to chase back whenever he lost the ball...and quite rightly, Tony will not have anybody in his team who cannot do that. We also have several other players who are not as fit as they were last season though, but that is not because we are unable to have midweek training sessions due to most of our players living all over London and South-West Essex. It is because they eat the wrong things and do not have time to play 5-a-side, go out running, or down the gym of their own accord. Churchbury's players were obviously quite the opposite, particularly the new young players they had After the Churchbury match, our next game on the 29th October was in the London FA Sunday Junior Cup where we took on KOPA (Cypriot Community) League team Panathinaikos at Home in a game we expected to win as they were bottom of the bottom division of that League. For this one we had a proper goalkeeper for a change with Grant Baker making himself available, while Ayo Matthews and Leon McKenzie-McKay were both able to play a full match after their recent injury problems had cleared up. However, we were missing at least four players who would normally be in the starting line-up plus two or three others who would have been in the squad of 16, so that saw Chris Lue having to come in as a left-back while Andreas Kriticos also got a rare start. We were also left with only three substitutes, although as the London FA Sunday Cup rules are different to the Barnet Sunday League and only three can be used (with no roll-on, roll-off) anyway, that didn't matter too much. However, Grant ended up being sent off for a last-man challenge outside his area in the 27th minute when we were already 1-0 down, and with Panathinaikos making it 2-0 from the resulting free-kick, we were always going to lose the game thereafter with only 10 men and with central defender Harold Ofori having to go in goal for the rest of the match. We therefore ended up suffering another 5-0 defeat, although we were a bit unlucky to lose by that sort of margin as we had no luck with refereeing decisions while our opponents scored all their goals from only six clear-cut chances created. Also, it was sods law that we had a player sent off in a London Cup game where those different substitution rules are in place. If it was a League Cup match (and if we had five substitutes actually available !), we could have made loads of roll-on, roll-off substitutions to give most of our remaining 10 men a breather, then we may not have lost by such a margin or maybe even nicked a draw and won on penalties. We ended up not having a single shot on target in the end, and that was mainly because our players were simply to unfit and too tired to create anything. We just had no 'zip and pace' going forward at all, in stark contrast to last season. With Daniel Cascoe (Metatarsal) and Curtis Baalam (Ribs) having already broken bones in Pre-Season and missing our first few League matches, Leon's injury and our wretched run of form...which includes a lot of bad luck, certainly brings back memories of what happened to us way back in 1980, when after winning Division 8 of the Edmonton Sunday League with a settled side of quality players, for the start of the following season we lost our most influential and skilful left-sided player Kieran McGregor to University, while key midfielder Dave Thomas emigrated to New Zealand and two or three others either started going down with long niggling injuries or couldn't play as often due to other commitments. We even had two players (Left-Back Tony Tombling and goalkeeper Ralph Lake) breaking their legs in the same match early on during that following season ! Ralph's was a bad break and he never played for us again, but Tony actually played on for a while with his injury until a fracture was discovered with an x-ray later. As a result of all those problems, we used twice as many players that season as we did the season before, subsequently finishing just below mid-table because we just didn't have the same teamwork, while the new players we brought in were decent but not quite as good as those who had left, and of course the teams we were playing were more organised, and also fitter & stronger. There are so many similarities with what is happening to us now, it is untrue !! Aiden going to University, Connor going to live in China, Khaheem, Johan, Hal and others all 'gone', Curtis & Cascoe suffering injuries in Pre-Season, and now Leon crocked. We did eventually improve and get promoted again a couple of seasons later back in those early '80's days, but we had to suffer like this first and just grind things out by nicking points here and there to make sure we did not get relegated, and at the moment it looks likely that will be the story of our season again this time. Understandably, when teams start losing, as we well know from our Waltham League days, players will start to complain about anything. The main gripe at the moment is when they are substituted...and that is all because we are losing. To outsiders watching the highlights on You Tube, it looks like substituted players are the culprits when they get taken off (even though it is nearly always just to give one of our five subs a game) and it looks bad. However, if they are taken off when we are winning, on You Tube it comes across as if they are being brought off to give others a game because they are ‘the hero’ and to deserve their round of applause. The players being taken off are always our attacking midfield players and forwards because they are the ones who are supposed to be doing the most running and pressing. A lot of them are not fit enough to last 90 minutes anyway, but the reason for that is they never get 90 minutes because we always have five substitutes, all of whom can be used...and they will all expect to be used. If they are not, or they only get less than 20 minutes every match, then they will leave, especially if we are losing every week. When we are winning every week, the regular subs don’t mind as much because they will have a medal at the end of the season. There is no easy answer to this though. If Tony started our eleven ‘least fittest’ players every week and gave them all 90 minutes without using any subs, we would lose too many games before they are fit enough to win games, and we would end up fighting a relegation battle. The current League leaders The Winchmore (who we are playing in our next match) turn up with the same 13-14 players every week, so they are all match fit. We have used 27 players in our League matches already. So have FC Lokomotiv Thunder, and that is why we are both struggling. What happens to these teams who only have a squad of 14 regular players though is as soon as they start losing, players stop turning up and they then fold. That is the situation we found ourselves in in the Waltham League where we regularly played with a bare eleven or less, and we certainly do not want to go back to that again. We have no choice but to name squads of 16 and give all five subs a game to keep them interested. That is why we tell players to do their own personal fitness during the week instead of just relying on playing a 90-minute match every Sunday. With these current injury problems, players from last season no longer being available, and a lot of players from this Pre-Season not yet playing well enough to keep their place in the side, we are of course now looking to bring in more new players to see if they can get us out of this mini-slump, but one of the problems that losing clubs have at this time of year is that most players currently looking for a club are those who are not good enough to get a game for their current team. They then get taken on and make the performances even worse. Then by the first week of March, those teams have lost even more players and start having to concede matches because they are not in contention to win anything. They would therefore take on any players just to make sure they survive the season, but the registration deadline for all Leagues is the 1st March, so clubs that lose every week then end up folding through a lack of players because they cannot sign any more on. This happens more and more nowadays because the standard of Sunday football is higher. Every team is organised and plays to win. It is no longer a game played for fun where everyone gets a game on a sort of rota system (like it is at AFA 8th XI level on Saturdays). We therefore MUST start winning again, or at least get through to a Cup Semi-Final in order to keep our best players interested for the rest of the season. Finally, straight after our last match Away to FC Lokomotiv Thunder, I was approached by a female member of the groundstaff at the venue we were playing at, Highgate Woods, and told that I should not have been filming the game because I had not paid the City Of London Corporation for a permit to do so. The Player-Manager of FC Lokomotiv Thunder was standing with me at the time, and he had no idea that was the rules & regulations...and they (along with Hornsey & Highgate) have been playing there for years. I also had the same scenario the day before when I filmed a match for United London FC on one of the 3G pitches at Market Road in Islington. Again, the groundsman in charge told me I had to pay for a permit. Yes, I was filming professionally in so much as using a tripod and professional equipment as opposed to just standing there with a hand-held palmcorder or a mobile phone, but I was told by both that even hand-held filming & photography by anybody at these venues required a permit, even if all we are doing is filming for our own performance analysis, which is primarily what we film our games for anyway, albeit putting highlights on You Tube as well. Clearly, both those groundspersons and their employers think that the popularity of You Tube and the success of Palmers, Hashtag United & SE Dons in having several thousands of subscribers viewing their matches on there means that any Sunday League team that films their matches 'must be' making a big profit, and that the local Councils whose pitches these teams are playing on 'deserve' a cut of those profits. Well, that is certainly not the case with us. Our matches only attract an average of 500 views per game on You Tube (compared to the 90,000 views per match that Palmers get), and I don't earn a penny out of that. I do not get paid for filming and editing our matches either. It is all done voluntarily to help keep the club alive by attracting new players and sponsors. I have no idea at the moment how much this filming permit from the City Of London Corporation costs, but what it will do is force clubs to stop filming, then those clubs will not get new players and sponsors, then they will run out of money and fold, so the pitches will then not get hired anyway ! It is a ridiculous and brainless situation, and I hope that they see sense before we play Hornsey & Highgate at that venue later in the season. |
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CHAIRMAN’S BLOG - Wednesday 3rd January 2018 |
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Our first game after Leon suffered his broken ankle Away to FC Lokomotiv Thunder in early November looked a Tony therefore decided to keep that new formation for our match Away to mid-table Edmonton Blades at Enfield Playing Fields the following Sunday, but unfortunately Tyronne Petrie and Anees Ikramullah were both unavailable for that one, so Daniel Cascoe was therefore given his first start of the season alongside Curtis in the centre of midfield while new signing Josh Odukoya came in to replace Anees with another new signing in Tobi Michaels on the bench alongside Khaheem McKenzie, who was available for the first time since the end of the previous season after various work commitments. With Edmonton Blades being one of those 'manic pressing' sides though, a badly unfit Cascoe just couldn't cope with that, and although he scored a good goal for us with a bullet header from a corner, he had to be replaced early in the Second Half...by Khaheem, who was even more unfit ! We had already had to suffer Ayo Matthews pulling his hamstring again just 40 seconds into the match and Daniel Daley breaking down in the pre-match warm-up, but Cascoe & Khaheem's lack of fitness meant we were nowhere near strong enough to compete for 90 minutes and we were effectively playing with 10½ men all match with Blades' super-fit attacking players forcing our defenders (and goalkeeper Grant Baker) into some horrendous mistakes as we crashed to a 6-2 defeat, albeit after being the better side for most of the First Half up until we went 3-2 down in the 38th minute. In fact we certainly didn't deserve to lose by such a wide margin and we had no luck at all with Blades really making the most of their chances. A draw or even a narrow one-goal win for us might have been a fairer scoreline on the balance of play, but we really had a shocker defensively. As we had now failed to win in our last five League matches, winning the Division One title was probably already out of the question, so with two Cup matches coming up, it was time to concentrate on them instead as a chance for us to win a trophy this season. The first of those two Cup games came on the 26th November when we played at Home to Premier Division side Highgate Albion Reserves in the Second Round of the League Senior Cup. Although our opponents were in the lower half of the table and in a bit of disarray due to a sudden change of Club Secretary which resulted in them turning up late and with just a bare eleven, they did appear to be fielding their strongest side while we were most certainly not...which had been the case for most of the season so far. For this one we had no less than 16 players unavailable and we were only able to name three substitutes instead of our normal five. In fact we were fielding so many new players that Manager McKay couldn't remember all their names and had to call them by the numbers on their shorts when they were facing him ! In addition to that, we had four others in the starting line-up (including goalkeeper Stephen Roussety) who were getting a rare game, while Ayo Matthews and Khaheem McKenzie, two of our 'star players' from last season were only fit enough for a place on the bench. Although we were unlucky against Edmonton Blades the week before, Tony decided to go back to the 4-2-3-1 formation for this one as we fielded a completely new front four of Tom Croake, Rhys McKay and new signings Ben Culora and Tre Maxwell, both of whom were making their debuts. As we are unable to have training sessions in midweek, we knew that a lack of teamwork between those four was going to be a problem, but what they did give us was youth (with an average age of 21), fitness and work-rate. Because of that...and two good goals from Tom Croake just before Half-Time, we managed to battle our way against all the odds to earn a 2-2 draw after 90 minutes, but with no Extra-Time any more where us having three substitutes (compared to Highgate's bare eleven) could have made a difference, the game had to be decided on penalties where we once again had a nightmare as we did on three occasions last season. This time, bad misses from Harold Ofori and Khaheem McKenzie saw us crash out as Highgate's players easily converted all their attempts. Admittedly though, we did ride our luck quite a bit in the Second Half of this match because we had so many new players playing who had come from a 5-a-side background and had not played 90 minutes for 'years'. As 5-a-side matches do not last any more than 50 minutes, that was when they started 'conking out' ! For what turned out to be our last game before Christmas on the 3rd December in the League Junior Cup against Zenit St. Whetstone, we once again had a ridiculous amount of players making themselves unavailable, but at least we were boosted by Tyronne Petrie, Anees Ikramullah, Ivan Bass & Curtis Baalam all returning to the starting line-up after missing the Highgate Albion Reserves match the week before. However, they were all defenders or defensive midfielders, as were our four players on the bench in Taurean Bryan, Vishal Patel, Andreas Kriticos and another new signing in Jamie Mehmet. From an attacking viewpoint we only had the same attacking midfield three and lone striker as we had the week before with no alternatives to come on for them this time if we needed to come from behind and score goals. For this match though, Manager McKay took a gamble and played central defender Ivan Bass as a holding midfielder where he then turned out to be like a fish out of water, although none of our players could be proud of their performances as we crashed to a 6-0 defeat in a game where we were thoroughly outplayed by our in-form and unbeaten Division Two opponents who were well fired up for the match. In fact Zenit's Manager even told me the reason they had re-joined the League this season after a three-year absence was in hope of playing us because we professionally film the matches and put the highlights on You Tube, and also because we play at a quality venue and on a pitch which is easily the best in the League. They therefore turned up with a full-strength side including a couple of F2 Freestylers-type 'ballers' who do not normally play and who literally ran rings around our ageing and/or cumbersome defenders. Typically, Zenit then went and lost to Highgate Albion Reserves the following week (who we only lost to on penalties) because of players not turning up due to that match not being filmed and not being played on a bowling green of a pitch. It was a classic example of what I spoke about in a previous Chairman's Blog where if it was last season (when we had a settled side and were winning every week), Zenit's 'star' players would not have turned up for fear of being humiliated on You Tube, but this season opposing teams can see that we are struggling, so they all turn up with a full-strength side because they know they are going to win on You Tube. We then find it extremely difficult to break that cycle of defeats because our opponents are always at full-strength (unlike last season), so a lot of our players then leave because they don't like losing on You Tube and we are then stuck in a rut of having a relegation battle year after year like we had in the Waltham Sunday League for 12 long seasons. These are all things that we can gradually put right once we start playing again though, and certainly one thing that we will be looking at in addition to that is having Tony naming his starting line-up and doing his team-talk for each match BEFORE we start the warm-up. The reason he has always left it until after the warm-up up until now is to make sure that our substitutes (and others who are not in the squad but need a fitness test) all warm-up as well...thinking that they won't bother if they already know they are not starting the game. That way of doing it also allowed for the teamsheet to be filled in at the last minute so that latecomers could be included. However, with our goalkeeping Coach Bob Cleary unable to arrive for matches until 20 minutes before the kick-off, it meant he only had 10-15 minutes with whoever was in goal, so if the team-talk is done before the warm-up, that will give Bob an extra 5-10 minutes, which could make a big difference...as it will be for Tony in having time to instruct players on tactics and who is doing what from corners & set-pieces. It will also stop the farcical situation we have at the moment where because of the League's annoying rule regarding players having to sign the teamsheet, they all find out from that teamsheet what the starting line-up is before Tony has announced it ! From now on, the team will be announced before the teamsheet is filled in. Let's just hope that the weather holds up before our next match on the 6th January and we can put these ideas into practice. |
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CHAIRMAN’S BLOG - Thursday 8th March 2018 |
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CHAIRMAN’S BLOG - Thursday 19th July 2018 |
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We then played our final League match of the season the following week Away to Hornsey & Highgate at Highgate Woods, but with nothing at stake in what was a lower-mid-table skirmish, both sides turned up badly under-strength with Hornsey & Highgate only able to field 10 men while we ourselves were down to just 19 interested players from the 54 we had registered. With five of those 19 unavailable for this particular match, we once again fielded a drastically-changed side from the previous week with numerous players in the squad of 14 not having played on a regular basis for several months due to other commitments and injuries, which had been the story of our season. The match was full of mis-kicks by our players because of rustiness, while Tyronne Petrie scored an Own Goal to give Hornsey & Highgate the lead and we were then embarrassingly outpaced for their second goal which gave their 10 men a 2-0 victory and ourselves an unwanted record of just two wins in 20 matches. At least we were not turning up with only 10 men or less ourselves…as used to happen quite frequently at the end of the season in our Waltham League days when we were stuck in the lower half of the table with nothing to play for, but the signs were alarming nonetheless when we had been such a good team the season before. On Sunday 22nd April we played Away to Bangladeshi side Burdett at Hackney Marshes in the Quarter-Final of the Inter-League Challenge Cup and came away with a 4-1 victory which was our best performance since we beat New Barnet 5-0 back in September (2017) ! The reason for that was undoubtedly because the match was not being filmed when Burdett were looking forward to seeing themselves on You Tube, therefore leaving their players deflated…although in truth they were not a good side compared to what we had been playing against in the Barnet Sunday League all season. It also relaxed our own players as a number of them had been under fire from various You Tube trolls commenting about their poor recent performances, and sods law we ended up scoring at least three Goal Of The Season contenders as a result. The reason I was unable to film the match was because it was arranged at very short notice and I had already been booked to film a Cup Final elsewhere, therefore having to leave the match well before the end. There was no real point in just filming the First Half only, and we were treating the game more as a Friendly anyway as we were not expecting to progress to the Final. The positive result changed our way of thinking though, and for the Semi-Final against Hackney & Leyton Sunday League Division One side Boston Celtics on the 20th May we very much wanted to field a strong side and win the game to give us the chance of some unexpected silverware. However, it had been four weeks since we played a game and a large number of our players were already in Summer holiday mode, especially as the current heatwave had already begun. We ended up missing nine players in the end, six of whom would have been in the starting line-up had they been available, so as had so often happened during the season, we therefore had to field a side where numerous players had never met each other before, and indeed the inclusion of Ralph Katikaza and Nathan Allen for their Rovers debuts took our total number of players used for the season to a ridiculous 60 ! Although our fitness levels were good and we competed well, we just didn’t have the teamwork to create enough chances once Boston Celtics had gone into a 2-0 lead and our season ended as a rather predictable ‘damp squib’. As in so many of our matches this season, it was that lack of teamwork that was the main problem, which was undoubtedly caused by not having midweek training sessions and having so many players not showing any loyalty whatsoever and leaving the club…invariably without paying any subs…after just a couple of bad defeats where their mates had laughed at them losing and making mistakes on You Tube. With only four players having played in over 75% of our matches this season, we were never really going to have a chance of winning a trophy this time. Although our players always competed well and didn’t give up in any game we played throughout the course of the season, it was the lack of ideas in the final third and our main striker Ayo Matthews being half-injured for most of the season that cost us dear. Indeed the last time we scored more than two goals in a match on You Tube was way back on the 8th November, which was when skipper Leon McKenzie-McKay broke his ankle and played his last game of the season. That was On Friday 22nd June, we had our Annual General Meeting where a number of new rules and regulations were agreed for the coming 2018-2019 Season. That included not allowing new players to play unless we had seen them in training (or playing for other teams) first and charging them a £40 Annual Subscription (instead of the £10 ‘signing-on fee’ we charged last season) to stop them leaving after two matches without paying any match fees...as happened frequently last season. Those new players will then not be allowed to play in League or Cup matches until they pay those Annual Subs and they will not be allowed to play in a second Pre-Season Friendly until they have paid for playing in the first one. Yes, we might lose every week from fielding a weakened side but at least the club will not fold up (like many others do) from players not paying their subs. We are more likely to win with a settled squad of the same 14-16 players turning up every week anyway rather than signing up 60 different players, several of whom are quality but then leave after only two matches if they have lost or made individual mistakes on You Tube. We have had a major clear-out of players for the new season, retaining only 21 from last season in our players WhatsApp Group, but well over half of those are unlikely to be available on a regular basis, while two of them (Anees Ikramullah and Nana Obeng) will be leaving us at the end of August anyway to move up North for work in Anees’s case and abroad in Nana’s. We do not have any new players signed up at all yet because those who played in the Friendlies and Inter-League Cup matches towards the end of last season have not turned up to Pre-Season Training, while the large majority of prospective new players who have been texting, tweeting and e-mailing myself and Manager Tony McKay so far this Summer have either been cast-offs from other Sunday clubs where they are not good enough to get a game, players from abroad who think we are a professional club who are going to arrange a visa for them and then pay them to play, or a number of disabled (deaf and/or learning disability) players who appear to have been mischievously advised by somebody on social media that we are a Disability Club, probably because of the horrendous mistakes our players were making on You Tube last season. Of course it could just be the Football Association encouraging ‘inclusivity’, but that is ridiculous if it is. Even some Charter-Standard clubs do not have club officials who have been trained in sign language or how to deal with mental health problems, so how can a ‘one-man-band Pub team’ like ourselves (only running one adult team) be expected to cope with that ? It is hard to tell disabled players that we cannot take them on, but unfortunately we have no choice but to tell them that because it would be cruel to allow them to play at our level. |
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ly successful season and well-attended Annual General Meeting in late June, we began our Pre-Season training for the new 2017-2018 campaign in early July with some Sunday morning and Wednesday evening sessions before playing the first of five Pre-Season Friendlies from Sunday 6th August until Sunday 3rd September. For each of those five Friendly matches we had a squad of at least 16 players, and for most of them we had 18 or 19 turn up, which is certainly unheard of compared to any previous season where for most of our Pre-Season games we would only have one or two substitutes available due to holidays and social commitments. The Wednesday evening training sessions though...which we tried to continue throughout August...were far more of a problem because the large majority of new players being brought along were neighbours of our many Ilford/East London/South-West Essex-based players and it was impossible for them to get to Enfield Playing Fields until less than an hour before sunset. As we were training for free without lights due to the ridiculous expense of hiring a floodlit 3G pitch, there was simply no point in them turning up, and indeed living too far away will be the situation throughout the season as well and we will therefore not be training in midweek again. Not that it affected us last season anyway, and we are trusting our players to keep their fitness levels up of their own accord.
lose 2-1 though, which was seen as a good result. We then took on another ex-Waltham League side in 
ew Barnet, we still fielded a squad of 16 who were raring to go, mainly because we were able to wear our new kit for the first time, this being sponsored by Anthonisz Neville LLP Chartered Accountants courtesy of Manager Tony McKay's wife Dawn. This was a custom-designed green & black kit purchased from KitUK.net and it looks really smart. It is a short-sleeved kit, which is the first time we have had that since the mid-1980's when we wore a grey Newcastle United Away shirt for a couple of seasons, and we have also deliberately had numbers printed on the shorts to stop players from taking them home with them after matches, which was a massive problem we had with all our previous kits when we had no idea who the culprits were and the shorts were never returned. That won't happen any more as the evidence as to who was wearing what number is now all on video for every match ! The only problem with the shirts (and the socks) is that the custom colour chart for our online order had three different shades of green. We chose the middle (normal green) colour for the bulk of the shirt and the lighter green for the three chevrons on the right-hand side. However, we were sent the shirts and socks in a dark 
signed up who ran us ragged in this match. We also had a couple of other things go wrong in that Churchbury match. Firstly, our substitutes were all wearing yellow bibs over the top of their Bristol Street Motors-sponsored rain jackets during the game because they used them during a pre-match warm-up drill and then forgot to take them off. In normal circumstances that sponsor (which is actually our Player-Assistant Manager Tyronne Petrie) would have been furious at having that sponsorship logo on the back of the jackets covered up and therefore invisible on the You Tube highlights, but bearing in mind the result and our dreadful performance, maybe it was a good idea in the end ! Secondly in that match, we lost one of our match balls during the warm-up as the near gale-force wind blew it in amongst Churchbury's supporters further down the touchline. None of our players, management or supporters realised it was ours because it was one of the two black & white Adidas balls that each club had been given by the League, so Churchbury had two of the same as well. We do of course write the club's name on all our match balls, but Adidas balls all have those small hexagonal panels which are impossible to write across, so it has to be done in very small writing on just one panel and is very diffi
cult to spot. When Lexton Harrison went over there on the final whistle to see if any of those balls had our name on, he said they didn't, so that was that. The ball had 'gone'. Of course what happens in Sunday League football is that if somebody comes up asking 'Have you got our match ball mate ?', you hide it and say 'No. Maybe it went in the bushes over there ?'. That is standard practice and we have done it ourselves many times when one inadvertently comes our way. It then gets used at venues where the team whose name is written on the ball are not likely to be playing at. However, the problem then is when that ball is nowhere near as good as the one you previously lost !
n almost impossible task for us as we took on unbeaten Division One leaders The Winchmore on Norsemen's First XI pitch at our own Home ground on the 12th November. This was The Winchmore's Home match having just been given that pitch at the Edmonton Sports & Social Club on a regular basis, and as such, they were extremely fired up for what was a big local derby. It was the first time we had played them, but we were well aware of the 'complaints' from certain other teams in the division that The Winchmore's style of play was very much the 'old school White-Brit Pub Team'-mentality of big blokes (including some with beer bellies) getting stuck in with late physical challenges and a lot of 'clever' off-the-ball stuff such as treading on feet and digging elbows into the ribs, but at the same time all being comfortable on the ball and capable of 'pinging it about' with long diagonals over the top of defences playing a high line. That sort of football was what we used to play against whenever we faced highly-successful teams in the Waltham Sunday League such as Upshire, Flamstead End & AFC Cheshunt (to name but three), while back in our Haringey & Tottenham Sunday League and Edmonton Sunday League days many years ago, pretty much every team used to play like that. In the Barnet Sunday League though, most teams we have played in our 18 months of membership so far have been either very friendly and sporting with more of an 'AFA 8th XI' mentality or, mirroring what they see in the Premier League on TV nowadays, have played a pressing game at a furious pace, giving our defenders and midfielders no time on the ball whatsoever...which was how we lost two successive matches by 5-0 scorelines to Churchbury and Panathinaikos only a few weeks earlier. The Winchmore's style of play turned out to be right up our street as we fielded an experienced, intelligent and physically strong side, most of whom had seen it all before, and we therefore managed to come away with a goalless draw, which was very much a shock result at the time on current form. It helped a lot that we had Grant Baker in goal instead of an outfield player, we were starting with our first-choice back four of Lexton Harrison, Ivan Bass, Harold Ofori & Miles Levy, we had Tyronne Petrie & Curtis Baalam in the centre of midfield and Ayo Matthews' dodgy hamstring held up on this occasion for him to play a full 90 minutes up front. Manager Tony McKay can also take the credit for this one for deciding to switch from his usual 4-2-3-1 to a 4-4-1-1 formation and putting in Anees Ikramullah & Vishal Patel as wide midfielders who were always going to tuck inside and make us nice and compact with 'two banks of four' in there defensively, while George House was played in a free role behind Ayo...where he then ended up having his best match for us so far. Admittedly we were helped by a gale-force wind making it easier to defend than getting in shots on target, but it was a very encouragin
g performance nonetheless.
usiness going and it also keeps Edmonton Rovers going. Of course that then resulted in James Gibbs leaving the club as soon as those highlights went online and various trolls then started commenting about his performance, which included a lot of hesitancy in coming off his line and bad positioning in general, but most of all his attempts at launching drop-kicks downfield, which were in the style of goalkeepers at all levels of the game when we first formed the club 40 years ago whereby the ball was kicked straight ahead with a straight leg while facing straight down the pitch, with it then looping high up in the sky and just about reaching the half-way line. If you watch The Big Match Revisited from the mid-1970's that show on BT Sport as filler programmes during daytime hours, you will see every goalkeeper doing that while wearing a plain green shirt and no gloves, while rubbing their hands in the mud and spitting on them for grip. They also never came out of their areas and played as 'sweeper-keepers', albeit because they were allowed to pick up back-passes in those days, but watching James in his two matches for us certainly brought back memories for myself and Tony as to what all goalkeepers were like when we used to play. Unfortunately for us, all the outfield players we have been having to put in goal this season have been kicking the ball in the same way and cannot get their goal-kicks driven more than about 20 yards either ! Our first-choice Grant Baker is the only one we have who plays like a properly-coached modern goalkeeper where he is quick on his feet to come off his line and catch through balls on the bounce and drill his drop-kicks low, hard and direct using the Pepe Reina side-volley technique. Every goalkeeper at professional and Semi-Professional level plays like that nowadays, and virtually every team we play against at Sunday League level has a goalkeeper coached to play in that same style. Although James was actually a top bloke and a good character, it does baffle me as to why players...and he is not the only one we have had join us and then leave this season...tell us they have played for this or that pro club academy or Semi-Pro club when they clearly haven't. If they did, then it must have either just been for a few weeks before they were coached how to play the game properly, or they just attended Soccer Schools run by those clubs during Half-Term where all they teach outfield players is how to do various tricks & flicks, and all the goalkeepers do is just stand between the sticks and face a barrage of shots. In most cases, I suspect these players joining us from that background are also seriously underestimating the standard of adult men's Sunday football where they think it is for 'anyone' irrespective of ability and fitness. Unfortunately it is not like that any more, and that is why the F.A. brought in the 'Just Play' and 'Flexible Football' initiatives for those sort of players.
a team with a similar record to us, and who we had drawn 3-3 with back in November. Unfortunately though, the atrocious weather this winter had ruined the pitch and it was nothing like the bowling green we were playing on all last season. We also had no Grant, no Taurean and no sign of any proper goalkeeper being signed up to replace James Gibbs, so that saw Lexton Harrison having to 'volunteer' to go in goal again and it was all about how well we could play as a team to protect him in trying to nick that elusive win. Even though we had eleven 'good enough' players unavailable, we still had a strong squad of 16 for this one (apart from Lexton in goal), so we were confident going into the game on the back of our much-improved performances against Grange Park the week before. The squad included another new signing in midfielder Tyriquee Solomon who was named as one of the substitutes, while this time we brought a large tactics board along for the first time in Tony's reign as Manager to help with explaining various things to our numerous new players. Daniel Daley certainly enjoyed that, showing some good ideas on the board during the Half-Time interval in particular that could see him maybe become a future Rovers Assistant Manager/Coach in the future. Who knows ?! FC Lokomotiv Thunder had beaten second-placed Churchbury 4-0 in their previous match despite playing the whole game with only 10 men and they were the better side early on as we struggled to string two passes together on the churned-up pitch and ended up being vulnerable to the long ball over the top from losing possession too easily. That was how they went 1-0 up after just 16 minutes, but after Jack Bangs equalised just four minutes later we thought we might have a chance of getting the three points. However, FC Loko went 2-1 up in the 60th minute and led right up until the last kick of the match when substitute Nana Obeng managed to equalise for us with a good finish from fellow substitute Daniel Daley's low cross. In fact it was the introduction of all our substitutes at various stages of the Second Half that improved our performance greatly and earnt us the point because we were not playing well at all before that. The reason for that was too many of our players thinking our opponents would be rubbish just because a lot of them were wearing different coloured shorts and didn't have their socks pulled up properly. They had several scruffy and ungainly-looking players, but as we know from previous experiences, appearances can certainly be deceptive in Sunday football. FC Loko were unbeaten in nine matches and had also beaten Premier Division leaders Highgate Albion 1-0 in a Cup match earlier this season. They were all fit, strong and competitive and also had better teamwork than us, particularly defensively where our back four of Sam Woolley, Jamie Mehmet, Harold Ofori and Brandon Solomon were all over the place at times and made some bad individual errors as well. However, that was clearly because we were having to chop and change our starting line-up every match due to mass player unavailability. We badly needed to find a settled team as soon as possible, and especially a regular back four.
t before…although none of them ever admitted that of course, while Oshade Watson had to play whilst leaving his toddler son unattended on the touchline. With our only available substitute Ivan Bass and Manager McKay both concentrating on the game, Assistant Manager Roderick Bennett having to run the line (because Bob Cleary had to Referee the game at the last minute again) and myself filming the game as usual, that saw our water bottles all being emptied before Half-Time, our players named magnetic discs from the tactics board all being ripped off and thrown away into the mud…or into a dustbin in some players’ cases (depending on how they were playing in the match ?), and the ladder-platform for filming being eyed up as a climbing frame. Thankfully, Manager McKay managed to stop that last one from happening in the nick of time, while on the pitch, substitute Bass had come on to grab a second goal for us to kill off the game, scoring with a trademark header from a typically perfect-delivered corner from Jack Bangs. Oshade then came off the pitch at the end to retrieve his own magnetic disc from the dustbin and everybody was happy again. Another thing that was noticeable from this game was that when Ivan scored our second goal (to put us 2-0 up with 13 minutes to go), he 
another player we missed really badly.
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TEAM PHOTO |
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Back Row (L-R): Ayo Matthews, Rhys McKay, Lexton Harrison, Daniel Cascoe, Ivan Bass, Grant Baker (GK), Stephen Roussety (GK), Harold Ofori, Leon McKenzie-McKay, Taurean Bryan, Andreas Kriticos, Tyronne Petrie Front Row (L-R): Jack Bangs, Curtis Baalam, Anees Ikramullah, Daniel Daley, Vishal Patel, Haluk Ozkan, Tom Croake, Miles Levy |
