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THE SUNDAY LEAGUE TEAM WHO HAVE BEEN |
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ARCHIVE CHAIRMAN'S BLOGS FROM PREVIOUS SEASONS |
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CHAIRMAN’S BLOG - January 2024 |
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After finishing the 202 Our first and only Pre-Season Friendly was played on Sunday 1st September once most of our players had returned from their holidays and it was against our regular Pre-Season opponents Estudiantes London on the 3G pitch at the College of North-East London (CONEL) in Enfield. Unfortunately though, CONEL’s caretaker overslept and didn’t open the gates for us until 45 minutes after we had arrived, so the game kicked off 25 minutes late and had to be played against Estudiantes Elite team instead of their Development team as had been originally planned. The problem with that was their Elite team had been training and playing all throughout the Summer and against the Under-23 Academy teams of top-flight professional clubs both at home and abroad with their previous match seeing them only losing by a one-goal margin to PSV Eindhoven ! Not surprisingly that saw us losing 6-1 with 20 minutes still remaining before the Referee was mercifully forced to call a halt due to the Caretaker’s lateness and other teams turning up who had booked the pitch at mid-day. Although there was a big difference in fitness and intensity between the two sides, it was still a useful exercise for our players to play against a team of Step 2-5 Semi-Pro players as we knew that our opponents in Division Four this season wouldn’t be at that level.
Our first League match of the season the following Sunday was against an unknown quantity in new team East City though and they turned out to be a very well-organised side with some useful attacking midfielders. Indeed we rode our luck a bit, especially in the Second Half as our lack of Pre-Season Friendly matches started to show, and we had to rely on an Injury Time penalty from new signing Leo Panayiotou to give us the three points in a 1-0 win. This match actually saw us name seven substitutes…which was now being allowed this season by the League with all seven able to be used on a roll-on, roll-off basis…and that was despite us missing midfielder Frankie George and attacking players Rashawn Bennett-Dyer and Jordan Amusan. Our increasingly strong-looking squad then travelled to face last season’s Division Five Champions London Orient in our next match, but this time their pitch at Bethune Park was in perfect condition instead of the mud-bath it usually is, while they were also missing their top scorer and long throw expert Marius Rusu which meant they were unable to take advantage of the touchlines being marked out only a yard away from the edge of the penalty areas. Our extra fitness against an ageing side who were reduced to 10 men half-way through the Second Half due to verbal abuse of the Referee saw us gain another three points with a 3-0 win that briefly saw us top of the table with two wins out of two, no goals conceded and with every other team in the division having dropped points already. On Sunday 22nd September we then played our first match at our new Home Ground for this season, namely Pitch 3 at Clowes Sports Ground in Winchmore Hill. This venue had been chosen in preference to Pitch 3 at Enfield Playing Fields where badly scuffed-up areas from people having kickabouts in the goalmouth had caused a lot of waterlogging and had not allowed the grass to be cut, which was no help to the type of passing football that we wanted to play, although the pitch we used at Hazelwood Sports Ground for 31 years was also notorious for that and something we always used to put up with. Our opponents were North West Wolves, a side who we had lost 21-0 to the last time we played them (in the 2022-2023 Season) when we had to field two players in their 60’s and we only had nine men on the pitch for most of the game. This time it was a Second Round match in the Roger Jones Senior Challenge Cup, which is for all teams in the League, but although we were able to get revenge for that record defeat with a 6-3 win against another understrength team fielding just a bare eleven, it was a bit ‘boring’ that we were drawn against a team from our own division, which is something that seems to happen to us in the First (or Second) Rounds of every League Cup we enter season after season. We had a much tougher match the following Sunday though when we travelled to Mill Hill to face Mill Hill Club De Futbol Seconds in our third League match of the season. With their First Team not having a match and ourselves top of the table with a 100% record, Mill Hill CDF took the chance to bend the League rules to their advantage by fielding eight First Team players in their squad of 15, this being allowed because it was early in the season and their First Team…a mid-table side in the Premier Division… had not yet played three League matches that would have disqualified any more than two of them who had played in all three of those games. Although we still played well enough to be leading 2-0 at Half-Time, Mill Hill CDF brought on three more quality First Team players for the Second Half after starting with five of the eight and they ended up beating us 5-2 as some of our still-young players heads went down. There was a bit of ranting and raving amongst our players on the final whistle as we surrendered our position at the top of the table after this result, but we were actually missing numerous regulars and it was possible we may even have got a result had they been playing. Our first game of October then saw us play a Home League game against an AC Finchley side who were also fielding a large number of players with Premier Division experience, just as they had when we faced them in a Cup game last season and ended up losing 4-1. With us fielding a side that was far from full-strength once again, we found ourselves 2-0 down at Half-Time, but we then brought on Myreon Keane for the start of the Second Half after he had missed our previous two matches while central defender Natan Pawlaczyk also came on at the break to play a now rare game with work as a labourer alongside his father now taking up most of his time. Those two changes made a big difference and we managed to stage a great comeback to draw 2-2 and regain our place at the top of the table with Myreon scoring an 89th minute equaliser.
Our next match on Sunday 13th October saw us take on unbeaten Division One side Real Menza in the Roger Jones Senior Challenge Cup for the second season running, this time in the Third Round instead of the Second and with an afternoon kick-off at Enfield Playing Fields thanks to us not having our Home pitch at Clowes Sports Ground available. Having beaten us 4-1 in that game last season, Real Menza took liberties by leaving their two best players on the bench and giving others a run-out, not realising that we had improved considerably since we last played them. That saw us take the lead through skipper Charlie Savage after just 54 seconds and then defend superbly for the rest of the First Half with Josh Wakeford only having one (fairly easy) save to make. Menza then should have had their goalkeeper sent off right on the Half-Time whistle for bringing down Myreon Keane when he was clean through, but the Referee gave him the benefit of the doubt, then when their substitute, Player-Manager and best player Mohamed Elmi came on for the start of the Second Half to change the game, we suffered more bad luck when the Referee failed to spot two of Elmi’s three goals…including a last-minute winner in a 3-2 defeat for us…being handballs which although not deliberate, should have meant the goals were both disallowed going by the current rules. Without VAR at our level of the game though, it was impossible for the Referee to spot those offences and out we went. This game also ended up with us receiving a £115 fine from the London FA for ‘Failing To Control Our Players, Supporters & Club Officials’ after an argument during the Second Half between our Club Linesman for the day (Fergus Murray’s Dad John) and Real Menza’s Assistant Manager over a 50/50 throw-in that John gave to us when the Referee couldn’t decide which way to give it himself. The words ‘cheat’, ‘fat’ and ‘c**t* were all then used by them both as the players of both sides rushed in to separate them and it took 12 minutes before the game could be re-started. Incidents like this involving Club Linesmen being called a ‘cheat’ have of course been commonplace in Sunday League football for years and not just in this Country. In Holland they are actually scrapping offsides in adult mens amateur football because of it !!! Teams do it to try and intimidate the Club Linesman into giving them a decision their way ‘next time’, but invariably it ends in a mass brawl. Back in the 70’s, 80’s & 90’s though, these incidents rarely got reported by Referees because it was too much paperwork filling in hand-written forms and posting them off. Similarly with bookings and sending-offs. But nowadays it is so much easier to send in cautions & dismissals and report ‘misconduct’ because the online forms that Referees now have to complete after the match forces them to tick boxes before they can click on the ‘Next’ button. County F.A.’s also put much more pressure on Referees to report any sort of minor incident that they can then fine clubs exorbitant amounts for because the income they receive from fines pays their staff’s wages when the Premier League (or any other external funding) frustratingly does not. If they cannot issue fines, then they cannot employ staff. This is another big reason why so many adult Mens Sunday League clubs are forced to fold half-way through the season in addition to players losing interest too easily when they are playing for a losing team. Although we were still in second place in the Division Four table, even we ourselves were starting to field just bare elevens or only one substitute…who then invariably turned up half-way through the First Half…for our matches by the middle of October, and unfortunately that was the case when we played local pitch-sharing rivals AFC Edmonton for the first time in a top-of-the-table match at Clowes Sports Ground on the 20th October. With numerous players having other commitments and our opponents fielding a full-strength and fired-up side, we slumped to a 6-3 defeat which left us heading towards mid-table and needing to find new players from somewhere to boost the squad.
We were therefore very concerned coming into our Away game against an in-form Camden Lock side the following Sunday with an equal amount of players missing which included our Player-Manager and regular goalkeeper Josh Wakeford. Thankfully though, Whitewebbs Vets didn’t have a match so 36-year-old Ritchie Redgrave was able to help us out in that position as he has done for the past three seasons, while Chris Jordanou’s elder brother Jordan (a 27-year-old) was signed up to play as a makeshift right-back and push our average age way up past the normal 19. With Camden Lock fielding a full-strength side including six substitutes and numerous Step 4-6 players from Semi-Pro football on Saturdays, we looked to be really up against it again, but the boost of wearing a new blue & white striped Nike Away kit which was far more comfortable than our previous orange Away kit…and indeed our current green first-choice kit !…made our players feel ‘on top of the world’ and produce an excellent performance to win the game 4-3 with Myreon Keane scoring two spectacular goals after outpacing the Camden Lock defence and Jordan Jordanou making a difference to us with his calm passing out of defence. Some of our players wanted to wear that new Nike kit permanently after this performance but our club colours are green (or various shades of green) and always have been…apart from a spell in the 1980’s where we wore red shirts with green shorts & green socks…so I said NO ! We then played another Division Four match on the 3rd November against a North West Wolves side who had started to struggle after losing 6-3 to us in the Cup back in September, so even though we were still missing players and only had one substitute once again, we managed to win 8-4 this time with both Myreon Keane and Christian Ellis scoring hat-tricks. With two excellent wins in a row behind us and our next fixture Away to AC Finchley being a crucial match at the top of table between the second & third-placed sides, we really should have been fielding a full-strength side with our opponents doing exactly that and turning up with a full squad of 16 themselves. Instead, we had numerous players taking liberties by going out clubbing the night before and having very little sleep while others made themselves unavailable in the first place for that reason. We also had central defenders Fergus Murray, Natan Pawlaczyk & Michael Menzies all drop out at short notice because of injuries, work commitments and (presumably) forgetting to put an alarm on, so that meant midfielder Frankie George having to play as a makeshift centre-back while we yet again only had one substitute available. As we did on many occasions during the 1990’s though when most of our players pre-match preparations were spent down the infamous Polo Club the night before, our new generation of 18-20 year-olds produced an amazing performance to win 4-0 with Josh Wakeford having no diving saves to make whatsoever. The following Sunday (17th November) saw us competing in a real ‘crunch’ local derby match between the top two teams in the division with AFC Edmonton top-of-the table and unbeaten in their last six matches while we were in second place having won our last three. A win for us in this game would see us take over at the top and thankfully we were able to name a stronger side than when we lost 6-3 to the same opponents just over a month ago. AFC Edmonton were the better side in the First Half though and found themselves 2-0 up at Half-Time, but we showed more fight and spirit in the Second Half. However, it wasn’t until the last minute of normal time that we managed to pull a goal back and our opponents then cleverly used time-wasting tactics to hang on and clinch the three points despite our numerous supporters on the touchline giving them (and the Referee) all sorts of grief after ‘forgetting’ that the things you can get away with shouting when in the middle of a 60,000 crowd at Spurs/Arsenal are not allowed on a Sunday League touchline. Indeed we are still dreading receiving another misconduct charge as a result.
We got back to winning ways on the 24th November though with a 4-1 win Away to London Orient in the First Round of the League Junior Cup before beating them again the following Sunday by exactly the same scoreline in a Home League game. With North West Wolves deciding to drop out of the League (after losing heavily to us on two separate occasions), that left London Orient bottom of what was now just a seven-team division while our chances of winning the title disappeared overnight with our 8-4 win against North West Wolves being expunged from the records while AFC Edmonton only lost one point from that instead of three after drawing 5-5 with them on the opening day of the season. That was really frustrating for us and it also meant that we only had two matches instead of three to play in the Group Stages of the Richard Martin Memorial Cup as North West Wolves had been drawn in the same group as us. The other two teams in the group were Division Three sides Camden Union and Nissi’s First Team and it was Nissi who we played first on the 22nd December in atrocious freezing cold and windy conditions at the Goffs Churchgate Academy in Cheshunt. With 60 mph gusts blowing straight down the pitch, we found ourselves 4-0 down at Half-Time as we faced the wind and just couldn’t get out of our own half, but the roles were reversed in the Second Half and we managed to gain a 4-4 draw in the end thanks to a Frankie George penalty with the last kick of the match. This was another good performance by us as Nissi were fielding a couple of Step 4 Semi-Pros and had a 100% record in all competitions so far this season apart from one League defeat caused by a sending-off very early on in that game. Indeed they beat Camden Union 8-0 in their Cup Group meeting the Sunday before which means for us to progress through to the knockout stages as the group winners, we now have to beat Camden Union 9-0 whenever we end up playing them. That game has been postponed twice already due to waterlogged and frozen pitches and at the time of writing this blog we have not played a game at all since that Nissi match thanks to the weather, North West Wolves dropping out and our players choosing not to enter the London FA Sunday Junior Cup because they don’t like travelling out of the Enfield/Barnet area. That has allowed them to have several weeks off just before and after Christmas where they can go to every Spurs Away match in their droves and/or have plenty of lie-ins after clubbing the night before. Let’s just hope they get their enthusiasm back for playing football on Sunday mornings when we next have a match arranged ! Meanwhile off the pitch, the job of being a Club Secretary and confirming fixtures in the Barnet Sunday League seems to be getting harder when modern technology should be making it easier. When we first started back in the 1970’s with no internet or mobile phones, every club had to rely on a printed handbook which would have each Club Secretary’s name, address, home phone number and work phone number in it. Then the Home Club Secretary had to phone one of those numbers to confirm the following Sunday’s match. That involved having to describe where their Home pitch was as there were no such things as postcodes or Sat-Nav’s in those days. It wasn’t easy and teams sometimes got confused and went to the wrong ground. In the Barnet Sunday League now, each Division has their own WhatsApp Group that includes various League officials together with each team’s designated Primary Contact for confirming fixtures with. The Primary Contact can be either the Team Secretary or the Team Manager and in most cases the same person performs both roles for their team. It works really well and everybody knows who each other is. However, as the FA’s apparent new GDPR & safeguarding regulations are not allowing online Club Directories to be displayed on League websites any more, if we are playing a team from another Division in our League in a Cup match, we then have no idea who their Club Secretary is and what their mobile number/e-mail address is. The fixture confirmation e-mails that we get on a Monday morning from Full-Time (which do have contact details on) always have the wrong person listed as the club’s Primary Contact because the FA still haven’t fixed the problem where it lists the latest entry onto a Club’s Committee (e.g. a First Aider or an Assistant Coach) in that position for confirming fixtures instead of it automatically being the Team Secretary. Most teams who are in different divisions (or Leagues) who have not played each other before therefore contact their opponents via DM on Instagram instead and just say ‘Hi Mate’ to start confirming fixtures. It’s much easier, even though they are probably not speaking to the Club Secretary but a player/Social Media Manager instead. It’s a similar problem with Referees as invariably only their e-mail addresses and not their phone numbers are included on the Full-Time e-mails, while online Directories with their phone numbers on are no longer allowed. Yes, back in the day you would get players who had been sent off phoning the Referee later that evening to complain about the decision, trying to persuade them not to send it in and/or accusing them of being the reason why their team lost the match. Some Team Manager-Secretaries still do that of course, but the League quite rightly punish them if they do. The other frustrating aspect of GDPR regulations for Barnet Sunday League Club Secretaries this season is that sharing the downloadable Squad List PDF’s from the F.A.’s Club Portal system has now been banned. Previously both teams had to post their own Squad List PDF’s in the WhatsApp Match group created by the Home Club Secretary with the Away Team Secretary and the Referee being able to view mugshot photos and the age…but NOT the date of birth, an address or phone numbers…of each registered player for both teams. This drastically reduced the chances of teams getting away with playing ‘ringers’ (unregistered players) in the match and it worked really well, but now the downloaded PDF has to be kept on the Club Secretary’s phone only and then physically shown to the opposing Club Secretary from there (if they ask to see it) instead of it being posted in the WhatsApp Group. That is just totally impractical when the Referee is in a rush to get the game started and when the Club Secretaries are invariably Player-Managers who are busy doing their warm-ups or putting the nets up, so teams are just ignoring these new rules. Indeed an additional problem with player identification is when Referees cannot be bothered to insist that shirt numbers are posted in the WhatsApp Match Groups in addition to the starting line-up and substitutes names. In fact most teams only list their players first names or Instagram-handle names because the Manager/Primary Contact doesn’t actually know their full names and cannot be arsed to look on Full-Time to see what they are. When teams are full of players with double-barrelled surnames, Portuguese names with four or five words to them or numerous different spellings of Mohammed Mohammed, it takes half an hour for them to be typed into a WhatsApp post anyway….and they won’t fit into a Line-Up 11 (or similar app) graphic unless you only use first names/Insta handle names. In addition to that, there are numerous teams in the Barnet Sunday League who fail to list their players properly in the WhatsApp Match Groups and then rarely post their line-ups and goalscorers on Full-Time after a match either…for which they should be getting heavily fined as it means they are most likely playing ringers. Getting fined repeatedly for that is probably one of the main reasons why 12 teams have dropped out of the League already this season. Finally, the FA have now (from the start of this season) taken GDPR even further and banned Under-18’s names from display on Full-Time (and any other website (e.g. Mitoo) that displays appearances & goalscorers for Youth football. This includes wiping out the data from all previous seasons and also showing all Under-18 Referees for our matches in the Barnet Sunday League as just ‘Youth Referee’. Thankfully the F.A. are still allowing the names of 16 & 17-year old players in adults football to be displayed as otherwise it would show us on Full-Time winning matches with no players during the first two seasons of our ‘Project Re-Start’ and playing with less than eleven every match the following season until all our players had turned 18 ! However, this new directive does mean that when we sign a player who has just joined us from Youth football, we cannot see what his playing record was in terms of starting or substitute appearances, goals scored, disciplinary record and which teams he has played for and we then end up signing somebody who is nowhere near good enough for the level we are playing at. Thankfully though, all the players that our Player-Manager Josh Wakeford (and others) have brought along over the last year or so have been excellent, and long may that continue as we look towards a successful second half of the season |
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3-2024 Barnet Sunday League Season as Division Five Runners-Up and gaining promotion to Division Four, our players took a deserved rest during July & August to either go away on lengthy holidays or spend their Sunday mornings recovering from clubbing the night before. This also meant we were unable to have a Presentation Evening, but we did manage to arrange the occasional midweek training session on the grass at Enfield Playing Fields which attracted reasonable turnouts including some good new players. We also freshened up our Management Committee with Max Francis (as Social & Sponsorship Secretary), Mike Jordanou (as Assistant Treasurer) and Harry Dorward (as ‘Assistant Secretary’/Kit Manager) all being appointed, while it was agreed that subs payments for the 2024-2025 Season would be £25 per player for signing-on to play on a regular or semi-regular basis, plus £5 per match. More GoFundMe donations and sponsorship would then help to pay the rest of our expenses.
