The season started with everyone at the club excited and looking forward to the return to “the big time” after many years in the wilderness, whilst fully appreciating that we were in for a tough season.
Pre season went reasonably well with solid if unspectacular performances in the friendlies but when the league season started Town got of to a flyer by taking 7 points from the opening 3 games in beating Galleywood and Faces and drawing with Canning Town, before going out of the senior division cup at the first hurdle, on penalties to Galleywood after performing heroically with 10 men for most of the entire 120 minutes. Town were then brought down to earth with a resounding bump when they were comprehensively thrashed 4-0 at home by Harold Wood. They then travelled to Manford Way and after having wiggy sent off again after 20 minutes they got to half time 2 goals down. So 2 down and down to 10 men Town proceeded to give one of the gutsiest performances I have had the pleasure to witness when they managed to score 2 goals in the second half to take a point – they followed this up by thrashing Witham in the Essex Premier Cup 5-2 the following Saturday: so far so good then, with the exception of the Harold Wood thumping. The following week Town went out of the Bill Spurgeon cup in round one by the rather comical, perhaps even embarrassing (for both sides) score line of 6-5, and that’s in 90 minutes – there wasn’t even extra time. They then went on a depressing run and lost 11 of their next 13 league games, including 2 where they threw away 3 goals advantages, winning just one and drawing the other and they plunged down the league table putting themselves in serious danger of relegation. The turning point of the season came on the 14th of March when they travelled to White Ensign for a relegation 6 pointer – several key players returned and they came home with all 3 points after a fairly comprehensive 3-1 victory. After this they went on to win another 4 games, meaning that they won 5 of the final 8 games, including comprehensive thrashings of both Mountnessing Boca (4-1) and M&B Club (6-1) who finished 4th and 5th respectively and in the end finished 11th (fourth from bottom) 5 points clear of the drop.
So in the end “job done” and we survive to fight another day in the premier league but this seasons results have highlighted what we probably already knew before the season started – the fact is that although our strongest team is more than competitive at this level we do lack squad numbers and strength in depth which will hopefully be addressed for this coming season. The squad just couldn’t cope with several key players being out for long periods including Ready, Andy Allen, Jeater, Lee Humphrey and Wiggy. We must remember that we have come a long, long way in a very short period of time and are still in the building process to compile not only a team capable of competing short term but a club that can stay at this level for years to come.
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