E&E Rich

Here is the match report from our Vase win over Bridon Ropes. http://www.eefconline.co.uk/Fix2016.17-22.html

The match report from our win over Horley Town is here: http://www.eefconline.co.uk/Fix2016.17-12.html After Friday's result we needed to bounce back quickly and an early goal helped. Horley pushed for much of the first half but without much in the way of end product. The second half was much more in our favour and we would up comfortable winners in the end. Consistently inconsistent!

Not strictly CCL but Slough Town open their new ground at Arbour Park on the afternoon of 29th August against Hayes & Yeading. It might be a bit crowded, but if you can get there early enough, it could be a good choice.

After a bit of a delay, the report from our match with CB Hounslow is here: http://www.eefconline.co.uk/Fix2016.17-8.html The strange thing is that we looked quite good for 20 minutes. Could have been two up, one of which was prevented by a world class save and the other by a second class official who couldn't see a trip in the box straight in front of him. But after that we conceded and never looked the same again. The pressing we had done to that point slackened and when CB were allowed to play football, they took full advantage and the guy Cariba up front scored some great finishes. We go to Faversham this weekend. Just as well we are going in great form!

You may be correct on the earlier incident Steve. Certainly our player does have previous in that sort of area. I saw the scuffle and whilst I didn't see any head contact, it doesn't surprise me to hear that. However, I think the referee was fortunate that the match didn't degenerate from that point. Many's the time that players see that sort of thing going unpunished and decide that either a ) they can get away with it too or b ) that the ref isn't protecting players so they had better do it instead. As for the surface, I blame the players

The report from our trip to Windsor is here. http://www.eefconline.co.uk/Fix2016.17-7.html A disappointing outcome, but we didn't do enough to warrant the three points, and I would assert that neither team actually did. Rother's statement about a badly hit back pass is correct and many of our passes were also under hit today. Don't know why that was. Overall, we need to improved defensively as we can't score lots every week. Admittedly though, the Windsor equaliser was a great turn and strike.

The preview of our trip to Windsor is here: http://www.eefconline.co.uk/Fix2016.17-7.html

Yes I will be there. I don't miss many. 18 in the last 11 years I think. I shall have my cap on and will be stood behind the goal we are attacking during the game, so just say hello! Might not be able to talk for long though as my boy is coming along and he gets bored if other people start talking football!

A quick Epsom catch up. Following our 0-0 draw at Whyteleafe we visited AFC Croydon Athletic on Saturday 23rd July and turned around a half time deficit to win 2-1. Seven days later we did it again at Orpington. We probably shaded the Orpington match based on our second half performance although I am told we were more in control against AFC Croydon Athletic. We kick off tomorrow at Bedfont & Feltham. The preview is here: http://www.eefconline.co.uk/Fix2016.17-5.html

A bit surprised to see so many predictions for Chessington. Has something gone on there since last season that I am unaware of? As for my predictions, it is hard to look beyond Hartley assuming they have a similar side, although you have to question the desire of Atkinson to jump ship to Badshot Lea. This is nothing against Badshot Lea so ITK and Bronco, calm down, I just don't understand why after such a good season and being in the shop window as he was, that he hasn't at least stayed there, or even moved up a level. Clearly Bradshaw moving there tells you that it isn't about location. I heard he was leaving Camberley because Guildford was nearer to his home, yet has now gone further away and if they win the title as most of us expect, he won't play at Step Four anyway. Why? Because of the travel! You couldn't make it up! Clearly many of those tipping Epsom are going on recent form but we have lost Kyle Hough to Horley because again it is more local for him. This is obviously a big blow and on what I have seen pre-season we are not going to replace the thirty goals a season that he brings, as he turns half-chances into goals. I won't tip Horley here though as Kyle is unlikely to match Nadesan's achievement of 50 goals and I don't know of many other changes to their squad. They were sixth last year so I have them in the top ten this time. So here we go: 1st Hartley Wintney 2nd Knaphill - no surprise team here. Well organised on and off the field and finished very strongly last term 3rd Camberley - still decent in my view 4th Epsom & Ewell - just so you guys aren't thinking that I am deflecting pressure from us. I still think we have a good side and will be thereabouts but probably again just short unless we can get another striker, or better service to the strikers we have. This is also based on not picking up stupid suspensions again. Colliers Wood should be very proud of their fair play achievements in these days where you can get booked for shouting at your own players (yes it happened to our keeper at Badshot last year as the Spanish referee thought he was shouting at him!! I will put North Greenford and Walton & Hersham in the top six as no Step Four side has ever bounced straight back and they both got relegated for a reason. I don't see them doing a Redhill though. I am not so sure about the Guildford revolution either. I could be wrong on this one but One minute Bradshaw is there, then he isn't and Alex Penfold was paraded recently before them before quietly leaving again this week for what may well be perfectly valid "business reasons". I make them 7th I don't know much about the new guys in our division, although Abbey remind me of South Park and they do wonderful food as evidenced at the CCL AGM this year. They will threaten but I don't think they will be ready for a season or two. I'm not saying a thing about B&F as we play them tomorrow! I will place Horley 8th, Hanworth Villa 9th and Westfield 10th. I would have had Windsor in there until Rother said that Dennison had left. I expect SCR to be higher than they were last year, but not enough for a top ten spot this year. Going Down: No comment! Clearly there will almost certainly be three going down again with the 23 in the division so we all need to be careful. From Division One: 1st - Redhill - obviously too good to go down by the end of the season and will bounce back easily 2nd - Banstead Athletic - not my favourite place but they finished well last year and I will back them here even though they may have changed their entire team for all I know! 3rd - Cove - good luck Duncs! I know nothing about Balham, so they would be my surprise team.

The issue of PSF's is clearly a more contentious one than I realised! For what it's worth, I try to obtain every bit of information about the club simply because I enjoy doing so. However, my possibly naïve assumption is that we are all trying to attract new support and interest, so any news gives people an opportunity to feel more attached to a club. The theory also goes that a new floating supporter looking for a club to follow might prefer to visit a club that is seen as organised and informative, and I try my hardest to ensure that we come across that way. So in answer to the questions posed here, YES I would always post a friendly result, but NO I see no real reason for further details, even though I might list them myself.

Totally agree Beano. We are also requesting an early August League match and if rumours turn out to be true, we may see a full set of fixtures on 2nd August, which is an indication that: a ) Clubs DO want a proper match before entering the potentially lucrative FA Cup, and b ) The CCL are prepared to accommodate their clubs as a good league should, and c ) there will be one less match to play later in the season and every little helps when the pitches get a little muddy, as we all know now that this appears to be a good enough reason for postponement! The only reason I can think of for bringing it forward is due to the trouble the FA had with fitting in the replays in the latter part of the season. Having said that, if the Third Round is still the First week in January, that theory doesn't work. My real issue is the lack of consultation. You can almost imagine the conversation in the offices at Wembley: "Oh they're only Step Five and Six clubs, they can't win it anyway, so it doesn't really matter when they play and no one will complain loudly enough. They are only making up the numbers".

If friendlies have nothing on them Smudge, why do we have them? I think that Managers will tell you that they are quite important in the grand scheme of things. Some would like more while others are happy with three or four, but they do serve a purpose.

Sorry Jeff but that's a stupid statement. If you feel that way, why enter in the first place? Look at the financial rewards that Hartley Wintney made from their recent Cup runs and almost certainly Hanworth Villa a couple of years back too. It's far more important than a league match. Ask Camberley who got beat 5-0 at home to Horley on opening day. You could argue that they missed out on promotion by three points but they had all season to retrieve those points and indeed, did so before losing at the end. With the Cup there is rarely a second chance. It is the biggest match the clubs are likely to have all season and regardless of whether teams are "ready" for the first week in August, you never really know how good you are until you have played a couple of matches at least. It's why Alan does such a good job in getting the fixtures in before the Cup starts, something I'm sure that EVERY club is grateful for. In fact, this is the most annoying and telling factor here. It's that the FA didn't even consult with the Step Five Leagues. They didn't even give them a clue that it would be moved forward a fortnight from last season. If they had, maybe it would have been a little easier to prepare and we may well have had an earlier start to the league season, but many friendlies have already been arranged and it is the fact that the FA didn't even consider the knock on effect that tells you how little these bodies actually care about grass roots football. They sit there banging on about how great they are and what good work they are doing in diversity, youth, ladies football and equality but that's because it looks good for them to do so. It boosts their politically correct CVs and makes them look caring and inclusive. In the grand scheme of things, they don't care about Step Five or Six. We don't bring in enough money for them and are little more than pub sides to them. This proves it. Is there scope for starting the league on Tuesday 2nd August? Just a thought. It doesn't have to be a Saturday. It also means one less midweek trip / postponement in December.

I'll try again! Taken last week!

Thanks for that Beano, I can confirm to nosher that we do face many similar issues to that which are listed above. With one exception. Although I am critical of our Council for making absolutely no effort to help over the years, they have only turned down planning permission once, in the mid-nineties on a site we had purchased on the Banstead Road between Ewell and Banstead. It failed on floodlights, but due to improvements I'm sure it wouldn't fail now. Timing eh! We only made one other request of the council in 2001 when the Council approved it prima facie (on the face of it - in theory). The only problem was that we didn't actually own the piece of land and in the end the Health Authority wouldn't sell it to us. It is now the David Lloyd Centre over the back of Epsom, near where the old hospitals used to be. We have been advised that to obtain grants we require a security of tenure exceeding 25 years in length. To get that we need to confirm a site and that is where the problem really lies. There is not much actual land available in the Borough an believe me we've looked at almost every bit. Either it is green belt, common land or private land owned by someone else and therefore out of our price range. It's not all bad news though. We have not exhausted our search entirely yet and hope to have some positive news by the start of the new season. Personally, and for reasons that I cannot go into here, I am not totally convinced that the potential answer is positive enough to secure our future beyond 25 years and hope we can secure an alternative plan. Finally, I suggested at an AGM a few years back that we approached Epsom Athletic with a view to a merger under the new name of Epsom & Ewell Borough. The Borough is too small for two clubs in my opinion and I felt we should at least find out whether this was an idea worth pursuing. What I didn't realise that the time was that we did or maybe even had approached them by then, but they wished to retain their own identity, which we respect entirely. Obviously in the event we were able to secure a site and then build on it, I am sure that an approach would be made to Epsom Athletic for a ground share option that would at least bring them into the Borough too. Personally, (my view only, as our club would not make comment on something like this yet) I feel a ground share rental would be more beneficial to us than a reserve or even a youth policy at this stage and so maybe one day in the not too distant future this question might even be asked.

I would go for the Cove burgers every time as a first choice but Windsor's are good too! As for a viewpoint, Westfield's is hard to beat. We'd love to have such a helpful council. Nicest ground, regrettably has to be Sutton's as it was Step Two standard this season. Of the "proper" Step Five grounds it is Windsor. Not such a fan of Bedfont Sports personally, even though we've never lost there which can sometimes cloud judgement, I admit! I won't go down the old road about massive grant help. As traditional grounds go, Hartley, Chertsey and Camberley are proper venues. Yeah, sure Hartley failed the grading but who really thinks that a hedge being replaced is vital, although I accept a turnstile block might be required in this day and age. I'd much rather they opened a fourth end up. On that subject, I like Hanworth Villa too, although closing the far end is extremely disappointing for us behind the goal dwellers. Standing in the woods to watch a match is somewhat unusual but I really enjoyed doing that and it's not the same watching from a side. This three sided issue counts against Farnham too but we always get a great welcome there. I'm not a fan of going in the board room after many games, but I would go in there, and to Ashford too who are very pleasant people, even if some of their fans aren't! If I had to choose one ground above all others in the CCL to visit it would be Camberley's. Tradition, character, welcome and nice food and beer in equal measure. They just need to sort that M3 out now with it's "smart" motorway system!

For what it's worth, here is the report from our 6-1 win at Chessington & Hook United. http://www.eefconline.co.uk/Fix2015.16-53.html Well done to Hartley Wintney who always looked like they would hold on after their excellent start. It's all too easy amongst other milestones this season to forget their FA Cup run where they were narrowly defeated by Eastbourne Borough. 106 points is quite a tally in a tough league. How tough? Well four sides in the last 32 of the Vase indicate that we do now have a stronger league than may have been the case in the past. Also congratulations to Ashford Town (Mx) and commiserations to Camberley Town. we'd have loved to push you both a little further but weren't quite good enough. As for going up in second, plenty of teams in the Ryman and Southern League playoffs have gone up from fourth and fifth so them's the rules, make the most of it, as of course Guernsey also did when there was a second spot available. It's particularly hard on Camberley as twice in the last four years second place would have gone up and they finished second in the other two seasons. They will be hot favourites next year I believe as I cannot seriously imagine that the Hartley side can stay together after a large number of their players have now faced a "non-promotion" scenario in consecutive seasons. Even if they do, the same question will remain that is there currently; will they do the work required to get up to Step Four? Seeing as they knew all season that promotion was likely and of course applied in November, I believe that if I were a player down there that wanted to test myself at the higher level, I couldn't sign for another season, unless a building project was well under way during the summer. Of course, that's Hartley's prerogative to do what is best for their club, but it is rare that teams who win and fail to go up, stay together. With nearby Farnborough now at Step Four, it wouldn't surprise me to see a few depart for pastures new, hence my argument for Camberley being favourites next season. But that's a long way away and for a next season thread. Good luck to the Krooners in their remaining cups, although I'm sure Farnham will make you work for the League Cup!

So let me get this right. One minute Dorking want to be a community based club. Then suddenly they are looking for an ambitious Manager who will achieve more success than Glynn did, even though they had incremental improvements in a constantly improving standard of football. From the outside looking in, it looks as if they have crapped on the Manager who had to work in very difficult circumstances. Just when he would have had a chance to properly show what he can do at Westhumble next year, they get rid of him. I would be either very careful or very desperate to apply for the next Manager's position as the club clearly thinks it is bigger than actually is the case, and who knows how many more unrealistic demands / expectations they will have once they get to Meadowbank. Our club has had nine Managers in 43 years. Stability works. Glynn may well have had four years at Dorking but never appeared to be given a fair crack, and it sounds as though DFC aren't learning yet. btw I've never even met Glynn, so there is no agenda on my part before the conspiracy theorists get started.

Paying my first visit to Staines Lammas this evening! A new ground less than half an hour away is very rare for me!

Better late than never, here is the link to our match report. http://www.eefconline.co.uk/Fix2015.16-50.html Has to be said I thought our late chance was a clear penalty at the time I wrote the report, but haven't seen the highlights yet, which may show a different view. It was a frustrating day because I felt we played really well and was about to fill my match report with superlatives about how we had taken a massive step forward as a club and dealt with a good side and all they could throw at us. Unfortunately I had to rewrite some of that The only thing keeping me sane right now is that going into the match, I felt that we were just too far away from Camberley in the table even if we were able to win. We needed to win against both them and Ashford, while Camberley needed to drop further points in two games and Ashford also needed to drop points elsewhere. The odds were against us, you might say and it was arguably a bigger game for Camberley, as one loss would make Ashford the favourites. Maybe they didn't play as well for that very reason, I don't know. Of course, Ashford very nearly did drop points at Windsor and it did look exciting at half time as we would have been in second place at that point. It looks like we will finish seven or eight points short of both clubs and we have to sit down at the end of the season and analyse why we were just short. Nine sending offs didn't help us though and I look at the draconian 84 day ban handed out to Daryl Cooper-Smith just for patting an Assistant on the shoulder at Bedfont Sports and think that if he had played all season, then maybe we would have been chasing Hartley Wintney for the title instead of thinking about second, but it's all ifs and buts at this stage. Of all the other teams out there I like the Camberley guys. They have had a lot of crap to deal with over the last thirty years and we empathise with that, with neither team troubling the danger end of the table for much of that spell. If they go up, and I think they will, then I'm sure they'll be fine up there, especially as it looks like being the Southern League Central rather than the South and West that they would go into. Just as well with Hereford, Salisbury in there with Bideford and Paulton dropping in from the Premier Division. A tough ask. There is still hope for Ashford of course and they will be relieved after using their own get out of jail free card on Saturday themselves. Pity they don't still have to play each other, but of course they visit us while Camberley visit Hartley who will be Champions by then. A good time to play them? Maybe, but local derbies are harder to call so you never know. Either way it's been a great season for the CCL.