Our final pre-season tournament took place in Stanway in a special invitation event. This was a mini league with the winners being the team who amassed the most points. We had a poor start losing to the eventual winners Lexden Saints in our first game, not helped by some poor refereeing. Awarding a penalty that looked to us like ‘ball to hand’ and leaving one of our defenders down injured and crying on the edge of his own penalty area, the referee only stopped play once Lexden had taken advantage of the situation by scoring the second and final goal; this was despite players and managers of both teams asking him to stop the game! An apology afterwards by the senior official on duty at the tournament was scant consolation!
The boys picked themselves up for a draw and two wins from their other 3 matches, finishing third in the final table, which was a disappointment having come second this time last year – so no squad photo with medals to show on this occasion!
To read about our other two summer tournaments you can find reports at: