President's Patter for 6th December

Not a good week, the 1st XI  continued their bad run with a narrow 4-3 defeat against Southgate Olympic, having held a 3-2 lead late in the game, they should have seen this one Home, but 2 long distance strikes in the last 5 minutes saw Southgate take the points. They badly need at least a draw to regain some confidence. 
The Reserves lost heavily to second place Alexandra Park, but injury forcing their Goalkeeper to leave the field, the 10 men struggled against a strong AP outfit.
The 3rd XI kept up there good run with a good 3-0 win away to Merton, yet again their talisman Danny Green leading the way to goal.
The 4th XI opponents (Broomfield) could not raise a side.
The 5th XI suffered a heavy defeat to Old Owens.
The 6th XI beat CEVamps 4-3 and the 7th XI lost 2-1 to Old Parks. 
We are fast approaching the halfway stage of the season, time for reflection on what has happened so far, it is clear that over the last few years we have lost our way and have slowly sunk from one of the strongest clubs in the league to our present position.
Our main problem is recruitment of players at all levels particularly 1st team as we are not attached to any company or school and do not get many players from our youth section we are largely reliant for new members on walk ups, our web site and introductions by other members, this is not proving to be successful. Without being boring our existing members know what we are looking for and best able to tell whether they know people who would enjoy our club and become long term players. How about setting a target for each member to introduce at least one suitable member per season with our facilities it should not be a hard sell.

Looking to the rest of the season it is not without hope of success the Reserves are very well placed but have met a couple of the stronger teams recently and been beaten if they are going to get promoted they need to field their best side every week.The 3rd XI after a couple of setbacks have resumed their good form of earlier this season only their discipline can cause them to fail.The 4th XI with their present team should walk their league hopefully some of their players will move up the sides next season.
The 5/6/and 7's are all doing well and most importantly enjoying their football and using the club for social gatherings.
The next 4 Saturdays will be difficult if we can get good availability then this may enable us to make ground on what maybe weakened opposition. 
The latest report on the recent committee meeting can be read under the news notice board section of our web site.