It's great to have the season finally underway. Five games down, forty-five to go, depending on how well we do in the county cup and the FA competitions after we broke the Canvey Island hoodoo on Tuesday night and I'm looking forward to the rest of it already. I love the unpre- dictability of this league and already our division is throwing up some interesting results. I have watched a few games already this season and as new players settle into their respective sides I believe we will see a more closely competitive campaign this time around.
Now that the season is underway the number of players desperate to play for - in their collective words - a championist (sic), dominant, dynamic, family, pioneer- ing, and progressing (sic) club like ours dwindles to a trickle. During the close sea- son we, like just about every club in the league according to some of the CC lists, get hundreds of inquiries from players des- perate to play for us.
Benno, myself and Andy actually read each and every email and CV we are sent from players, their par- ents or their agents because, as strange as it may seem, there really are a few dia- monds in that rough. Unfortunately - depending on your point of view - most of them are like the bad auditions on the X- Factor or BGT that we prefer to watch:
- young player released - apparently - by Crystal Palace was a LB, RM, AM or CF with a reputation as a goalkeeper. We know where to look if we need to replace the gaffer.
- player, 24, listed a host of teams with Schalke FC of the Bundesliga in Germany a particular highlight. When asked about this period of his career it transpired he left there when he was six.
- player with Ligue 2 experience in France was delighted to offer himself for a trial at the club...once we had booked and paid for his flight, accommodation and meals
- young player listed Leyton Orient amongst his previous clubs...just couldn't remember which age group he played for or who his coach was...
- Germany, again, and this mid-20's player just needed us to secure him local employ- ment, ideally with a travel agency, so that he could move to England. Then come for a trial.
- a former pro from Ghana who had been on trial at a club in Russia saw from our website that we were a club with ambition to develop players and also get to a higher level and really wanted "to come and play- er for Waltham Abbey so much."
Another thing typical of the aforemen- tioned reality talent shows is that some- times you get big results from the occa- sional little surprise package and our own u17s, u18s and u21s from last season have all contributed promising players to the senior squads during pre-season trials. Two of the younger lads had a real baptism of fire at Thurrock last Saturday but Callum Maltese and Gus Douglas made their debuts on Tuesday night in the cauldron of The Prospects Stadium at Canvey Island in the league cup...a team we haven't beaten in the 31 games since our last win in 2002...and were part of a successful side that won on penalties to reach the 2nd round of the competition!
This week I re-registered as an active ref- eree for next season - honest guvnor - and one of the first things I got through from county was a description of how the offside law has been broken again. We already know most referees only know they are at a football match because of the weight of the ball and the nets on the sticks...there are even curvy lines on the pitch so they know how to tell when they are ten yards from the centre spot and the penalty mark. How on earth do they expect referees to untangle the mess of interpretations and get the decision right? They should rename it the Rubik's Cube law because the Hungarian sculptors puzzle had millions of combinations and you can't always get it right. The problem with changes to the law is that every decision in professional foot- ball is already under trial by TV and its multitude of angles. After the officials scored a scrappy winner for the dark sideof Murkeyside [is that the bit you come from?- Ed] against Bournemouth this week how long before we see it causing a con- siderable upsurge in dissent fines in our league and lower down the pyramid where they don't get assistant referees?

Time to ramble on......