Your writer is being detained at “Her Majesty’s Pleasure” (she will always be the Queen in my book, anyway!) over the next three weeks, discovering parts of the world rarely seen by man - or woman for that matter.
Due to my enforced absence, this review of the final third of the season is necessarily curtailed, only covering the period to 2 April. It is being written without the benefit of knowing the results of our matches against today’s opposition, Dereham, Brentwood, Cheshunt, Heybridge, Romford and maybe an enforced replay against Barking, if the League deems that necessary. I shall be missing at least four of these games – with Romford on Wednesday 25 April being in the balance depending on me waking up in time from my return flight home. I certainly expect to be at Sudbury on Saturday 28 April for our final outing this season, unscathed, I hoped, from “Johnny Foreigner”.
We completed the second third of our season on 20 January, sitting in 10th place in the Bostik League North Division, with forty-one points from thirty-one games, seven points shy of the play-off area. The fact that we had played three or four games more than some of the teams immediately above and below us, suggested we may slip a little lower down the league, unless we could beat those teams around us in our remaining fifteen games.
With eight games now played in this final stage of the season, we are in 12thth place in the league, with fifty-two points from thirty-nine games (excluding the 1-0 winning position on 31 March against that other team mentioned above), with thirteen games won, drawn and lost. If ever there was a “perfect” mid-table position to be in, I suppose those results would suggest so. The most recent games have produced two wins, five draws and one defeat with sixteen goals scored and eleven conceded.
We started the final third of the season with another difficult encounter with Hertford Town, who proved a tough, uncompromising and unpleasant opponent in our four matches this season. The spirit of football was somehow lost on them as they protested virtually every decision again them and tried on and off the pitch to influence the officials. It left a nasty taste in your writer’s mouth. We managed a second draw this time, with the now-departed Jamie Slabber scoring our goal. Things got worse on the road the following week, as we succumbed, 2-1, to Mildenhall Town on a boggy pitch and lacked a commitment and application that we had looked like restoring for the rest of the season, in the decent draw at Haringey Borough, a couple of weeks before.
With our play-off hopes virtually, if not mathematically, out of reach, we had just pride and the shirt to play for. That started in the bizarre home encounter with big-spending Maldon & Tiptree on 1 February. With keeper, Charlie Burns sustaining a dead leg early in the game and a misunderstanding over the “JS” given by manager, Jamie Stuart for the teamsheet being interpreted as “Jamie Stuart” rather than our sub keeper, “JS” – Joe Simmonds – full-back, Ryan Mahal donned the jersey. He conceded two goals and saved a certain third, before we fought back to 2-1 through skipper, Stan Muguo. In the dying minutes of the game, new signing, former Hertford striker, Tommy Wade, got the faintest of touches, after the visiting keeper was pressured by Kieran Bishop into placing the ball into Tommy’s path and we gained a point from a seemingly hopeless situation.
A second consecutive home game followed and we produced our most convincing performance since our 4-1 away win at Witham Town in December. This time it was a 4-1 win against Witham Town at Parkside. Two more goals from Tommy Wade and a brace from leading scorer, Kieran Bishop clinched the points. A goalless draw, our first in forty-seven games up to that point of the season, followed at Soham Town Rangers. It was scant reward for a one-sided game, especially in the second half, when we hit the target many times without managing to get the ball over the goal-line.
We moved into March with ten games remaining in a season that was in danger of drifting into mid-table obscurity, but our team management expressed its desire to increase the momentum and give our supporters some cheer to take into the summer. A powerful performance and three well-worked goals, gave us revenge in a 3-1 win over Bury Town, after the unsavoury incidents at the end of the 1-1 draw at Ram Meadow just before Christmas. Next, it was our longest trip of the season to Norwich. United have struggled all season, but competed well in the FA Trophy and league games at Parkside earlier in the season, where we came out on top 4-3 and 2-1 respectively. They competed well again in this game as we got ahead twice, only to be pegged back twice. The penalty from Kieran Bishop and a well-worked second from a rejuvenated Joao Carlos who was put through inside his full-back with a sublime pass from Ade Cole, should have secured three points, but some defensive frailty, which we thought had been eliminated in recent games, returned. A special mention for the Norwich groundsman who presented us with a sticky, but perfectly playable surface, when many other games in the area had been called off. When we arrived at the ground, he told me that he had only finished clearing snow from parts of the pitch the day before and then it rained for twelve hours after that!
After our first postponement of the season at a snow-bound Brentwood, we were back to milder climes at Parkside aa we took on a rejuvenated Ware side who were pulling away from the drop-zone and anxious to improve on the 5-0 drubbing we gave them back in October. They certainly did that going into a two-goal second half lead with a very poor penalty given away and a slightly deflected, but very effective, free-kick from former Blue, David Cowley. It looked like we were heading close to the 4-0 thrashing Waltham Abbey handed out to us just before Christmas, but the battling Tommy Wade had other ideas. With less than ten minutes to go, he challenged their excellent keeper in the air, who fumbled the ball from Ryan Mahal’s cross and it just crossed the line, according to the perfectly-placed assistant. Within two minutes he met a lovely cross from skipper, Stan Muguo, with a stunning left-foot volley that gave us a point, from a game that looked as though it was out of our grasp. This still didn’t make up for a poor all-round performance.
This was to be followed by three games in a hectic five-day Easter period. First, the rain gods contrived against us and our Brentwood game was put back to 5 April. Then we had a good seventy minutes against Barking taking the lead with the ever-alert Kieran Bishop slamming the ball into the net from close range. What followed will be dealt with by the football authorities. Let’s hope the blame is put firmly where it should be and the 1-0 score line in our favour will be confirmed. Finally, we hoped to move on to Ship Lane, to face our third encounter with bottom club, Romford on Easter Monday, who were seeking their third win over us this season after League and Essex Senior Cup quarter-final successes. Overnight rain on the hallowed turf caused another postponement.
Today, we face a team chasing a play-off place, Dereham Town, who will be keen to avenge the one-nil home defeat we inflicted on them at the end of November last year with that late, late, Ade Cole goal, after Bish had hit the post from a first-half penalty. Those of us who were there that Tuesday evening, thought it was a well-deserved three points. Let’s hope we can earn another three today.
As far as the almost-complete season is concerned, I would be interested to hear other supporters’ views, because I believe, on the one hand, some might say having a club at all is a good achievement, given the upheaval last season as we all waited for the confirmation that ownership had passed to us, which didn’t arrive until 30 November 2016. From the opposite perspective, the board did everything possible to give the squad a chance of “troubling the teams at the top” and we have fallen some way short, with too many draws losing us two points, when three were there for the taking on a number of occasions.
Your writer, being a pragmatist - among other things, I hear you cry! – accepts the reality of our current situation. We are probably one of the highest-placed teams in the Pyramid who have no ground to call their own, no revenue to generate from a bar, function rooms, pitch hire etc, relying on the goodwill of a loyal band of supporters on the pitch and a good number of businesses and individuals off it, to compete at a senior level. Everyone connected with the club knows that this can only continue for a finite period, without finding support from a range of public authorities and funding organisations, to achieve the security of tenure within a community sports facility that we all seek.
You’ve heard it all before – now you are going to read it again! The board of directors, entrusted by the shareholders who voted for them to run the club, will continue to strive to achieve the objective. Recent discussions with our partners and Thurrock Council have given us reason to be a little more optimistic and developments and County and National level on plans to increase the provision of pitches in Essex, also bodes well for us.
The club’s latest efforts to take advantage of the very sad demise of Thurrock FC, by offering the chance for a significant number of local youth teams to play under the name and jurisdiction of Grays Athletic Community Football Club, is another clear demonstration that the club means business and does not intend to give up on its plan to be “A Football Club in the Heart of the Community”.
The message remains clear and unequivocal. Join us in the journey, or just turn away and watch as we whither on the vine. I know the route I prefer.

The Wanderer