Sport London E Benfica are now into their third year as a member of the Spartan South Midlands League Division One. Since making the move up from a very successful period in the Middlesex County League the only Portuguese club in senior football have made steady progress finishing 8th and 18th last season. The start of this season hasn't been ideal with a record of loosing 6 and drawing 2 of their opening 8 games. Their 2 points coming from a 2-2 draw at home to Bedford Town Reserves and a 3-3 draw away at Sun Postal Sports.
Regular readers will know that the club is a favourite of the cold end. Having seen the team's recent performance in the 2-0 defeat at Ampthill Town on Tuesday in a game where they hit the post once and the cross bar twice luck clearly just wasn't on their side. A win and progress up the league will come soon if they keep playing as well as they did in this game.
Jose Viana the club's manager was labelled the 'special one' by the Willesden Times due to the success in their inaugural year of playing in the English National League System, this being down to his first name and nationality being shared with a certain ex Chelsea manager. Jose prefers to be referred to as the OTHER special one as in his words "we are many! We are all special in our own way!".
The cold end is very thankful to Jose for answering the following questions on the club and his time in football:
What is your football history? Did you play and who for?
Not having made it to a higher level in football, I can only claim to be an average player although any promise I had was hampered by having fractures on both ankles and on my tibia and fibula, a product of a nightmare tackle from a burly defender who wasn't too happy getting nutmegged twice by an 18 year old. It needed an operation and at the time it wasn’t an option for me. I still played in local sides, mainly Portuguese Amateur teams heavily strapped.
I turned to management at an early age in 1996 when an Under 16 side was invited to represent Portugal in a small tournament at the Notts County ground during Euro 96. This group of players were then going to be disbanded after the tournament but they were such a good group I attempted to keep them together playing in various tournaments. Until recently, some of these players still play for me now.
One such tournament was the Inner City World Cup where Portugal were always viewed as one of the favourites. The very last year we took part, we were in a very strong position to reach the final at least but the organisers turned away our protest at the opposition not wearing their registration bands. We left and never returned.
And so onto Benfica. The club wanted a new manager. I was invited by the club to take over. I put down what I expected from the club and the ambition the club demanded. It was agreed and we set off on an adventure of new discoveries.
Changing from Sundays to Saturdays was no mean feat and the Middlesex County Football League was a great stepping stone to learn from. We were placed in Division 1, playing at Birbeck Sports Association and won it in our 1st year. We were then promoted to the Premier Division and were Champions again in our second. As we had ground shared with Hanwell Town that season, we were able to rise to the Spartan league and came a respectable 8th in our 1st season. I must make a special mention of the late Tony Kempster, who is partly to blame for our success and had a profound influence on Benfica rising up the ladder.
During my time at Benfica I have also coached Years 5 & 6 for a local primary school and for the first time won the Inter School City of Westminster tournament for 2 consecutive years. I also had the pleasure of being present at various professional club training sessions lead by managers such as the late Sir Bobby Robson and José Mourinho amongst others.
Best player seen or played/managed against?
That is a difficult one. Only because I try not to dwell too much on the opposition. I have had the pleasure of working with some great players, some great professionals, too many to mention in fear of missing anyone out.
Where do you see Sport London being in 5 years time?
When I joined the club we had an ambitious 10 year plan. In that plan, we have ticked several boxes including playing in the FA Vase with the FA Cup still to come and other future promotions. We hope to have our own ground within 5 years, be playing at a superior level to the Spartan League together with a strong youth structure with teams going throughout the ages.
Since being a senior club from 2007 what’s been the club's best result?
One of our aims in our 10 year plan was to enter the FA Vase and we were able to enter last season for the first time in the club’s history. One game in particular, against Eton Manor, I would say was one of our best results, not because of the score line as we only won 1-2, but how we played. Against the odds of having our goalkeeper sent off for handball outside the area, no sub keeper, and with our midfield play maker in goal for approx. 70 minutes we scored 2 goals and only let in one at the very end.
The best score line we have had is 7-0 against Brache Sparta last season when we were fighting relegation.
What's gone wrong with the results this year?
Where do I start? It can be traced back to our first year in the Spartan League when things were going relatively well until club politics entered the frame. The promises made when I joined the club were not being fulfilled. There was a small revolution where we lost our clubhouse/restaurant which financed the football and therefore, we had to count on Sponsorship only. We survived the season, finishing in 8th. Not bad for our first year but I can’t help thinking what might have been if behind the scenes things had been different. Last season the club was still getting sorted and money was tight. The credit crunch didn't help. We ended up loosing our ground share despite not owing our landlord a penny. After being offered the opportunity to ground share with Haringey Borough at Coles Park, White Hart Lane, we start a new season, in a new ground, with a relatively new team.
As a manager, I take responsibility for our results this year, although I was away for a month, missing the beginning of the season and pre-season, due to my mother being diagnosed with cancer, my assistant and coach took over. August is traditionally a bad month for us as we generally have a lot of absentees due to holidays. We ran trials and attracted some promising young players who we have kept on, in return for their hard work. Slowly, we have been introducing back the more experienced players and once those players are all back we will have a very strong mix of players, that will be well drilled, hard-working and hopefully, technically able to take on the long season to come. Despite our present position, I still feel we will be there or thereabouts come April 2010.
Sport London, in their quest for a win have the following forthcoming fixtures:
Saturday 12th September 2009 - Crawley Green (away)
Tuesday 15th September 2009 - Amersham Town (away) Div One Cup
Saturday 19th September 2009 - AFC Dunstable (home)
Wednesday 23rd September 2009 - Amersham Town (home)
Saturday 26th September 2009 - Hadley (away)
Saturday 3rd October 2009 - Cockfosters (away)
Saturday 10th October 2009 - Park View (away) Middlesex FA - Intermediate Cup Round 1
Saturday 17th October 2009 - Brache Sparta (away)
Saturday 24th October 2009 - Cranfield United (away)
The club play their midweek home games on a Wednesday at Coles Park and it's only £3 entrance. The cold end recommends a visit to see the team play as the games I have seen so far have always been very entertaining. Well worthy of visit!!!
The cold end wishes Jose, his coaching staff, the team and all those associated with the club all the very best of luck for the rest of the season.
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