LEAGUE IN FOCUS

The Middlesex County Football League Division One (Central & East)

The Middlesex County League has been running very successfully since 1984 with various clubs making the step up to higher leagues over the last twenty odd years. Brook House/AFC Hayes are probably the most well known of the clubs to come from the Middlesex County League.

The League now has a Premier, Division One (central & east) and (west), Division Two and Division Three (Hounslow & District) as well as a reserve division. The Premier division is primarily made up of clubs from the Western area of Middlesex so the cold end will focus on Division One (Central and East) which following the league's reorganisation has been in existence since the 07/08 season. In the first season Park View and Southall were 1st and 2nd and last year Copland and Stonewall were in the top two places. The Premier being a feeder league to the Combined Counties League or the SSML is on step 11 of the pyramid thus making division one step 12.

This season the division has 10 clubs competing as follows (venue for matches):

FC TEAM John Lyon School, Harrow
FC BARESI Salisbury Hall, nr Crooked Billet, E17
HENDON A Chase Lodge, nr Copthall stadium
KENTISH TOWN RES Chase Lodge, nr Copthall stadium
LONDON UNITED FOOTBALL Flanders Field, East Ham
REGENTS PARK Regents Park
SPORTING HACKNEY Haggerston Park, E2
ST JOHN'S ARSENAL DEAF The Walker Cricket Ground
SPRINGFIELD Low Hall Sports Ground, E17
WILBERFORCE WANDERERS White Hart Lane Community Sports Centre

One of the team's who play close to Enfield Town FC is St John's Arsenal Deaf who have been in existence since 1913 when they were formed as The St John of Beverley Deaf club. They are the oldest deaf football club in England and Wales. They have won the British Deaf cup numerous times in the last 10 years and made their debut in the MCFL last season in Division 1 (C&E) finishing with a respectable 33 points in 4th position. They made an excellent start to the season on 19th September beating Premier Division FC Deportivo Galicia on PENS AET in the Middlesex Senior Open cup to set up a meeting with FC Assyria in the second round on 31st October. In the their opening match in the league on 26th September they were beaten by The Wilberforce Wanderers 5-3.

website - http://www.stjohnsdfc.co.uk/

Wonderfully named The Wilberforce Wanderers currently play their home games at the White Hart Lane community sport's centre which is just down the A10 from Enfield. The wanderers were formed between a group of old university friends and in 2006 toured Malawi playing Admarc Tigers from the Malawian Super League in the 40,000 capacity Kamuzu stadium. A striking difference to playing on a sport's field in front of a handful of people.
Their debut season in the MCFL was 2002/2003 when they won 6 out of 18 games in Division Two, last season they finished 6th in Divsion One (C&E). As well as their 5-3 win versus St Johns they have also beaten Sporting Hackney 3-2 this season.

website - The wanderers do have a website but it is currently unavailable at the time of writing.

The last club the cold end will look at today is Sporting Hackney who were formed in 1986 as 'Hackney young people's unemployment project', the club have toured Italy, Spain and Holland in recent years and are making their debut in the MCFL this season. Sporting lost the game versus Wilberforce but have won against Hendon 'a' 3-1 in their first game of the season.

website - http://www.clubwebsite.co.uk/sportinghackney/

There are three fixtures in the MCFL Divsion One (C&E) this weekend:

FC BARESI V KENTISH TOWN RES
SPORTING HACKNEY V SPRINGFIELD
ST JOHNS V HENDON A

The games in this league usually kick off at 2pm or 3pm depending on the time of year, the league do organise some early kick off games on occasions which if there are any this year the cold end will inform you of.

thecoldend