What a season for the Suffolk side who won the title by an amazing 15 points losing only 5 games, scoring 115 goals and amassing 101 points in the process. They never lost more than one game in a row and when they strengthened their side with the signing of Joe Francis at the beginning of December they never looked back. Francis scored 16 goals in 22 league appearances to help his new side to the Championship. The trawlerboys also had a fantastic run in the FA Cup beating local rivals Great Yarmouth Town, Dereham Town, Boston United, Sutton Coldfield Town and Gloucester City to qualify for the first round proper for the first time in over 30 years bravely going out to a goal in the last moments of the game at Blue Square Premier Wrexham. The cold end thinks if the Welsh side would have had to journey to Crown Meadow in a replay they would of struggled to get a result.
If can keep the nucleus of their team together with a few additions to the squad the cold end can see no reason why The Trawlerboy's can push for the play-offs or maybe the Championship in the higher division.
Best result - Beating East Thurrock United 1-2 away on the 19th January.
Worst result - Losing to Concord Rangers 0-5 away on the 2nd March.
Cold end best player - Ex Scotland international midfielder Gary Holt is a class act and can surely return to playing at a higher level.
Concord Rangers - 2nd place
The Thames Road outfit had a great season finding only Lowestoft Town better than them in the league. The additions of left-back Danny Glozier and the experience of Marvin Samuel made an already strong squad look stronger. We all know what occurred in the play off final where Concord were promoted to the Premier Division. They will play the first league Canvey Island local derbies next season that are sure to attract a large crowds.
Best result - Beating Enfield Town 3-1 in the play off final on the 1st May
Worst result - Losing to Enfield Town 2-1 at Goldsdown Road on the 24th November
Cold end best player - Left back Danny Glozier is a dead ball and penalty specialist. Always looks a good player when facing the Town which he has done so for Brentwood Town and AFC Hornchurch as well as Rangers.
Wingate and Finchley - 3rd place
Dave Norman's side were arguably the best side in the division in the second half of the season losing only one game when they were trounced 6-1 by Concord Rangers at home. September and October wasn't a good month for the Blues when they were dumped out of the FA Cup at Spartan South Midland's side Aylesbury FC and the FA Trophy at Ryman South Sittingbourne. They also lost league games at Tilbury, East Thurrock United and Lowestoft Town as well as going down at home to Great Wakering Rovers. Highly impressive forward Leon Smith chipped in with many impressive goals prompting rumours to circulate of a move to a league side. If they keep the bulk of their side from this season Town's North London neighbours are sure to be challenging next season for the league title. Wingate play a nice passing attractive game on their wonderful pitch which has to be one of the best in the Ryman League. It certainly is miles better than the nearby National Stadium's surface at Wembley.
Best result - Beating Enfield Town 4-2 (7/11/09)
Worst result - Losing to Northwood 0-4 at home (29/12/09)
Cold end best player - Leon Smith, a skillful, strong and pacey forward who scored 29 goals in league and cup competitions. Tough tackling midfielder Ahmet Rifat is always a presence in the Wingate team, He is the sort of player opposing fans love to hate but most would love to have him in their team.
Enfield Town - 4th place
The cold end has already gone into detail about the wonderful season Steve and Del's team had culminating in going so close to promotion in the play-off final. The three loses in late October against East Thurrock United, Northwood and at Concord in the FA Trophy prompted the signings of Ben Hammond and Liam Hope along with the arrivals of Mark Kirby (to replace the departing Chris Wild) and Michael Bardle freshened the squad up and the Town never looked back. December and January resulted in an eight game winning run pushing the Town up the league into the play off mix. We all know what happened and there's no doubt at cold end HQ that Town will bounce back next season using the play-off final defeat as a positive factor to push the team on to better and bigger things.
Worst Result - Losing at Walton and Hersham in the FA Cup 2nd QR.
Cold end best player - The cold end can't pick a best player for Town. The whole squad has done fantastically.
East Thurrock United - 5th place
John Coventry's side suffered defeat in the play offs again this season. This season's points total of 77 got them to 5th place which is way down 18 pts from their 95 total in the 08/09 campaign. Aveley pipped them to the title in 2009 and they were beaten by their local rival's Concord in the play off's at home, this season the roles were reversed and they were undone by Lyle Taylor's last minute goal at Thames Road in the Semi-Final. The Rock's are always full of goals making our 0-0 draw there a great result and are bound to be up in the top half of the league next season.
Best result - The 4-0 win at Goldsdown Road in October.
Worst result - Losing 3-2 at Romford in December.
Cold end best player - 'An ex Millwall trainee who knows where the goal is and scores at a rate of a goal every game' - Not Lyle Taylor of Concord Rangers. Sammy Higgins scored 36 goals in 36 league and cup games ending up the league's top scorer. Richard Wray proved what a great goalkeeper he is when pulling off that last minute save from Fabio Valenti's free kick against Town at Rookery Hill.
Heybridge Swifts - 6th place
Wayne Bond's side finished in a respectable league position missing out on the play-offs by 6 points. Losing nine games prior to Christmas was probably the Essex side's undoing, as was their lack of goal-scoring with their top league scorer on only 8 goals. The Swift's record post new year of losing only four games (all to team's in the top half of the division - Lowestoft Town, Enfield Town, W&F and Thamesmead Town) shows they are a good side and with a few additions for next season in particular a 20+ goalscorer they will be there or thereabouts in the top half on the league
Best result - The 2-1 win at home versus Concord Rangers on the 10th April.
Worst result - The 4-1 loss at Romford on the 7th November.
Cold end best player - Goalkeeper Jamie Bowyer won the Swift's supporter's player of the year award.
Thamesmead Town - 7th place
A great improvement on their debut season in the Ryman League for The Mead who were in contention for the play-offs up until dropping off in the last few months of the season when they went on a horrific run of 8 loses in 9 matches. An impressive front pairing of Cable and Constable scored 34 goals in the league for the South Londoners which improved their points tally from 40 in the debut 08/09 season to a respectable 67 this season.
Best Result - Beating East Thurrock and Concord Rangers both 2-1 in the space of 3 days at Bayliss Avenue at the beginning of December.
Worst Result - The 0-1 loss at home to Waltham Forest on the 5th April capped a run of six loses in a row.
Cold end best player - Lewis Tozer recovered from Swine Flu in the pre-season to play 39 league games for the Mead. The full back has spent time at Fisher Athletic and Dulwich Hamlet previous to his spell at Bayliss Avenue.
VCD Athletic - 8th place
A superb year for the Vickers who were in touch with the play offs until the last few months of the season. The period from winning at Potters Bar on the 31st October before losing at home to Waltham Forest on 16th January where they won seven, drew two and lost only one game at Lowestoft Town was their best spell. They lost forward Leroy Huggins to Premier Division Margate with a few months of the season left but still continued to get good results losing only four times in seventeen games from the beginning of February. If they can improve next season they may well surprise a few teams on their Oakwood pitch which is one of the best in the league.
Best result - The three victories in a row at Enfield Town (1-2), Heybridge Swifts (1-2) and at home to W&F (2-1) at the end of November and beginning of December.
Worst result - Losing to basement boy's Harlow Town, then managed by Marvin Samuel, 1-2 at home on the 9th March.
Cold end best player - Left midfielder Nick Hegley was man of the match in the Vicker's win at Goldsdown Road in November.
Great Wakering Rovers - 8th place
Rover's manager Iain O'Connell left for Premier Division Margate with 12 games left of the season allowing his assistant Ryan Wilkinson and physio Cleve Taylor to step up into the hot seat and finish with a record of 5 loses, 4 wins and 3 draws in those games. Rover's were in with a good shout of the play-offs but just fell away towards the end. Wilkinson and Taylor have been given the managerial ropes for next season with a target of beating the 64 points the club got this campaign.
Best result - A 2-0 win at home to East Thurrock United in September.
Worst result - Losing 4-1 at Romford in March.
Cold end best player - "Experience" - you can't buy it and you can't beat it. Centre-Back's Nikki Beale and Steve Heffer typify this saying. Midfielder and captain Dan Trenkel had a gantastic game in their 2-3 win at Goldsdown Road, is also another great player to pull on the green and white shirt this season. Trenks and Beale always like to get involved in the banter from the opposing fan's showing which is what non-league football is all about. Visiting supporters are always give a warm welcome at Burroughs Park. Town always seem to be involved in good games with Rovers, the 3-3 draw and 2-3 defeat this season are perfect examples.
Northwood - 9th place
Dave Anderson stepped down from the hot seat at the beginning of March and was replaced by Mark Barnham. Barnham has since appointed ex Enfield FC legend Mark Pye and Wood's Surburban League side manager Mark Adams to assist him. Anderson stepped down due to chairman Ian Barry announcing a reduction in expenditure to safeguard the club's future. So it was a season of mid-table mediocrity for Northwood where they won 17 drew 10 and lost 15 games.
Best result - A 0-4 win at local rival's W&F followed by a 1-4 win at Concord Rangers in their next game albiet with a gap of almost a month between them due to the bad weather in Janauary and December
Worst result - Seven loses in a row from mid march to the end of April put an end to the faint hopes Wood fans had of a play-off place.
Best player - Forward Scott Orphanu chipped in with 11 league goals this season.
THE COLD END REVIEW OF THE SEASON PART TWO WILL FOLLOW SOON.
No comments:
Post a Comment