MENS FIRST TEAM

18

2022 has been an incredible journey and sharing it with an amazing group people has been the biggest reward this year. Of course, not every journey is plain sailing in life, and we have had our fair share of ups and downs. We had a very productive preseason, working hard to gain fitness and building cohesion at training, which gave the group confidence leading into the season. From what was touted as the “most competitive” division 1 season for a long time, we started emphatically, taking 7 points from the opening 9 available. After a 4-2 win against Fencibles and moving onto 13 points from 9 games, we had a turbulent mid-season. Injuries, suspensions, holidays, Covid, etc meant inconsistent squad available and fluctuated form.

A big credit goes to the group, players, and coaches, for their commitment to believe in each other and the way we wanted to play. Following 9 games without a win, which included 4 highly entertaining draws, the group recaptured fine form in front of goal and produced 3 wins in the final 6 games.

A 5-3 win on the final day saw the team leap from 10th to 7th and finish with a respectable 26 points. Plenty of positives to take from the year, getting a full season and not being interrupted by Covid be one, and bring on the remainder of the year and 2023! A massive thank you to everyone involved! Mas, Tony, Tim, Dylan, Aaron, Barney for contributing to the environment we created; to the players for your commitment and being awesome lads and the wonderful Marie that has had to put up with our rowdiness every Thursday. Bring on 2023! Ben Fletcher

Hi all after our first full season in a couple years coming to a close here’s some thoughts about the season. For me and many of the squad it was exciting even before we started kicking a ball with the appointment of gaffer Ben Fletcher and coach Massa, with their drive and passion the season got off to a great start for the team grabbing early points and getting confidence back into a squad that had been missing in the past. As always with football you hit rough patches and that happened to us just before the second round fixtures where we stopped picking up those important points to keep us in the top half of the table. Credit to the coaches and the rest of the team for continuing to put the effort and quality in during those hard weeks which helped us see an improvement in results.

Heading in to the end of the season we still wanted to improve and finish as high as possible and with a mixed bag of results we finished the season in 7th place just below our target of top half but overall a much improved on past seasons.

I’d like to thank all our support throughout the year from parents, club members and other club teams (up the Bucks) also our coaching group (Ben, Masillan and Tony), manager Tim and the magic hands of Avantha and Aaron. Special mention to Callum, Hollie, Ryan and Seb B for your help with the reserves. Congratulations to all the winners and looking forward to next year where we can hopefully challenge for a spot at the very top of the table. Captain Seb Poelman