Southend 5 - 3 Letchworth
It was a typical Saturday afternoon at Tommy Moore school. Southend started with a slightly changed line up with four players missing, James Lockwood (girly injury, although as he is officialy the worst player in the first team it shouldn't make that much difference), Johnny 5 (work), Strawbs (holiday) and Rich Hill (non-alcoholic wedding). This meant recalls for Phil Harvey in defence, Stewart Christie in goal, Paul Mellish as water carrier and veteran Barry Puncher and a move to the forward line for Captain Keith Arnold (4 goals so far this season).
I had spoken to the umpire to confirm his availability earlier in the week and he had said "have you got any fiery players as I like a challenge on the pitch?". "Yes I said, pretty much a whole teams worth". And so it turned out to be a typical Southend game. Fiercely contested, lots of niggle and verbal ( I thought they were the main culprits though), end to end stuff, and 8 goals. Surely we should be known as the entertainers and charge an entrance fee.
For the first time this season the team got its act together and played well for the whole game, taking control from the start. Unfortunately this just led to Letchworth scoring against the run of play to take the lead. Some good play and a bit of fortune from the umpires (to make up for the fortune Letchworth had for 2 of their goals) led to Paul Mellish scoring his second goal this season with a tackle (Is that a record?).
The second half was action packed and 2 goals from Gareth Ingram (trademark short corner and one 1 can't remember?), Christian Jenkins (great goal, quality reverse stick finish after skinning a player who had just dished out some verbal which really made him look silly), and Stuart Jones (cant remember).
Southend got themselves ahead by a couple of goals and began to look comfortable and could even afford to lose Steve Hayman to injury, let Puppy hack down a forward to give away a penalty flick (a definite yellow card) and have Keith Arnold yellow carded (harshly!!!!!) and still hang on for the win.
Two wins on the trot now sees the team only one point off the top of Division 2, importantly six points ahead of Old Boys already, and looking ahead optimistically to the rest of the season.
Team - Christie, Styles, Hayman, Harvey, Mellish, Jones, Crompton, Needham, Puncher, Jenkins, Arnold, Ingram
Goals - Ingram, Jones, Mellish, Ingram
Burberry - Keith Arnold - Yellow card
Man of the Match - Paul Mellish
Poker Champ - Keith
Southend Mens 2's 1 - 6 Plashet
Southends mens 2nd team took on a strong Plashet team who are new to the east league this year at Tommy More on Saturday. The team started well and managed to hold plashet scoreess for a long time and eventually scored themselves when James Morgan broke through on goal AND HAD A SHOT THAT WAS SO WIDE IT WENT STRAIGHT TO Daniel "Lilly" Varrow on the far post who easily scored.
Eventually thos class told and Plashet won the game easily. This was a good performance against the team that wil surely go on to win the league.
Southend & Benfleet Ladies 1's 2 vs 0 Havering
11.30am push Back at Campion School
Saturday 7th October.
A fantastic result!!! It was a really great game, we arrived with plenty of time to do an adequate warm-up, including all of our dynamic stretching!! .
We new Havering from 2 seasons ago when we played them after Andy Poulains 40th Birthday party, we obviously lost back then due to rather large hangovers but we did redeem ourselves on the return match beating them 3-1. We knew they were a tough side, very determined and after doing a season in the premier division we were not taking anything for granted.
It was a well tuned performance by the ladies, a very strong start pushing over the half way line and pretty much maintaining it for the majority of the first half. We were awarded a short corner early on which naomi struck from the top of the D so sweetly we were suprised it never crossed the line, but it was stopped by a Havering foot which gave us a penalty flick. Unfortunatley, Kendal was unable to get it past the keeper so we restarted and battled on. We got the first goal by a superb set of passing from the mid-field, naomi coming through the middle passing wide to kendal to dummy the keeper, then slipping it left for sarah watkinson to slot it in the goal. We ended the half one nil up.
The second half was similar to the first, maintaining our pressure from the half way line. Havering by this time were getting frustrated, their number 35 seemed to wind up her own team mates through her own desparation for a goal, there was lots of swearing, stick tackles etc and the game just seemed to be getting out of control. Havering were playing in a blind panic!!! Our ladies kept their composure and with some hard work managed to free chloe up to score the second goal (nearly stolen by Sarah, but we told chloe she could have one - bless!).
The game finished 10 mins later with a superb result for us, and very well deserved.
Team: Lisa Ballard, Sandy Revell, Anne Johnson, Nicola Coleman, Emily Wainright-Lee, Steph Gregory, Lora Sharples, Kendal Colman, Adele Cole, Chloe Harris, Sarah Watkinson, Naomi Barker.
Goal Scorers; Sarah Watkinson, Chloe Harris.
Southend & Benfleet Ladies IIs - 10
Braintree IIs - 0
After losing 7-0 the previous week Southend were keen to make amends. They got off to a positive start with lots of pressure on the Braintree D, altho despite lots of shots Braintree managed to keep them out. Captain Claire King finally broke the deadlock, and then scored again to take Southend into the break with a comfortable 2-0 lead. Still keen to make up for the previous weeks goal deficit Southend knew they had to take every chance and wouldnt be happy until they'd made up the goal difference. Soon the goals were flying in. Claire King completed her hat-trick, and then scored one more just to make sure. New to the club this season Emily Wainwright-Lee put in a Rooney-esque performance, scoring a hat-trick on her first league match for the club. And Anne-Marie Byford, Dani Fletcher and Kirsty Durban were also on target - Kirsty's first goal for the club sadly getting somewhat lost amongst the
onslaught!
Emily Wainwright-Lee was deservedly voted man of the match.
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