End Of Season Rundown

[Craig Millward]

End Of Season Report

This report is dedicated to Ernest who has took a lot of interst in our team and our performaces over the season !!

We set off at the beginning of the season knowing we had lost players to academies and also players to the "A" Division, but we still had the nucleus of the team and we also brought in some players that have proved their worth to the team, "WHAT COULD GO WRONG".

We started the season with a home game against Crosspool loosing 4-2, which to me was a little harsh, we definately deserved at least a draw, but we needed to pick ourselves up and make amends. Our second game was another home game against newly promoted Ecclesall Juniors, this was a game Abbey Lane totally dominated but amazingly lost 2-0. A draw in our next game and a 7-4 defeat in the following game showed things were not quite right. The football was excellent, but at that point our keepers were spilling a lot of the ball and our strikers were skying a lot of the ball as we tried out different players up front, so at both ends of the pitch we were struggling a little. It took Abbey Lane five games to record our first victory of the season which came in a full on battle against the Junior Blades where Abbey Lane came out 2-1 victors. We had changed things around a little and seemed to have got the formation right, the lads had played excellent football we had got our first win, this actually put us one point behind where we were the previous season, where we missed out on promotion back to the "A" Divion by 2 points, this seemed to be good times now, we should start to climb the league, or so we thought.
We were still celebrating our victorty, when a bombshell phone call where the parents of one of our influential players who in recent weeks had been playing as a striker, with a lot of sucess, decided their lad was too good for the "B" Division and should be in the "A" Division, possibly so, but it was only his second season in junior football, so should it be "do not run before you can walk" ?. The player left, throwing the formation into dissaray, we now had to start again and try to sort out this problem. Our next game was an away day to newly promoted and local rivals Dronfield Town, we had a lot of the play, but could not force our way through, but with two fast strikers, Dronfield took the bragging rights with a 2-1 home victory. We won two of our next five games and it was evident we were not going to be fighting for promotion at this rate, it would possibly be relegation. We lost a couple of players along the way that were in their first season of junior football and were struggling a little with the pace of the game, and we were struggling with limited options to make changes to our formation. We signed a couple of players, one who had played for me previously who had released himself from Scunny United, and another who is an U11 who i have coached for a number of years who had left his previous team. This gave us a few options, CALLUM from Scunny was a player who could really play anywhere, strongest in either centre defence or centre midfield, and our new U11 striker SAM who has blistering pace and skill with a ball, i think with Sam being a small, slight lad there might have been a few questions being asked of his capability, this was soon sorted with his first two performances, in which he scored two goals in each due to his pace and predator instinct.
Abbey Lane were playing some great football and were very unlucky not to pick up a few more wins on their way. The next four games saw us win two and loose two, which lifted us up the league, but we wasn't getting too excited as we new we had tough games to come. Abbey Lane were very unlucky in some of their following games, playing the top teams in the league, we matched them and probably out played them for the football, but we were still letting in too many sloppy goals and not scoring enough goals. We were capable of giving anyone a good game as we pass the ball well and push forward well. With a lot of games falling foul of the weather, we started to slip down the league, and with four games to go we found ourselves swapping places with Ecclesfield Red Rose, who had spent the majority of the season at the bottom of the league, and this was a team we had done the double over. There looked to be tricky times ahead as all but one of our remaining games was against teams above half way in the league, so it was not an easy run in. We came second best to Beighton Magpies, loosing 3-0 at home, even though with other results of the day, they were actually relagated. We had three games to go, the first being a tricky game at home to Dodworth who had slapped us 7-4 earlier in the season. We went about this game as if our lifes depended on it. We took an early lead but were forced back just before half time. With less than a minute to go Dodworth scored the winner, which was heart breaking for the lads, as we had definately been the better team, and even with a draw, i would have felt it was two points dropped. Two games to go, and not knowing other results it was a case of nothing less than two wins would do to keep us in the "B" Division. We travelled away to Ecclesall Juniors who were fifth in the league, and who had somehow beat us 2-0 in our previous meeting. We arrived to a snow covered pitch, with the kick off delayed untill the sun and the shovels could remove enough of the snow to get under way. The game kicked off and Abbey Lane showed their true colours, they produced an excellent team performance, and our now only keeper POND produced an outstanding performance as we thumped Ecclesall 5-0. There were nervous times as the Junior Blades were beaten 1-0 at Crosspool, this was a match that myself and some of the coaches attended along with representation from Ecclesfield Red Rose, as it was evident it was between us three who was to be relegated.
We knew in our last game we only needed a point to stay up, as our goal difference was +20 better than Ecclesfield. We went all out to get three point which would have pushed us even further up the league, but after a great battle the point was gained and the LADS STAY UP.

It has been a frustrating season from a management point of view, loosing players just before and just after the season has started, really put the pressure on, with the worst part of it is thinking, if we had known this ws coming, there were plenty of lads that came for trials that were good enough to play for this team, but we didn't have space at the time. All the lads have worked hard all season and any one who has watched any of our games will acknowledge we play some very attractive football, which is exactly what i want the lads to do, i will not allow them to play the long ball game, as to me they never learn anything from it. A special mention has got to go out to our U11 striker SAM TERRY as he really helped us out of a tricky position and scored some great goals that effectively helped us stay up. We need to keep this team together now, and add a little competition as this can only make the team stronger, we are lucky we have players that can play in any position which has definately helped our cause, and in particular one player NICK HAYES who has played every position apart from in goal, his contributions to the team have been invaluable.
Hopefully the trials will bring lots of healthy competition, but one thing is for sure we need to keep this team together and add three or four players to give us good competition for places, but also to be able to change like for like for resting purposes and hopefully we can go on and gain promotion to the "A" Division.
I am a lot greyer than i was at the beginning of the season, and after the last few matches, i am not quite sure what state my ticker is in, but overall i have enjoyed it and with running the U12's Girls who have won the league and got promoted to the top division, it has really turned out to be a sucessful season for both teams, for different reasons.