Season 2006-2007

In 2006, with the trend set for growth, two new teams were sourced from Congleton Hawks at U10’s and U11’s managed by Anthony Key and Andrew Gravett respectively.

Kevin Carroll retired as it proved impossible to raise a squad for the forthcoming U17’s. John Greening took over as Club Secretary and Greg Roney formed a new U16’s team with Kevin Manson filling the role vacated by Greg as manager of the U14’s.

t was our first season together as a team, and also our first season at 11-a-side football, and so the lads did very well finishing 8th in the table and being on the end of quite a few narrow defeats.

The season started with the difficult group games, which would eventually determine that we would be placed in Division 3. The first game was at home versus Rudheath, and although we started well taking the lead through Parker, Rudheath�s greater strength and experience took them on to a 5-2 victory.
Tough games against Macc boys, and Egerton followed with heavy defeats of 9-0 and 11-0, however we never gave up and both these teams went on to secure similar scorelines in their league games. The last group game was against Frodsham Park, and although we lost 2-0 showed signs of better things to come.

The Division 3 games started with narrow defeat to Rudheath whose experience showed yet again in the latter stages of the game, but the following week saw our first victory of the season over Davenham Rangers 3-1. This was closely followed by an annihilation of Witton Villa 13-0, and a last gasp draw against Northwich where we led up to the last minute of the game. When we beat Egerton Lions 7-0 in the following game we were dreaming of promotion. However 5 defeats in a row soon brought us back down to earth. Three of these defeats were by 1 goal and two of those were in the last minute showing the narrow margin between victory and defeat. The return game against Witton got us back to winning ways, but unfortunately that would be the last points of the season, as our performances tailed off a little towards the end of the season. However we again lost two more games by late goals, and in the last game of the season against Northwich , we were never out of it and although we lost 2-0, we matched them all the way apart from the killer touch in front of goal.

Coming up against 2nd Division opposition early in the season in both Cups meant heavy defeats, but with a couple of new acquisitions next season looks set to build on this seasons promise.

Last year (2005/06) was our first season together. Coming up against more established teams inevitably meant that we would have a difficult start – and this we duly did! But by Christmas we were getting it together. However, absences left us with only 10 players for several games with key players missing, resulting in a disappointing finish to the season – at least in terms of results (there were still plenty of smiling faces!).

But training throughout last summer (’06), the addition of new players Andrew and Josh, a second Goal Keeper in Jack(S), a fully committed James in Goals and a strengthened resolve within the core of the team suggested things were going to be different.

The season started in September sunshine at Frodsham with Ben grabbing the first goal of the season. But we lost Liams presence in midfield through injury and ended up losing the game in the closing stages when minutes earlier we should have had the match won with a penalty. But we bounced back against Davenham with a good win against our last seasons ‘bogey’ team – Dan scoring our second goal even though he’d recently taken up a defensive role at Right Back.

We lost our next game to the eventual league winners Witton Villa, following a spectacular thunder storm that forced us to postpone kick-off for half an hour. Blistering attacking football caught us off-guard and on the wrong end of a 7-0 drubbing! The week after we won a hard fought game against Cuddington; Jack(S) in his new role of Centre Back leading a detemined defence of a 3-2 lead for the last 15 minutes of the game.

By early November the dominance of the 2 top teams; Witton Villa and Northwich Town, was threatening to deny us any chance of promotion into division 2. In order to keep our promotion prospects alive we had to beat Northwich Town during their visit to Congleton. But it wasn’t to be. Despite Tom(W) opening the scoring, injuries, defensive errors and Northwich’s dominance in midfield allowed the game to slip away from us.

The 2 top teams were simply NOT dropping points to other teams! So the best we could hope for was 3rd place. But this left us head-to-head with Frodsham, who, having beaten us in the 1st game of the season, also had this spot in their sights.

The next few games were critical – we needed to win and keep the pressure on. Tom(W) and Jordan combined to score against Woodford and Harley and Harrys efforts in Midfield helped us comprehensively win against Grappenhall. We reached our target when we beat Frodsham in the home leg in early December with a late goal by Richard. From there on in, it was a case of staying ahead and enjoying the football.

The final twist in the race for the top of the table came when we travelled away to play Northwich Town, who by this time were the uncrowned champions. A really good game resulted – one that Rovers twice lead and could have won. In the end the points were shared, but the consequence of this result was that Northwich and Witton were left on level points and had to ‘play-off’ at the end of the season. Witton Villa winning the play-off.

We had a disappointing game against Davenham on a virtually unplayable pitch. In an unexpected 4th defeat of the season, Harry and Mossy were sent off following the late Davenham goal. Substitution’s and indiscipline cost us heavily and lessons were learned. FA disiplinary action lead to match bans for both players.

We ended the league season with a ‘blast’ however, when we beat Grappenhall on a windy day with just 8 players – 9 if you include Chris leaving his ‘sick bed’ to join the line-up replacing an injured James in goal after an heroic first half. Our spectators were almost as shocked as the Grappenhall team… an amazing achievement!

Cup action…

Our League cup match against Tarvin brought us close to a win but their left winger undid us creating all 4 of their goals, eventually sending us out in the 1st leg. But Tarvin certainly got more than they bargained for and were pleased when the final whistle blew.

Richard’s arrival in October strengthened our attack and helped us through to the second leg of the District FA Cup against Vale, his late goal beating Barnton in the dying minutes. However, Vale duly ended our run with a 4-0 defeat after our midfield was weakened by Harleys move to defence. We gave a good account of ourselves all the same, Robbie leading the defence against Vales early onslaught!

In summary, this was a successful season, where we grew stronger as time went on. This was reflected by late season draws against the tables 2 top teams – including the the friendly against Witton where Mossy levelled with an inspired free kick from outside the 18yrd box. It’s been a season that I think we’ve all enjoyed; let’s build on that and start next season in the same spirit.

A big thank you to the boys for their commitment and determination. Thanks also to all the parents and grandparents for your support.

The U13s made a marked improvement on the previous season�s 12th place finishing a creditable, 4th equal, out of 14 teams.
They hit a superb goal tally of 102 goals from 26 league games ! missing out on promotion to the first division by just one place.

Chris Greening was the leading scorer with 32 goals and lifted both the player’s Player and the Supporter’s Player of the year awards. Alex Garber and Richard Hall were jointly awarded the Sporstman of the year award with Goal of the Season going to Chris Oakley (Manager�s Award) Most Influential Player toCade Spence ( Manager�s Award) Most Improved Player �toJoel Pointon (Manager�s Award)

With the addition of 2 new players to strengthen the squad for next season, they also should start as one of the favourites for promotion.

The U16�s finished bottom of their division which was an achievement considering the team was brand new playing against established opposition and as the season progressed the performances improved to the point where every game was enjoyable to be involved with. All of the players are to be commended for their never say die attitude and hard work during training and the games.