SW19's ARMY

Ah, that’s what I want to see from a pre-season friendly. Sunny summer weather, fair smattering of people, trees rustling mildly in the breeze, and  Woking 0 Danny Kedwell 4. We may be in danger of becoming quite a good unit. OK, Derek Duncan Syndrome™ can always take over here, but that managed to be [...]

As it’s pre-season, I can’t really be arsed to do a proper Cats 0 Lions 1 type report, so you’ll have to put up with the following observations… – Apart from a shaky opening 20 minutes, where our defence looked like it was three divisions below the opposition, we did pretty well. JM put from [...]

Looks like we’ve got ourselves a little bit of a financial windfall. Along with the rest of the Conference, that is… I have to admit, the cynical side of me thinks this is a bit of a sop to us non-league lowlifes. When you look at the alleged wages that somebody like Man Citeh are [...]

Nice to be back isn’t it? Especially when it finishes Addicts 2 Addicks 0. As a rule, pre-seasons are meant to be tolerated, liked at most but not fully enjoyed. This one was one of the most liked I can remember for a while. Dare I say I actually enjoyed it? Although not to the [...]

Perhaps the most popular function in AFCW’s pre-season calendar off-pitch is the Meet The Manager soiree that we hold around about this time every year. The 2010 version was no different, and with pen and notepad in hand, your editor practiced his shorthand/longhand technique and gave himself a sore wrist in the process. After 15 [...]

Looks like the Surrey Herald have been doing all sorts of proper journalistic digging and have come up with a list of triallists for the pre-season. Now, in the past that very word has brought images of lumbering nobodies who couldn’t even trap a fart. And yes, that pre-season game at Met Police two years [...]

OK, Post-Season Syndrome (or should that be Pre-Season Syndrome now?) has struck SW19 again. This time, it’s disturbingly gone into the realms of bogus amateur psychology and uneducated guesswork… I’ve just been looking through Paul R’s photos of yesterday’s kit launch, and of course there’s the usual fanfare associated with these type of events. Though [...]

Blimey, that was a bit unexpected wasn’t it? I knew we were serious about getting in an experienced centre back, but I doubt if anyone expected Ismail Yakubu.  And suddenly, it seems that we’re not forever trawling around the lower reaches of non-league after all. For once, a player you’ve vaguely heard of, from a [...]