So another trophy-less season is over. It has been thoroughly enjoyable though, and the side has remained reasonably consistent once again, which can only be a good thing.

There has been only one real addition to the squad this season in the form of who filled the hole left by . He’s had a fine debut season, providing some much needed steel in the midfield and running himself into the ground in every game he has played. Hopefully he’ll be putting pen to paper once again for next season. One other significant ‘addition’ to the squad was the return of on a regular basis, which was very welcome.

Performances have generally been satisfactory this season with players such as and , and all looking as solid as ever, and not forgetting , who played just about everywhere during a reasonably solid season.

The club was fortunate this year to have three top quality keepers on it’s books in the form of , and . Lee started out as first-choice number one, but was then unfortunately missed most of the season, the relative downturn in the London housing market throwing up a rigorous schedule of drinking commitments. This gave the chance to try the gloves on for size, and it was an opportunity the youngster clasped with both hands. He had an outstanding season, instilling confidence in his back four and the rest of the team. Towards the end of the campaign though, even he found it hard to play regularly because of other commitments, and so up-stepped to try on the numero uno jersey for size. too was outstanding, and never once let the side down. He was even seen show boating for the cameras on a number of occasions; there must be something catching inside the club gloves, for both and were not unfamiliar with the theatrical dive.

The midfield, impressively, learnt the meaning of tracking back. Its taken two years but we got there finally. Apparently even was spotted tackling and defending, though this is a currently unsubstantiated rumour. The strikers have done their best, especially when we’ve been on the back foot for most of the game and they’ve had to carry the teams attacking aspirations entirely on their own. weighed in with seven goals (a very impressive showing from just seven starts), but it was the smoke-free who added yet another Golden Boot to his by now Imelda Marcos-sized collection, scoring ten before yet again falling hamstrung with eight matches to go.

Despite finishing the domestic season without that elusive people of silverware, it did show much promise early doors of being a promotion season. The dream of course was effectively ended when we only got one point from the Gardeners Arms double-header. Teams dropping out also didn’t help: we lost 8 goals and 6 points with the demise of Kensington Stanley. Our campaign yielded five victories and five draws in those games that eventually counted. If some of those draws had been turned into victories, our final standing could have well been much higher.

The clubs name has been blackened by several scandals this year. The cost of the ‘ShabbyGate’ affair alone was high, the club being fined GBP 0,000,027 and suspended for our Cup quarter-final against Lillington. ShabbyGate came about because of an unpaid fine that had been issued to for a scandalously unCorinthian hand-ball. In his defence, however, he actually paid the fine on the day it was incurred. So was I to blame? The answer is no, not really. Referees are a remarkably inconsistent bunch and it isn’t unheard of for a referee to not actually send in a booking. This is what I thought had happened but in fact the booking had been sent in and the London FA were sending all the correspondence to my old address, the fools. [So goes the official line, but there are a number of holes in this cover-up. Why did the hole-merchant cough up the dosh if he didn’t expect the booking to be filed? Where would his money have gone if no fine had been served? Why was he coincidentally and quite inexplicably made captain in the very first match after the ban was lifted? The public demands answers to these questions! Ed]

This wasn’t the only scandal to hit the club: FazelGate had already hit us early doors. To be fair, this one was my fault. Having scored twice against Kensington Stanley, found himself dropped from the squad in the next game which understandably he wasn’t happy about. The problem was I didn’t realise that the said player was going on holiday and would miss the next couple of games; cue a tantrum of -sized proportions [who, incidentally, is still counting his minutes-on-the-pitch to-goal ratio]. Things were eventually smoothed out in the second half of the season, however, and once again I hope we are a happy little club.

The season started well enough: in fact it was the best start since records began. A hard-fought 3-2 victory over Prince of Wales (who had beaten us 5-0 at the end of the previous season) was followed up with a devastating 6-0 drubbing of Kensington Stanley and then an easy 4-1 victory over South West Eighteen. We were then (not for the first time) stopped in our tracks by Everyman who held us to 2-2 draw at Fortress Ilea. It was here that the wheels started to fall off to be honest. We didn’t play another league game until December by which time we could only muster ten men. Though we battled bravely, we eventually went down 4-0 to Mae D’Agua to record our first league defeat of the season.

The main reason for the huge gap was down to the Cup. First of all our Third Division opponents failed to turn up at the right ground so we won by default. This was then followed by a bye in the second round. The quarter-finals then saw us drawn against Lillington, a match awarded to last season’s Division Two Champions because of the ‘Shabbygate’ ban in place at the time.

After such a long time twiddling our thumbs, it was no surprise that the second half of the season saw a lot of double headers. And if I’ve learnt one thing this year, its that we don’t seem to be able to play them. From our three double headers (against Gardeners Arms, London Radnor and eventual Champions Southfield Rovers) we managed just 4 points from a possible 18. This, more than anything, has led to our lowly league position.

The first double header gave the opportunity to flex his managerial muscles for the first time since last year’s World Cup. He had a good squad to choose from and elected to start with a slightly weaker team, a strategy I agreed with. Unfortunately we lost this game by a goal to nil and it sparked a bit of a dressing room riot at half time.

He quickly learned that domestic management is a totally different kettle of fish to international management, and picked a stronger team for the second game. It looked as if it was going to pay dividends, with us going 2-0 up. Unfortunately the Gardeners weren’t about to roll over, and made a tactical switch to move one of their midfielders up front. That caused us all sorts of problems, and he proceeded to score a hat trick to put his side 3-2 up. Fortunately levelled late on. But unfortunately the referee was so awful that this pretty much started a riot on the pitch, as was blatantly off-side and like all good managers I failed to see that, as did the referee.

It isn’t all doom and gloom however; we haven’t been outclassed by anybody this year and have generally become quite difficult to beat. Well at least we make the opposition work for their victories.

As for the finally adjusted seasonal stats (after results against folding teams had been discounted), in the 18 games we played we won 5, drew 5 and lost 8. We managed a paltry 34 goals (40 if you count expunged results as well) and conceded 44. This compares to 60 scored in 25 games last year though we conceded 78 last year. What does this tell us? The obvious thing is that we’ve improved defensively all across the team but this improvement has led to reduction in the goals that we’ve managed at the other end. The key I feel is finding the correct balance, which is something we shall address next season, hopefully!

So to next season, what can we expect from Logica FC? More of the same? Worse? Better? Well hopefully it’ll be better. I can’t see us doing worse, so at the very least it’ll be another season of mid-table mediocrity.

We don’t want this though. We’ve been in this division for Three seasons now and it’s about time we put in a concerted challenge for promotion to Division One. This is, of course, not entirely in our own hands. We need a good run of weather to enable us to build up some impetus as was happening last year, until we cruelly went two months without a game a gap that knocked us out of our stride. This must not happen this time out if success is to be achieved. It will also help if we don’t have to play any double headers.

There’s been no significant signings over the summer, though may make a one game cameo in the first game of the season against Olympia. has decided to call it a day, but the good news is that is soon to put pen to paper and be our regular goalkeeper for the forthcoming campaign.

Financially the club is almost on sound footing. Once the kit costs have been cleared we’ll actually be making a profit from season to season which can only be a good thing, so I’m quite hopeful on that front.

What do we want achieve football-wise? Well the obvious answer is to finally win a trophy. I believe the squad is good enough to accomplish this and the majority of the players have played together for a long while now.

We need to carry the World Cup form over to the league and most importantly play like we do in the world cup: passing the ball short and moving off the ball. Too many times everyone is looking for the Hollywood ball to unlock the oppo’s defence and the majority of teams are just too good for these tactics. If we pass it short we keep the ball which means the oppo can’t hurt us. Whilst lumping it means that the ball is coming straight back and we’re inviting pressure which is no good. This isn’t to say that we should never be passing it long as there’s a time and place for everything especially at the back, when often the safety first ball is the only viable option, but we should be using our heads a little I feel.

So what can we expect from the opposition this season. Well there are a lot of teams I know nothing about. Only CD Galicia, Everyman Utd and Mae D’Agua (renamed as Braganca of London) remain from last season, the majority of teams beneath us going into administration or folding. The rest of the teams come from a range of divisions, from the Senior Amateur Reserve right down to the fifth division, so it’s going to be a bit of a mixed bag I suspect.

The Division 5 champions, West Ten, won their division at a canter but I suspect they’ll find life hard three levels higher. The teams coming down from leagues above will be hard to beat, especially Supercala from the Amateur Reserve. Spectraprint from the First Division will also be no pushovers. The rest of the division is made up of the following teams: Inter Wandsworth (finished second in Division 3 last season), Rapid Decline (third in Division 3, and whom we were supposed to play in the first round of the Cup but they didn’t turn up); FC Broadway (fourth in Division 3); Wanderers Utd (Division 4 Champions); and Olympia (third in Division 4).

All in all, let’s have a good season, and if the Football Gods are smiling our way, maybe we can win a trophy. Most importantly of all, however; let’s enjoy it!

Yours in leadership,

SEASON AT A GLANCE:
Most Appearances: (15+2 out of 19 games max)
Golden Boot: (10 goals in 13+1 games)
Players' Player of the Year:
Goal of the Season: v Spencers
Football Writers' Player of the Year: (4 MoM Awards)
Biggest Victory: 6-0 v Kensington Stanley (h)
Heaviest Defeat: 3-7 v Deportivo Galicia (a)
Number of Players used: 27
Goals Scored: 40 goals in 19 games (average 2.11 per game)
Goals Conceded: 44 goals in 19 games (average 2.32 per game)
Clean Sheets: Three in 19 games (average one every 6.33 games)