UNDER 9 TIGERS DO THE DOUBLE

The boys started strong against an in-form Ramblers team, and piled on the pressure from kick off. Charlie Batchelor and Hector Palmer both coming close early on. A slight scare 10 minutes in, as Oswald Wiafe was forced off with a foot injury. Luca Warren replaced, and kept Ramblers on their toes with his fancy footwork.Despite being under the cosh, Ramblers looked dangerous on the counter attack, and could have taken the lead were it not for Tom Quinn's fearless goalkeeping. Storming out of his goal to tackle the incoming striker, and clear the danger.

The breakthrough came just before half-time. Hector Palmer scoring one of his now famous inswinging corners, giving a well deserved lead and securing the Golden Boot title with 30 goals this season for the 'Blonde Bomber'.
 
With the lead, confidence grew and the Hoops continued to attack after the break. Ted Turnham proved a handful as usual, and linked up well with fellow midfielders Dylan Brown and Charlie Batchelor. Oswald recovered to return to defence, as Albie Day took a well deserved rest after keeping things tight at the back for the first 20 minutes. Josh Cronin kept his cool as the last man, with another display of no-nonsense defending.
 
The scoreline remained tight, but the greens were comfortable and able to see the game out. The final whistle blew and the boys were presented with their second piece of silverwear for the season. All the boys played a huge part in winning the cup, not only the final, but all previous rounds, and I would like to take the chance to congratulate them on an excellent season.
 
 

Very bright in the morning, gusty winds, blue skies. Hail and rain showers in the afternoon.

The Under 9 Leopards finished off their spring league matches unbeaten with a 2-1 victory against Hawkwell Athletic. A close first half saw the hoops go in behind due to a goal in the final seconds that seemed to go in straight from a corner. A vocal half time talk got the bhoys going and they put in an excellent 2nd half performance. Cameron Barrell had his team organised from in goal and Max Mudhir was solid in defence as the leopards started to pressurise their opponents all over the pitch with Finlay Cameron and Francis Leftley trying to pass the ball around. The hoops pulled level when an unbelievable free kick from Saleem Zare sailed over the keeper and into the net.
A typical "duracell" bunny performance from Harrison Frost was capped with the winner. Yann Haywood and Alex Marshak got stuck in and the bravery award goes to Samuel Skedge who cut out a cross with his nose resulting in blood "pouring" everywhere! A great result to finish the season and just highlighted the progress the Leopards have made. I would just like to thank all the boys and their parents for what has been a really enjoyable season.

Darren Allen's U12North season ended with a 2-1 home loss to second in the table Forest Glade. It leaves the Hoops with a good chance of a respectable fifth place finish which is excellent for a team only promoted into the division this year. The game also marked Darren's last match in charge, as work and family commitments have meant that he has found the necessary involvement too demanding. Catholic United would like to thank Darren for his wholehearted efforts over the past six years and acknowledge the success he brought his team, a SEEPSL Division 4 Championship title and Tigers Cup Double win in 2010, followed by a SDSYL Division A Championship title in 2011. [match report and scorer to follow]

The Big Ticket game over at Priory was the unique, intramural Premiership clash between North and East. Hobbs versus Harding, Chairman versus Secretary, Raggardy-Arsed-Rovers against the Bank of England (they've even got matching matchday bags!!), first against third. Big crowd, East as usual bringing twice as many as North, (they must be one of the best supported teams in the District). And deja-vue Rodders, It was a touch of the Ten-Man-Army again for North with Alex Margiotta involved in a bit of pond-demolition, smashing his right foot with a sledgehammer (fact!!) Saturday afternoon, so no game for Alex obviously. It was Tom's team that started the brightest, playing down the slope, their characteristic neat, passing football (over our way we call it North-Lite)  creating a number of opportunities, the best of which, a stinging shot shot from Matt Rawlings bringing out a smart reaction save from Cameron Phillips. North escaped when, with Phillips beaten, Franks scooped the ball away off the line. Farrell against Franks proved a real tussle with Tom Franks still carrying the back injury from the week before and Jordan pepared to run at him with pace. North though do have the meanest defence in the District (they've only conceded nine league goals all season) stood tall, made some big blocks and held out to the change-around. Both teams then made tactical changes in response to the geography and wind, East notably bringing on the Prince of Poland, Kacper Fraszak between the sticks and dropping Ally Grant-Browning into a centre back role. North prepared to go at them with a bit more conviction, Hunter taking a slightly more offensive shape than Conor Hobbs at the base of the North's diamond set-up. The last 35 minutes and here's the thing - North were going for an incredible five-in-a-row sequence of league titles, stretching back to 2007 while East had to win for a chance of the silver medal. The Champions began to create a number of opportunities notably down the East's left flank with Harry Mole raiding at will. Aaron Day saw Fraszak make a wonderful save from a terrific a passage of play, Kasper did well again to beat out an Olivares shot but stood transfixed as a Jack Stabielli strike rebounded off the upright back into play. At the other end a mix up between Phillips and Franks nearly let East in while Rawlings remained a threat throughout the fixture. The winning goal came from a a darting run from Jack Stabielli in a central position followed by an unstoppable rising  shot from around thirty yards that Fraszak could do little about. With only around ten minutes left, Hobbs got the bus out of the garage parked up and effectively closed the game down. Special mention must go to the Ginger Ninja, Sam Carter, North's captain and one man demolition crew for a terrific contribution.

Firstly I'll acknowledge that "Everybody thinks they have the prettiest wife at home", but for me the victory was just about right. It's always a fiercely competitive fixture, there is a lot of history between the two teams and a great deal of pride at stake. It was apt that the winning goal had to be a worldy to beat the Prince, the game was played with real conviction, in the right spirit and both sides did well to "Cowboy Up" and get on with it. Speaking as club chairman I feel both teams have contributed an incredible amount of class, talent and quality to the Premiership both this year and last. I do not know if any other District club has ever fielded two teams of such ability in the top division and it must be remembered that at the start of this current campaign Tom Harding lost two outstanding players Bill Ebbles and Jake Mulryne to Ipswich Town but still made the County Cup quarter final, the District semi final and have been involved in the battle for second place almost to the penultimate week of the season. While North have gone to a number of games with just the bare eleven, the first choice striker walked out before a ball was kicked, another player gave up not long afterwards and they had Tommy O'Kane out for six weeks with a broken arm. North have played the whole year without any recognised centre forward and yet made the County Cup semi final, the District's last eight and going into the last week of the season are still involved in the title race.

Following on from the Catholic's own Civil War epic, Rossborough's Green and White army are marching on in the Spring Shield with a fine 3-2 win over Wickford Town, who are in the Division above U13Northeast. Two goals from Stefan Garcia and another from William Rossborough was enough for the 3-2 victory. It's reported that goalkeeper Joe Abnett had a terrific game for the Hoops. This is the side that Director of Football Iain O'Connell is currently working with and he remarked to me about the positioning of the two Catholic centre backs as being spot-on. Well done lads.

At Catholic, players are signed to teams for one year only. After the season is finished we organise age group trials for both all the existing players and any new players wishing to join. Those trials will be conducted according to guidelines drafted by our Child Welfare Officers. The organisation and conduct of the trials will be coordinated by the Football Development Committee.

These are the proposed trail dates and the ages referred to are for this season's age groups. All trials will take place over a weekend at Bridgewater Drive. They're will be no morning training at Bridgewater during these periods. All trials start at 10 am.

12th/13th May from 11 am current Under 15s

19th May from 12.00 pm current Under 12s

20th May from 10.00 am current Under 9s

26th/27th May Current Under 11s

There will be trials for Current Under 13s and 14s. Dates are still to be advised. Contact managers (see team details on this site) for further information.

Some groups may want to utilise both dates some may only want to use the Saturday. All current managers will be sent details of the formats which they can pass onto their parents. All other enquiries contact catholicunited@rocketmail.com

Wet and miserable but not as bad as the week before.

Only one game played by our teams this week but the weather the week before claimed key fixtures that affected title aspirations for Catholic.

The torrential downpour that marked last Sunday meant that Catholic U13North were awarded the league title sitting at home drinking tea and watching Skysports. Ironically, it was their arch rivals Catholic U13East that gave them a massive helping hand by gritting out a 1-1 draw with Corringham on the Friday night that enabled North to claim their fifth successive championship in a row. Mitch Bettson's  first half header, following the Cosmos keeper's mishandling of a set piece put East into a lead which they held on to late in the second period. With the season effectively ending on the last day of April, Corringham saw their league-double dream washed out by the Watering Can of God. It didn't help their cause when their much postponed game against Hawkwell was considered by the League to be voided and all three points went to the Eagles. Congratulations to all the North players, a special mention to Jason Mole for stepping forward as coach after Damien Stabielli eased back on the pedals and it's nice to think that the lads gaining the fifth league championship is a grand way to bow out after eight years of involvement in the football club.

The other league game washed out last week was the Cup Final rehearsal involving United and Ramblers at U11. With Ramblers effectively the Champions because of their monsterous goal difference, Hoops could only have possibly drawn level on points by winning the game. Undefeated all year with the best defence in the division, Catholic did beat Rams back in March (1-0) but with Southend Manor folding before they could play them, the 13-0 win by Leigh over Manor dramatically weighted the goals-for column in favour of the Nerazzurri. Froudy will have his opportunity this coming Sunday at 9.30 when the U11 Cup Final kicks off at Roots Hall.

The only actual football match played by a Catholic team this week was Simon Leftley's U14South, "Good turn-out of support for our re-arranged semi-final against Hawkwell Atheletic. We were still missing our regular goal keeper but Matt Chaplin volunteered to go in and we had thirteen players and were looking to cause an upset. We played brilliantly first half totally dominating the game and gave Hawkwell no opportunity to settle into their game. It was tight but we created the only chances of the half which were unlucky not to convert, Liam Power in particular giving their right back a torrid time. Half time came and it was still nil-nil. All the boys played well but some changes in the Hawkwell line up seemed to get them going and the second half was much more even.  Our midfield of Joe Fraser and Jordan Colbourn pulled us back into the game and our back four held firm. Twenty minutes in  we uncharacteristically failed to clear the ball from the back and went one down. We didn't give up though and fought our way back and with five minutes to go Michael Leftley put a slide rule pass through to James Tiffin who under challenge from their keeper tucked the ball away. Back level, although we lost James with a leg injury from the collision. The Catholic crowd went mad and Hawkwell looked stunned. We now had extra time unfortunately it was not to be.They scored early first half with a fine move cutting us open and a great finish. We chased the game but despite several close efforts they got us on the break in the second half of extra time. Great game of cup football- our boys have improved immensely this year ( helped by the coaching of Danny Power) and we are looking forward to next season with confidence".

Good luck to Lawrence Gower and his Under 9 Tigers at Burroughs Park in their Cup Final this weekend (kick off 1.30pm Great Wakering's Ground) and Mark Froud's U11North's 9.30am kick at Roots Hall. Both venues host a terrific celebration of the competitiveness and quality of the Leagues in Southend and a super day out for the players, families and friends.