Firstly, it was a delight to welcome and host John Miller, Chairman of the SAL to our ground yesterday.  A good trip for John - not only was he rewarded with an 11 goal thriller from the 1's, and a tense cup tie which ended with a penalty shoot out for the 2's, but also went away with the scratchcard prize!

So there were thrills and spills at the Cope yesterday.  The 1's defence was an enigma again, as the tight ship that is their league form, became a leaky bucket and allowed South Bank in 7 times - just what it is about the 1's and cup games this season!  Still, as before I am sure that will work hard at training and hopefully next week (another cup game) we will see the return of the 1st team defence that we know and love.  Well done to the 2's as well, a tense finish but all of our penalties in the shootout were first class, and all credit to Kap for two great saves to set up the victory.  And what about the club spirit - it was great to see every home side out there supporting the 2's in the final minutes of extra time and the buzz afterwards was top class.  Well done to the 3's who put in an impressive performance to beat RBS.  Congratulations also to the 4's who for the second week running had a very late goalkeeping change, but this time did the job with an excellent 4-1 victory at Kew.

Club sprit is something I would like to touch on this week, because I don't think that this week on the lead up to Saturday we were as good as we should be.  Some of our communication at selection level and even in letting our players know what was going on was poor this week, and as clear communication should come from the top, I have to take a fair amount of responsibility for this. However, it helps if we unify as a club, for example when we all went out to give the 2's the support at the end of their game yesterday.  I would remind you all that we are a club that has nine teams, and not nine teams that make up a club. So players will move between sides (as per our (and the SALs) selection policy) and I expect our players to back that to the full.  So, having taken the responsibility, I have had another look at the way we communicate, both at selection level and as a club as a whole, and have already made changes to how the teamsheet is put together starting this week, and will be looking at how the captains communicate with me and each other, and also how we communicate to you the membership.  Misunderstanding and miscommunication can be very destructive, so I am determined to get this right, but as ever can only do that with your help.

Steve Martin-Lawrence, Chairman