Back To My (Grass) Roots

So with the mighty Shrimpers away at Preston in the FA Cup First Round proper on Saturday, I decided to fulfill my football fix last week by heading along to my local non-League club Great Wakering Rovers and watch them take on Chelmsford City in the Essex Senior Cup on Wednesday night.

Rovers’ ground, Burroughs Park, is a proper non-League ground – all wonky floodlights, non-segregated open terraces and Bovril in a polystyrene cup.

They had just appointed Danny ‘son of Jimmy’ Greaves as their new manager and, what with Chelmsford fielding a weakened team due to their involvement in the FA Cup, expectations were high.

Sadly even an under strength Chelmsford were too much for the Ryman boys, and new gaffer Greaves could only look on in despair as the Clarets carved Wakering open time and again and raced into a 3 goal lead at half time.

The second half didn’t fair much better for Rovers and they eventually succumbed to a 5-2 defeat. Greavesie Junior knew what he was taking on when he signed the dotted line, however I think even he admitted it was going to be an uphill struggle after watching that performance. 

A few days later they lost again, this time in the League, and Greaves released the second choice goalkeeper as he started to re-shape the team in his vision.

I’ll pop along to Rovers again soon (when Southend are busy somewhere else) to see if they have improved under the son of the legend. It’s always nice to see your local grass roots club doing well; however on their showing in the Essex Senior Cup game they still have a long way to go.

I’m sure once Greaves gets out his book of contacts and starts adding his players and his coaching staff things will start to improve and hopefully they’ll be climbing up the Ryman Division One North table soon.

Lee Morgan @LeeM_007