well, that was a very strange season, with a rampant injury list, departure of 4 of our best players disrupting things and 3 very distinct periods.
the first period reads - played 18, won 9, drew 4 = 31 points at 1.7 points per game
then we had the disastrous, unprecedented run of losing 11 and drawing just the once
After we had finally broken the hoodoo we ended up playing 8 , winning 3 and drawing 3 = 11 points at 1.4 points per game
Without that run we would surely have been in or around the play offs
What was also noticeable is the amount of injuries we had - look through the appearances and only 6 players started 30 or more  games in our 46 match season, whilst Stobbs, Rudd, O'Connor, Hogg and Ball all started less than half the matches
Losing Hoppy pre season was a big blow and then Jamie & Ty leaving in October hardly helped. Max leaves in February and Gavin james ,who'd scored 5 in 13 games departed fro Risborough

Hope that puts things in perspective - surely next season won't be as taxing / frustrating , can it???

as an aside , and just to show how onerous the grading is, I was told that if Winslow get promoted it will cost c£140,000 to get the ground up to standard!

Quote from: jamie on April 19, 2022, 10:55:57 PM

https://twitter.com/petermiller36/status/1516527675346718724?t=uv92BYCXp3qctfieayITKQ&s=19

Risborough denied promotion but not relegated.

Madness. How can you put so much into a promotion bid only to then find out a week before that actually you can't be promoted?!

apparently their ground doesn't even meet the standards for the league they were in, let alone going up to our level. They were aware enough of the situation to try and arrange a ground share with Thame (which has now fallen through)

Perhaps they should've thought of that before spending stupid amounts of money on players wages

and a meaningless 1-1 draw in a match played like a pre season friendly. In fact I'm only doing this to keep Graham happy!
Lewthwaite scored an excellent goal that he created and scored all by himself, but then contrived to miss 3 golden chances in the 2nd half to blot his copy book. Body language and attitude were a lot better, so hopefully Ben can continue to work his magic with him. The barrel like Appiah in central midfield showed why he'd played at a higher level, but didn't look like he's going to threaten Riddick's position. Was far more impressed by fernandes , who looks a proper left back and did numerous good things. He's apparently 34. but plays like he's 24. On that performance i'd be more than happy to see him in the green n white next season.
Pierce again had a useful game - he always seems to have a decent performance when i see him. Wood and Doc were v. solid, but apart from that there wasn't much to report
ps great support again - half the crowd seemed to be from Aylesbury

would be good if he could do both options!

would be good to have an end of season catch up with Ben if possible

via the The Pilgrim, The Unicorn & The Bell,so sorry its so late.
Too busy celebrating - Ducks n Mariners (4 goals each), Scunts lose again and Moan U don't win. If carlsberg did football ......
Anyway to the mater in hand ;
Game of 2 halves, take your chances, goals change games, football is a confidence thing - this game ticked all the cliche boxes.
first half we were inept (although apparently still much better than Tuesday), on our heels; lacking in confidence, passing accuracy,pressing, understanding, defensive solidity and technique. We were v happy to go in 0.0 and tbh we were saying that if we got a nil all out of it we'd be relieved
Romania btw are a pleasure to watch , no long balls, every player has great technical ability and just wants to play football. They hit the woodwork 4 times and they ripped us apart at times with Archie making a couple of excellent saves
then Harry scott goes off injured (our best player at the time imho, despite not been given enough of the ball) & Jamie Rudd comes on and changes the game
first is dead lucky, brilliant finish, but just fell perfectly having pinged luckily off lewthwaites shin. 2nd was a thing of beauty - equally clinical rifle shot following some slick interpassing with riddick. French scored a scuffed 3rd after a typically challenging, thrusting run by Ball and then Lewthwaite did some brilliant individual work to make it a lopsided 4-0 win.
just the sort of lucky win we needed to make us near enough safe from relegation. we took 4 out of our 7 or 8 chances, they took none from their 7 or 8.
Half time we were saying we need a complete overhaul next season; 45 minutes later they were showing the play off challenging panache we saw 6 months ago.
 and i will leave you with 1 further cliche - its a funny old game


oh yeah, motm; difficult (can Jamie Rudd be motm for 30 mins play???) but id say Anthony Ball, even though he got ran ragged at times by their excellent left winger, he stuck to his task and eventually prevailed