Great Wakering Preview & Beer Hunter’s Guide
Tomorrow sees us travel to Great Wakering Rovers for a second time this season, after the original fixture was postponed due to the bad weather over Christmas. It is interesting how much a season can change in a couple of weeks. For the original fixture, few would have expected us to come away from Burroughs Park with even a point, especially after Rovers had just scored five against Potters Bar. However, our last two results have seen us seen consecutive clean sheets for the first time this season, and finally move away from the relegation places.
The form table suggests we are slightly better off than our opponents at the moment, having taken seven points from the last six games, while Rovers have taken only six, three of which came against Ilford. Rovers will certainly draw confidence from their last two results, losing only 1-0 and 3-2 to Needham Market and East Thurrock United respectively.
Our record against Great Wakering at Borroughs Park is not terrible, but it could be better. In twelve games, we have won three, drawn three and lost the rest. However, our last win away from home against Rovers came in August 2007, when two goals from Darren Greives – his only two for the club – and one from Obi Nene saw us grain three points through a 3-2 win.
Rovers are currently occupying a mid-table position, as has been the habit for them in recent years.
Wale has made a number of signings this week, returning to the club are Luke Stanley, Joel Bevis and Sam Adejonkun, while Ricky Edwards has been signed from Leyton.
Follow match-day updates from the club’s Twitter stream and Facebook page from 7.30 PM on Tuesday.
Great Wakering Preview & Beer Hunter’s Guide
Always a pleasure to visit Great Wakering – a real village community with a football club to match, and the sort of place where you may come upon a table outside somebody’s gate laden with home-made marmalade, with a box into which you are trusted to make payment (and very tasty it proved to be too). With a quirk of the fixture list giving us two visits inside 48 hours, just as well the village offers five pubs to sample, strung out at intervals along its long, straggling main street. Your Beer Hunter only got round to two of them on last season’s visit: at the eastern end near the church, the Anchor was a down-to-earth basic local offering Greene King IPA, while nearer the ground the White Hart had a more up-market but still-local feel to it, with a choice of ales. (Memories are slightly hazy, but methinks Charles Wells Bombardier was involved). In between those two sits the Red Lion, while further west along the main road are the Exhibition Inn and the Rose Inn. The club itself has a bar, of course, but no real ale. All in all, another grand day out (or even two).
Cheers!