Soham Town Rangers FC
vs Aveley FC
Sat 22nd
September 2018
Julius Martin Lane
Soham Town Rangers
History
The club was established in 1947 by a merger of Soham Town
and Soham Rangers. Town were formed in 1920, won the Cambridgeshire Junior Cup
in 1932–33, and played in the Cambridgeshire League
during the 1930s, earning promotion to the Premier Division in 1938. Rangers
were formed in 1919 and reached the top division of the Cambridgeshire League
in 1926, the same year in which they won the Junior Cup. They went on to win
the Cambridgeshire Challenge Cup in 1929–30 and 1934–35.
The merged club started in the Premier Division of the
Cambridgeshire League. In 1956 they switched to the Peterborough & District
League and two years later won the Challenge Cup. They retained it in
1958–59 and also applied to join the Eastern Counties League, but were
unsuccessful. In 1959–60 they won the league for the first time, repeating the
feat in 1961–62. In 1963 they applied to join the Eastern Counties League
again, and this time were accepted. Discussions were held regarding a merger
with local rivals Soham United, but nothing came of the talks.
After the ECL added a second division in 1988, Soham were
relegated at the end of the 1988–89 season. In 1990–91 they won the Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup for the
first time with a 4–1 win over March Town United. In 1992–93 they finished
second in Division One and were promoted back to the Premier Division. They won the Invitation Cup again in 1997–98
and 1998–99. In 2000–01 they won the league's Millenium Trophy and another
Invitation Cup was won in 2005–06. In 2007–08 they won their first ECL title
after defeating Needham Market 4–0 in a title decider on the
last day of the season. Following their victory they were promoted to the
Midland Division of the Southern League. At the end of the 2010–11
season they were transferred to Division One North of the Isthmian
League.
Ground
The merged club played at Town's Julius Martin Lane, as the
Rangers ground was taken over for agriculture.The ground had been home to Soham Town since 1921. The record attendance of
3,000 was set on 18 October 1958 for a Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup match
against Pegasus.
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This edition of the
blog is guest written by Ryan as we were unable to attend due to a hospital
appointment.
So its 5:30am on Saturday 22nd Sept, to many it’s a normal
Saturday but to me it’s a bit like the feeling that children get on Christmas
morning. Today is the day I take Lewys
to his first ever Aveley away game and I was wide awake so early.
After getting Lewys up around 8, we got ready and went to his
football training at Orsett. As soon as
it finished we headed to Parkside to get aboard the “banter bus”.
There was only a few of the players getting the bus, as the
majority were driving to Soham themselves. Aboard the bus there was Alex
Teniola, Alex Akrofi, Shad Ngandu, Sam Mvemba and “Agent” Andy Freeman, Craig
and four of us fans.
Before we took our
seats the banter had started. Akrofi and
Freeman discussing who would score the most today and then Akrofi trying to
justify claiming his “2nd” goal on Tuesday away to Bowers. I couldn’t help but
jump in and remind him it was clearly an own goal.
Slightly later than billed, we were on our way along a wet
M25 heading towards our destination. The
banter seemed to stop for a while as the boys were clearly trying to get into
the zone for the game and listening to their own music or watching videos. In fact it wasn’t just the players, my 8yr
was also engrossed into his footy game on his iPad.
The journey from Aveley took a little longer than expected,
mainly due to a few delays along the way.
The journey itself is fairly straight forward though and one I would
happily do again.
Upon arriving at Julius Martin Lane the admission for Lewys
and myself was £13 (this included an additional £2 for the programme). The rain was still coming down at that point,
but thankfully there was plenty of shelter to keep us dry.
While I chatted to a few fellow Millers my 8yr old took the
opportunity of having a kick about on the pitch. I finally managed to get him off the pitch
soon after which allowed us to go and grab some food. We paid £3.50 each for a burger (they were
very nice) and £2.50 for a portion of chips for Lewys. The refreshment stand has a vast amount of
selection and appears to have recently been build / refurbished.
It was around then that we were informed of the team for
todays game.
Starting 11 - Hughes, Sampayo, Bourne, Love, Witherspoon
(c), Cross, Gard, Doyle, Milner, Freeman and Akrofi,
Subs – Gibbs, Mvemba, Teniola, Richardson and Ngandu
Soham bossed the first 15mins or so and had several chances
including having one cleared off the line.
The Millers then came into the game a bit and we had a few nice bits of
play.
On the 21st minute the home side had the ball in the back of
the net, but the referee disallowed it and awarded Aveley a freekick. We came into the game a bit more and in my
opinion controlled the game for the rest of the half.
In the 34th minute, Alex Akrofi chased a ball over the top
and challenged the home GK for the ball.
The ref appeared to play advantage and Aveley had the ball in the back
of the net, it was a fantastic finish by Freddie Gard. However, while the ball was on its way from
Gard’s foot into the net, the ref blew up and appeared to reward Soham with a
freekick, even though he had initially given the advantage to Aveley.
Not to worry however as within eight minutes
the Millers took the lead. “Agent”
Freeman received the ball in the box, made his own space and managed to beat
the Soham goalie.
As for the 2nd half…………………………WOW!!!!! What a battle!!!! It
really was a “backs against the wall” job.
Whether it was committed blocks from defenders or multiple outstanding
saves from David Hughes we really had to dig in. Soham kept getting the balls into the box,
whether that was crosses, long balls from the back or long throws they kept
coming at us. We were fantastically
resilient and maybe the lessons we learned from defending long balls against
Bowers on Tuesday, helped us deal with Soham.
That didn’t stop them coming at us time and time again. This continued into stoppage time and at one
stage the home GK was camped in our box for successive corners. He should’ve actually got an equaliser at the
death but thankfully he put it wide.
FINALLY THE WHISTLE WAS BLOWN AND WE HAD WON!!!!!!
There was no point in asking around my fellow Millers who we
felt was MOTM, because it was clearly David Hughes.
The Millers made their way over to the
travelling support to thank us. To a
man, every player gave all they could today and we thanked them for delivering
the 3 points.
Once the game was over and the dust had settled, I had a
great chat with George Young about the game and how he felt it had gone.
Once the boys had showered and grabbed a bit of food we all
boarded the bus to begin our journey back to Essex. Like the journey up, the banter started
straight away. This mainly included
laughing and joking at some of the football results from the day, both in our
league and also many other competitions.
While on the way home,
I had a good chat with AT about the game and also about all things
AT. Hidden Talent, his private plane
trips and much more. It was good to get
to know another side of a player we wouldn’t normally see.
All in all today has been a successful day. The game may have been a battle, but its
results like this today that we can use as a reference point when it comes to
the business end of the season. Plus
lets face it, if someone had told us all last Saturday that we would play
Heybridge, Bowers and Soham and take home 7pts we would’ve bitten their hand
off.
Roll on Wednesday night when we travel to East Thurrock to
play against Romford.
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The programme was priced at £2 and was 28 pages printed on standard
photocopy paper which included 8 pages of adverts and 5.5 pages about Aveley FC.
Strangely pages 2 and 27 were printed up-side-down. The cover was in colour but
the rest was in B&W)
Many thanks to Pauline for grabbing a Soham pin badge for
Sam’s collection and to Steve for taking a few photos
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