Season Preview
After coming close to promotion last season and being runners up by a solitary point, a lot of other clubs see the Bees as favourites for the title this year.
The reality though is that it will be a tough campaign and probably a three horse race for the top spot.
Bromley join the league in a lateral move from Division 1 South, where they finished runners up last season to Newhaven and they will want to go one better too.
Clapton Community denied us promotion lats season with a two-all draw at the Old Spotted Dog costing us the two points we needed to leapfrog Sport London E Benfica.
Clapton Community have finished fourth for the last two seasons and were hampered by injuries throughout the last campaign. They have seriously strengthened in the summer with seven quality signings. Their support is the proverbial 12th man.
We have had a quite pre-season, signing just three first team players. The truth is we were strong anyway. So strong in fact that squad players who have left have found themselves at clubs higher in the pyramid.
Last season we won the Capital Intermediate Cup and the League Trophy after being knocked out of the League Cupo in the first round. That was a strange defeat as Karleigh made ten changes to the starting line up and our fringe players struggles against the Dulwich side that finished third in the league.
We have reached the final of the Capital Intermediate Cup for the last two seasons and we should do well again this campaign.
Hopefully we will take the League Cup a bit more seriously as it would be good to test ourselves against the tier 5, Premier League sides.
We should also be looking forward to a good run in the Women’s FA Cup. Last season we reached the First Round Proper for the first time and gave a good account ourselves against WNL side Southampton and we should be looking to go even further this season.
Indications form a couple of very good sources are that we could see at least two Women’s games played at the Gtech, which is great news. Hopefully the club will get in early so that they can continue to grow the support are Women’s teams receive. Gates are up and have probably trebled over the last two seasons. Every pre-season friendly attracted a three figure crowd and when it wasn’t long ago that 60 was a good gate. Hopefully we could have average attendances of a 1,000 overall or 300 at Bedfont.
