The pain of Enfield Town losing right at the death to Hornchurch in the semifinals of the playoffs will take time to heal.
But as the club looks towards maintaining our competitiveness in time for next season, there is a huge amount of promise lower down the age scale, writes Andrew Warshaw.
Last week, having already won their regional league in the National League U19 Alliance, the academy side narrowly missed out on the semifinals of the subsequent knockout competition in an attempt to become Champions of Champions.
In their quarterfinal at Chelmsford they so nearly made it through only to lose 5-4 with the last kick of the game.
Manager Ahmed Abdulla, who reports to Town’s academy chief and first-team coach Ian Hart, can’t heap enough praise on his young players who have done the club proud.
“The way we lost was really cruel especially as we fought back from 3-1 down,” said Ahmad. “I’m super proud of the boys after a fantastic season. It shows we’ve got up and coming players in-house, Ross Busunda and George Rankin to name but two.”
Meanwhile, as part of our ongoing relationship, our neighbours Tottenham Hotspur generously provided a dozen members of their under-18 squad recently to assist with much-needed ground maintenance at QEII.
“It was a great gesture by Spurs, with their training ground being in the borough, to help their local community club,” said Town vice-chairman Paul Millington.