We are delighted to announce the signing of centre-forward Anointed Chukwu, who joins us from Welling United on a deal until the end of the season.

A former youth-teamer at Crystal Palace, Salford City and Grays Athletic, who scored 42 goals in one season for his district side as a teenager, the 24-year-old has since featured for the likes of Cheshunt, Harrow Borough, and Wingate & Finchley, where he scored 17 league goals to help them to the Isthmian Premier play-offs last term. He has five National League South goals so far this campaign.

Welcome, Chuks!

Tonbridge Angels 1-3 Enfield Town

Enfield Town climbed off the foot of the National League South with a hard-fought and richly deserved 3-1 victory over Tonbridge Angels at Longmead on Tuesday evening; their first league win in two months.

Having crashed out of the FA Trophy at Sittingbourne three days earlier – and with regulars Dan Cox (illness), Dylan Adjei-Hersey (unavailable), and Joe Payne (suspended) all sidelined – Town certainly had their work cut out in Kent, facing an Angels side yet to taste defeat at home in the league this term. Yet they produced some of their best football of the campaign so far and on another night may well have notched more than the three goals they managed. Bayley Brown and Henry Hawkins, each making their full debuts, slotted in seamlessly and added a welcome physical presence, while there were much-improved individual performances in practically every department.

It was the hosts who were quickest out of the blocks, though, with Sean Shields’ swerving cross-shot forcing Rhys Forster into action inside the opening minute, and Jeremy Santos testing the Enfield ‘keeper following the resulting corner. The Towners were soon into their own rhythm, however, with a well-worked move ending in Jake Hutchinson dragging an effort wide in front of goal. As both sides enjoyed early spells of possession, it was the visitors who hit the front on 20 minutes as the in-form Lennon Peake, deployed at left wing-back, swung in a teasing cross and Hutchinson darted across goal to glance a deft header in off the back stick.

While Town may have retreated into their shell upon taking the lead in recent games, it was anything but here as there was now a real confidence about their game. Barely a minute after going ahead, Sam Youngs, again deployed as an auxiliary forward, would have doubled Enfield’s advantage but for ‘keeper Matt Rowley tipping his side-footed effort against the post at full stretch. And their efforts soon paid dividends as they found a crucial second after the half-hour mark. Moments after themselves being threatened from a corner kick, Town added a second from a set piece of their own; Bayley Brown met Peake’s delivery in the air and Hutchinson was again well-positioned to nod home from point-blank range. The Angels were now smarting and were handed a lifeline six minutes later through another set piece; Jamie Fielding with an easy header from a Shields corner. Town needed to remain resolute, and defended well to keep their lead intact to half time; Forster denying former Towner Harry Ottaway’s header just before the break.

HT: Tonbridge Angels 1-2 Enfield Town

The second half was a far slower burner than the first, with a slew of Tonbridge substitutions failing to muster a response as Town contained the Angels’ attacks. The flashpoint came on 74 minutes as Enfield were opened up down their left channel, and required a vital stop from Forster to deny winger Mo Dabre with the goal at his mercy. As the match entered its closing stages, Town found their momentum with some neat one-touch passes. They spurned a gilt-edged chance on the counter as substitute Jack Smith and Peake exchanged a neat one-two into the box, only for Peake to shank his eventual effort agonisingly wide of the mark, but with ten minutes to play, Town clinched it with a crucial third. A short throw was worked to Sam Youngs down the right flank and, with the angle to goal narrowing, drilled a low effort through the goalie’s legs and in, to the jubilation of a pocket of Town supporters behind the goal.

“You’ve got to look at it for what it is especially with the way we’ve been recently: we’re coming to a tough side who I don’t think have lost here all season”, said boss Gavin Macpherson. “…I have to pay due respect to what we’ve done here tonight because it’s a really good result. We had a few square pegs in round holes and everyone played their part, including my management team.”

Town face a tough trip to second-placed Weston-super-Mare on Saturday afternoon , but can certainly take a degree of confidence into the game as they look to continue their climb up the table.

Sittingbourne 4 Enfield Town 2

Report by Andrew Warshaw

Enfield Town’s hopes of further cup progress this season were extinguished yesterday as we crashed out of the FA Trophy at Sittingbourne, arguably the low point of a challenging season.

Despite recovering well from conceding early and taking the lead, it was the in-form Brickies who reached round four as they hit us with a three-goal blitz and then held on in a relatively uneventful second 45 minutes.

Whilst there is no doubt Sittingbourne are far better than their Step 4 status (unbeaten in 15 games prior to yesterday and one of the most prolific scorers in non-league football) , they ended up being precisely the banana skin everyone feared. The taunts delivered by their fans as they cruised to an historic victory didn’t make for comfortable listening for the hardy Towners fans who defied the atrocious weather to travel to Kent

After the pitch passed two inspections, all the goals came in an explosive opening half, the high-flying hosts getting on the scoresheet after just four minutes when we were beaten for pace down our left and Henry Sinai converted Troy Howard’s cross.

Within the space of 15 minutes, however, we seemed to have gained control courtesy of two Lennon Peake assists. The first presented Jake Hutchinson with a free header, the second saw Sam Youngs head home at the back post.

Jake spurned a great chance to extend our lead, only for the hosts to restore parity when Ryan Kingsford’s 30-yard ball was collected by the dangerous Howard who again delivered with pace. This time Joe Boachie drilled home though Rhys Forster should arguably have cut out the cross.

The goals kept coming but frustratingly for the hosts who were better than us on transition play. The third was an audacious overhead kick from Boachie that on most other days would have probably missed the target,  the fourth seeing the swirling wind play a part when a Boachie header hit the post and went in off the luckless Dan Cox.

H-T 2-4

It left us with a mountain to climb – even against Step 4 opponents –  and the management team immediately swopped Adjei-Hersey and Scott for Leonard and new boy Bayley Brown.

Yet if anything Sittingbourne had the better of the early second-half exchanges without creating much more in the final third. But then neither did we despite now having the wind in our favour.

You could argue that Forster had no saves of  note to make while Harley Earle pulled off at least two at the other end. But the most disappointing aspect is that we lacked conviction even against a side two leagues below.  And while a far poorer surface than we’re used to didn’t help, the fact Sittingbourne  seemed to want it more was a bitter pill to swallow.

At least we have a chance to bounce straight back on Tuesday at Tonbridge but this was an opportunity missed to go further than we ever have in the Trophy – notwithstanding confident opponents who are firing on all cylinders.

“We showed our class for 20 minutes or so but it  went away from us because we lacked composure, conceded terrible goals and they had a game plan to spin it and play the pitch,” said Gavin.

“I was pleased with how we responded but of course we’re all bitterly disappointed because it was another avoidable loss. I’ve been on the other side of this in cup competitions many times and come up trumps. When you’re full of belief like they were, you go out with nothing to lose.”

“If you put Sittingbourne in our league, they’d lose a lot of games but in one-off matches if you don’t function properly, you can get punished by a side with their kind of record.

“We’ve given the players some hard truths but I’ve never been in this position. You have to be strong-willed and I will never shy away but it’s  probably as low as it’s been for me as a manager.”

Forster; Cox, Thompson, Benjamin; Payne; Tuck, Scott (Bailey, 46), Youngs, Adjei-Hersey (Leonard, 46); Peake (Whittaker, 85), Hutchinson (Beckles-Richards, 77)

The board are now in a position to update everyone on our final crowdfunding total and the latest on our plans for the ground improvements.

Firstly, thank you all for your patience in waiting for news on our progress, there have been so many moving parts that it has been challenging to deliver a coherent update before today.

In terms of crowdfunding, all of our offline donations are now cleared and we’re delighted to say that the final total is £40,168.

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed and made it possible for us to move the project forward. It’s testament to the strength of our club that so many of you wanted to support the project and develop OUR club for the future. We’re so grateful to everyone who made a donation.

During the crowdfunding period we also submitted our bid to The Football Foundation to access funding for the project. As you’d expect, there is a very robust process for applicants to follow and it required significant work from the board to complete all of the necessary stages prior to submission. We’re delighted to say that we received news recently that our application has been approved in full and that the Football Foundation will fund a significant amount of the cost of the project.

Once we received this news, we placed the orders with our suppliers for both the turnstiles and main stand. This is a significant milestone as we work towards our deadline to have the new facilities in place and we are in dialogue with both suppliers around timelines for the work to be completed.

The final piece in the jigsaw is the planning consent from Enfield Council. We have been working closely with council officers and have employed a planning consultant to navigate us through the process. Again this has required lots of work from the board and after an initial submission to the planning department they asked us to provide both a travel and acoustic survey to demonstrate any potential impact that the increased capacity may have on our neighbours. We’re pleased to say that both surveys were completed at our recent fixtures against Hornchurch and Torquay and we are now working with our consultant to submit our final application to Enfield Council in the week commencing 16^th December. There is then a period of consultation before we expect our plans to go before Enfield Council’s committee in January.  Once we have this permission, works will start as soon as possible in order that we can comply with league deadlines.

A huge thanks to everyone who has contributed to this process as well as our friends at Enfield Council and Enfield Ignations for their support and collaboration throughout the project.

Please do speak to any board member if you have any further questions

ETFC Board   

We are pleased to welcome another two new recruits to the club ahead of this week’s fixtures.

The first is Henry Hawkins. A towering left-sided central defender, the 21-year-old came through QPR’s academy system and has since gained experience with Whitehawk, Beaconsfield and Farnborough.

The second is midfielder Bayley Brown: Another physical presence, Bayley joins having left Hemel Hempstead Town. The 27-year-old came through the Spurs youth ranks, and has since gained significant experience with the likes of Chesham, Hendon, and St Albans City.

“We felt that working with three centre backs was not enough and Alex [Solomon] is not yet fit”, said manager Gavin Macpherson. “If we lose Dan back to Derby on January 1st, we’re back down to three so I had to think ahead … I’ve been very aware of Henry for two or three years now and have tried to bring him in on a couple of occasions. He’s 6-foot-four and left-footed so hopefully will fit in perfectly.”

“We may lose both Alfie and Christian so again I am planning ahead. Bayley may not need much introduction to some people. He’s been at step 2 for many years at St Albans and Hampton & Richmond as well as Hemel. He’s mainly a central midfielder and began his career as a youngster with Spurs. If we end up being top heavy, so be it, but I can’t wait that long.”

“What we’re doing is bringing in two that are permanently with us, rather than loans.”

Enfield Town 1 Torquay United 4

Report by Andrew Warshaw

A bumper 1,300-plus crowd, a dream start and arguably the best 30 minutes of football we have played all season.

But all that came to nought on Saturday against opponents who capitalised our mistakes and were far  more ruthless in the final third.

 The scoreline may not reflect the effort Town collectively put into the game but a combination of avoidable errors that get punished at this level and tired legs against full-time opponents sent us crashing to a 14^th  league defeat in our final home game before Christmas.

Gavin Macpherson made a couple of changes from the midweek loss to Hornchurch with Billy Leonard and Jake Hutchinson brought into the starting line-up.

And we had the perfect start after just two minutes when Gulls skipper Sam Dreyer yanked down Sam Youngs who promptly sent James Hamon the wrong way from the spot (pictured).

That we couldn’t capitalise on that early boost was massively frustrating given how we took the game to Torquay.

Although it took Adam Thompson’s clearance to rescue Rhys Forster when he spilled Omar Moussa’s fierce drive, Town continued on the front foot.

Twice Hutchinson was in goal but couldn’t deliver the final blow while Leonard’s 25-yard curler brought a flying save from James Hamon.

Yet for all our promise we were behind at the interval as Torquay hit back with two quickfire goals inside three minutes.

First Jordan Thomas got on the end of a sublime Omar Moussa cross to stab into an empty net. Then, after a spell of pinball inside the box, William Jenkins Davies turned the ball home.

It seemed cruel that we were behind but once again, we lacked composure in both boxes and had to play catch-up.

H-T 1-2

 The next goal was always going to be crucial and it fell to Torquay within two minutes of the restart. Town had come out of the blocks in determined mood but were undone by a quickly taken corner and Jordan Young drove the ball home.

Dan Cox planted a free header over as Town tried to rally, then we flung bodies at a cross from the right but to no avail.

But in general, we once again lacked the conviction and belief to create enough goalscoring  opportunities, however well we played from box to box.

And as we understandably tired against fitter opponents, Jenkins-Davies finished us off with 10 minutes left and it was an ominous sign when Alfie Tuck went off with his arm in a sling holding his elbow.

The fixtures don’t come any easier and we now we have four successive away games, starting with a tricky FA Trophy game at Sittingbourne next Saturday followed by three  league games at Tonbridge, Weston super mare and Worthing.

After keeping the players in the dressing room for a lengthy period, Gavin explained why he was so angry.

“The second goal should have been cleared out the ground, the third one killed us even though we had precisely worked on it in respect of stopping it happening. The supporters might sometimes wonder whether the management do their homework but the players were well briefed about what Torquay do and you can’t legislate for switching off.”

“We don’t live with Torquay on paper, we’re chalk and cheese. But that doesn’t mean we accept we’re going to lose. The first 25 minutes were how we like to play but if you’re going to make those sort of mistakes against a side like Torquay, you get buried.

“We put as many good balls into the box as they did but we had nobody busting a gut to score. I’m sick of mentioning it, to be honest, but I’m on the phone constantly to try and address this, often until late at night.”

Enfield (3-5-2)

Forster; Cox, Thompson, Benjamin; Payne (69 Beckles-Richards) Tuck (Scott, 85), Leonard (Smith 78), Youngs, Parcell (Adjei-Hersey 81); Peake, Hutchinson (Whittaker 78)