Mid-season review from the Gaffer

With a short break in action there’s time to reflect on the first half of the 2022/23 season.

The 1st Team have this weekend off to recharge the batteries before returning to action on Saturday 10th December at home to Sheringham.

The games came so thick and fast earlier in the season there was hardly any time to draw breath.

Now we have a break in the schedule, we asked manager David Hennessey to share his thoughts on the first half of the season.

Saturday’s 2-1 defeat away at Mildenhall saw us reach the midway point of the season and with no first team game this coming Saturday now seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the first 19 league games of the season.

First let’s start with the positives, and there have been quite a few.

We’ve already notched 8 wins, that’s 2 more than we managed all of last season and we currently sit in 8th place in the table with 27 points already on the board (we managed 32 in total last year).

Along the way we’ve enjoyed wins against Fakenham, Hadleigh, Mildenhall, Newmarket, Whitton, Brantham, Haverhill and Kirkley & Pakefield.

Not bad at all for a side who were expected to lose every game and be relegated by Christmas eh?

In those 19 games we’ve used 32 different players with only stalwarts Jake Jackson and club captain Jacob Brown playing in every single game.

And what a pair those two have been, I’m not one for individual praise when we know it takes the entire group to make things tick but these two really epitomise that never-say-die spirit that runs through this team.

Along the way we’ve handed Long Melford debuts to 11 players with new signings Harry Whiting-Noakes and Fred Dende being the standout performers appearing in 18 and 16 games respectively.

Of those debutants 8 were actually making their first ever appearance in a step 5 game, making our achievements to date even more impressive if you ask me.

11 players have chipped in with some very important goals, especially when you consider that six of our eight wins have come by a 2-1 score line.

And boy have we seen some cracking strikes along the way too. From Ben Humphreys long distance drive against Hadleigh to Harry Whiting-Noakes’ sumptuous right foot half volley against Brantham or Ryan Gibbs delightful chip against his former club Mildenhall last time out. Definitely a few contenders already for our goal of the season competition.

That said, it’s the skipper who leads the goal scoring charts so far with 7, last season’s top scorer only managed 8 in total.

Keep an eye on new signing Ryan Gibbs though, his 4 in 5 games since joining the club show that he’s going to challenge Browny for the top goalscorer trophy for sure.

It’s a familiar name atop the assists list too, Jacob’s 6 giving him a total of 13 goal involvements from 19 games…talk about leading by example!

Hassan Ally and Fred Dende have chipped in with 3 assists apiece and Ben Humphreys has a couple too.

Now for the not so good, and whilst we’ve managed to pick up creditable draws against Ipswich Wanderers, Ely and Mulbarton we have also lost 8 games.

Five of those defeats have been by the odd goal which shows just how competitive we’ve been, but if we can just eliminate those little errors, we can potentially turn a couple of those into points.

Frustratingly and despite some superb defensive work that clean sheet still eludes us, but I’m confident that it’ll come soon.

Early exits in the FA Cup and Vase were disappointing but came at the hands of higher league opposition and early in the campaign, something to work on for next season perhaps.

With the exception of our trip to Lakenheath (who put 4 unanswered goals past us) we’ve not been beaten heavily and that’s a testament to the attitude that runs throughout the club.

Back to the positives and on the subject of attitude, I did want to single out a couple of individuals who despite this truly being a team effort have really stepped it up for us this season.

For those of you who don’t know, Charlie Holmes was a midfielder who played almost entirely with the reserves last season.

This year, seeing that we were struggling for full backs ahead of our FA Cup trip to Kempston Rovers he messaged me saying simply “I’ll do a job there if you need me to gaffer”.

Not only did he do a job, Charlie has been first choice right back for us pretty much all season to date. Learning the position on the job, working his backside off for the club and giving 100% every single week and all of that whilst running his own business and dealing with personal tragedy too.

Secondly, I wanted to acknowledge Ross Waugh. Ross wasn’t even planning on playing football this year after what I think is fair to say was a torrid couple of years where he basically fell out of love with the game.

Four games into our season Ross reached out to me and said he wanted to come back; we spoke at length about unfinished business for him at Long Melford and what it would take to achieve our goals.

Since his return Ross has played in 14 games, his attitude, desire and passion for this team has led to him playing some of the best football of his career and more importantly doing it with a smile on his face.

A timely addition given our issues with injuries and availability at the back he’s now pretty much nailed on as one of the first names on the team sheet.

That’s not to undersell what anyone else has done this year, I just feel like these two lads (along with Jacob and Jake) show what can be achieved when we put personal ambitions to one side and lay it all on the line for the badge!

For me personally, I’m loving every minute of this adventure. I’m learning to take the highs and the lows with equal measure but I think it’s fair to say we’ve got a great bunch of lads and I can only see us improving on the first half of the season as we push on to see what the second half has in store for us.

I wanted to make a point of thanking all of the people behind the scenes that put so much into this club. From the coaching staff to the committee and everybody else who volunteers, without your efforts we wouldn’t be able to put a team on the pitch, let alone win any games. On behalf of the team and I, thank you.

Grassroots football is built on the hard-work of volunteers like yourselves and we are forever grateful.

Lastly, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, enjoy the festivities and let’s look forward to a healthy and happy New Year, who knows we might even have a top half finish to look forward to!