As promised, I have been keeping a record so far this season of how many times our players have dropped out of the squad the day before a match or on the morning of a match, something which causes us massive problems and invariably leaves us fielding a bare eleven or less because it is too late to call others up.

Most of our players last season were complaining that Kizza is the main culprit and indeed they are right ! He leads the way so far this season with 7 Saturday/Sunday drop-outs so far ! However, most of them were in Pre-Season & September and he hasn't been quite so bad lately.
The worst culprits in recent weeks have been Dean and Stuart. They are both in 'Second Place' with 5 each. The problem with Stuart is that he keeps telling us he is 50/50 and whenever he says that, he has never ended up playing. Trevor keeps leaving him in the squad though, thereby resulting in it being a Saturday/Sunday drop-out. I don't think we should be doing that any more, as it's unfair on both Stuart and the players who have been left out of the squad in the hope that he will be fit. If Stuart says he is 50/50 for the Wormley match this Sunday, then he must be left out now and somebody else (e.g. Colin) should be put in the squad in his place.

As for the other culprits for Saturday/Sunday drop-outs so far this season, Tony King and Lee King both have 3, and the following players all have 2: Lexton, Warmers, Terry Brown, Conor, Jacko, Smithy & Rob.
With one each are: Loveday, Danny Hagan, Tem, Tom Watts, Jamie Martin & Olie.

Some of the above figures include that Sunday morning training session we had over Hazelwood earlier in the season and a Sunday morning postponement against Flamstead End for a frozen pitch, but it is still a poor show to have this amount of people dropping out.
With us now just 'playing for fun' for the rest of this season, I can see it getting a lot worse, but what can we do ?
Most of the excuses are players apparently being told on a Saturday evening that they have to work on a Sunday or players suddenly going down with an injury or illness on a Sunday morning. Obviously there is quite a strong possibility that in some cases what this really means is that a player is out at a party and wants to get p!ssed (the Saturday evening drop-out) or was out at a party and got p!ssed (the Sunday morning drop-out), but I have no way of proving it and just have to take the player's word that their excuses given are genuine.

Obviously some of the excuses (such as Conor's stolen car) are totally unavoidable, but I still get the impression that compared to other clubs in our Division, too many of our players are not really all that bothered about missing matches for the slightest reason.
I was hoping that the 'Name & Shame' would improve our players' commitment, but I don't think it is.

I'm only aware of last week, when was my first?

A shoulder injury Away to Thames Albion on the 17th October.
I think it might have been a 50/50 situation like Stuart though, as you were out injured with that the week before.

Only 1, That's commitment for you, Take Note Lads!!

Two for you actually.
Stuck in South London after a party. (6-1 defeat away to Turnford Geese), and working for the game that got called off frozen pitch at Home to Flamstead End. We would have only had a bare eleven including me if the Ref had deemed the pitch playable !