Our next 7-a-side League match is an 8.30.p.m. Kick-Off this coming Thursday night against Locomotive Southgate.

The situation at the moment is that I still have loads of new players wanting to play on both Mondays and Thursdays and I am being told by the players who are bringing them along that if I don't put them in (and sign them up) now, then they will join other teams instead. Some of these new players have already been tried out at 7-a-side but quite a few others have not yet. In most cases they are better players (or supposedly better players) than more than half of our regular squad last season so we therefore need them to play.
I then have another player playing 7-a-side at the moment who is refusing to sign a registration form for next season until a couple of weeks before the season starts because he wants to see what shape we might be in at that stage and/or whether other clubs might then be a better option for him. However, as far as turning up for 7-a-side is concerned (i.e. never dropping out), he is one of our most reliable players.
I then have another group of players who all played for us last season who I badly need to play 7-a-side either this Thursday or next Monday so that they can sign the League Multi-Registration Form before I return it on Tuesday, but they are all extremely difficult to get hold of at the moment for one reason or another.
At the moment I have no idea whether any of them want to play for us next season.

I am therefore going to have to make a lot of phone calls/text messages today before I can name a squad for this Thursday and next Monday, so you may have to wait until tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

Another problem is that if we put too many players in who don't know each other, we could end up losing 12-2 again like we did last Thursday. However we won 7-0 last night with a squad of 8 including several players who didn't know each other, so it's probably worth taking a gamble. There is no way that our opponents for our next two matches are going to be as good as The Condensers (the side who beat us 12-2).
I may have to leave out regulars such as Ben Keating, Daniel Cascoe, Terry Moore & Alan Barnard just for this week to give others a chance to sign up, but after that (from Thursday 5th July onwards) I will be picking our strongest team of committed players who want to sign up (or have already done so).

Payment of subs will also come into it as one or two players went home last night without paying. I am now going to have to pay Thursday night's £38 out of my own money as there is not enough in the subs tin, so people who cannot afford to pay this Thursday will not be picked as I will need to be re-imbursed on the night. (Trev will not be there for the next three matches).

I can now confirm that the squad for this coming Thursday night's match (8.30.p.m. Kick-Off) is as follows:
Simon Jackson (GK) or Tim Beeden (GK)
Lexton Harrison
Ivan Bass
Daniel Cascoe
Ben Keating
John Scouller
Andre Griffiths
Fraser John

Ivan is a defender, so he can play at the back with Lexton and hopefully we won't concede 12 goals this time from having four forwards playing !?
We might have to play a 1-1-4 formation at some stage of the game, but so be it. I cannot make a decision to leave somebody out of the squad from John, Ben, Andre or Fraser to put a defender (a mate of Cascoe's from Wormley Rovers who wants to play) in instead. That's where we need a new Manager but nobody wants to do the job.

I have decided I am not going to panic about players from last season still not having signed the League Multi-Registration Form and therefore having to give me a photo if they don't play 7-a-side this Thursday or next Monday. We should have enough new players signed on by the 19th August deadline for us to field a team on the first day of the season (2nd September) anyway.

Ben is working in Norwich but we have a defender from Wormley Rovers ( Dan Euripidou ) coming along to replace him. (Team-mate of Cascoe's).

Martin Worthington is also playing, so if everybody turns up, we will have a squad of 9. Not ideal, but the weather forecast says it will be 30C today, so that will help.

If players complain about being subbed every five minutes, I will just have to deal with it.

I said that Martin Worthington might be playing, but I've not heard back from him.

Hopefully he will be popping a long to give a photo though.

Just to confirm that the squad for tonight is as follows:
Simon Jackson (GK)
Lexton Harrison
Ivan Bass
Daniel Cascoe
Daniel Euripidou
Andre Griffiths
Fraser John
Chris Adjei or Martin Worthington

I have left John Scouller and Jacko to sort that last one out between them. John says he is willing to drop out so that Chris (or Martin) can play and we then have a squad of 8 instead of 9.

I know it's a squad including five new players and hardly anybody will know each other, but at least we have got plenty of defenders this time !

Msrtin cannot make it.