Thanks to everyone who made last Saturday's end of season awards a roaring success, it was a privilege to be hosting an event whereby we've had such a great season and with plenty to celebrate.

In a nutshell, the 2016/17 season:-

1st XI Won promotion to Premier Division
2nd XI Won promotion to Division 1 South (Champions)
4th XI Won Promotion to Division 5 South, and runners up in 2 Cup Finals!
VETs Southern Amateur League Champions!!

Brilliant achievement for all involved in the club this year. The winners of the awards on Saturday were:

1st Player of the Year: HARRY WAKEFORD
2nd XI Player of the Year GARY HIGGINS & WES MONFORD
3rd XI Player of the year: ALEX WHITTINGTON
4TH XI Player of the year: SAM MICHAEL
VETS Player of the YEAR: MARTIN MCGOURTY

COXA SHIELD: 'In Memory of Michael Grace and Same Vennart': DAVE HALPENNY
Clubman of the Year: RICHARD WILLIAMS
Young Player of the Year: PARIS CLARKE
Club Player of the Year: IAN WALSH (1st XI)

PHOTOS

This week, the 2nd and 3rd team have no game, The Vets will be playing a friendly against the 2011 COXA 4ths Team in Memory of Michael 'Migs' Grace
This will be 3pm KO at Norbury, straight after the 4th XI game. Please head down to watch if you are in the area, it should be a brilliant day for an incredible cause with plenty of old faces to have a beer or 10 with in the clubhouse afterwards.

I have also attached this weeks fixture list. I will leave you with Stani Alves 4th XI match report that clinched them promotion. They can still win promotion as Champion too, so good luck lads. I've also attached the few blurry photo's that I have of (some) of last weeks winners. If you have any photo's of the night, please feel free to send them to me, add them to the Facebook page or email them to the website- where the legend that is Frank Barretta will display in them to the world!

Cheers fellas

Chris McLoughlin
Club Captain
Macca

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John Fisher 0-2 COXA 4's

Callum Law, Stan Christoforou, Liam Thornton, Dave Halpenny, JJ Thornton, Matt Drury, Dom Taggart, Ben Dakin, Ben O'Brien, Tom Macgregor, Josh Ewin. Sean Slater

This game was a dead rubber, John Fisher had already been relegated from the league and we had already secured promotion. Because of this, we decided to experiment with our line up. We brought in big Dave Hal(f)penny and went with 3 at the back. Our back three worked really well together with Dave winning everything in the air and both JJ and Liam being composed on the ball and starting attacks. That wasn't to say that Liam and JJ didn't get stuck in, the Fisher boys are renowned for throwing their weight around but our boys were more than up for the battle. On the odd occasion when Fisher did break through and get a shot off, Cal the hitman was there to save the day with a string a strong saves, included one block in which he burst off his line to make a tackle like a young Neuer. Though 3 at the back is tricky to play and requires a lot of practice, the boys were brilliant at the back and deserved their clean sheet. We didn't play a great deal of good football, the pitch was rock hard and bobbly and as I mentioned, this game meant nothing to either team so lacked in intensity. However, Fisher's first team season had finished, so they drafted a couple of boys in to make it more of a battle. There were a few moments of quality in the first half, Tommy Mac looking dangerous when he got the ball to feet and Josh's link up play upfront was deadly in the first 15/20 mins, he won every header and was a great target man. We worked our way in behind their back four on a number of occasions, but didn't manage to capitalize. We took the lead through Matty Drury, who controlled a cross with a brilliant touch and took it round the keeper to finish. We went into the break 1-0 up without playing too well.

The second half was even slower, it was a poor display from our boys, often blowing attacks with poor decision making in the final third, we struggled to put the game to bed. We did however get that crucial second goal when Ben Dakin picked out Tommy Mac on the edge of the box who fired into the corner to put the game to bed. The game petered out and though Fisher looked dangerous from a couple of set pieces, hitting the bar on one occasion with a bullet header, they never really looked like causing our defense too many problems. We all came off the pitch in agreement that we hadn't played well, but we were glad to pick up the 3 points and keep a clean sheet. Though we technically do not need any more points in the league, it would be nice to get a couple more clean sheets in our remaining games and continue to experiment with different formations and line ups in preparation for next year.

A big thank you to Garv for lending us Dave, and a big thank you to Dave, he was solid as a rock and received a few nominations for man of the match. It was another demonstration of how well the club has worked this year and is one of the reasons we have 4 out of 5 teams looking at promotion.

It was good to have a drink with everyone last week and celebrate a successful season for COXA, hopefully there are many more successful seasons to come.

Up the Clapham.