Under 16 Casuals 2008-09




	Kew AFC Under 16 Casuals play in Division One of the Epsom & Ewell Youth Football League With nothing at stake in our last match, we nearly slipped badly on a banana skin at Caterham Pumas, having to retrieve a 2-0 halftime deficit, Man United style to finish the season on a winning note. See Match Reports. Proudest achievement of the season was being the only side to defeat Woodmansterne Hyde, division one winners, who added the Cup to their silverware with a 3-2 win over Stoneleigh Athletic. All our results and the season’s final table are listed.

Match by match: Woodmansterne Hyde took their revenge on Kew Casuals, crushing us 5-0 on 19 April to confirm the division one title. With Horley Albion winning, they finish second, and we’re third. Before Easter, we’d once again slipped into the pattern - knock off one of the big sides one week, struggle the next. Walton Heath came with a disciplined game plan and we had to twice come from behind to secure a 2-2 draw. At least we had the distinction of being the only side in the league to remain unbeaten for the five Sundays of March. Kew Casuals have done it again, beating the leading side on 22 March. This time it was Horley Albion who we knocked off the top, coming from behind in yet another complete team effort to deservedly win 1-2. Our chances of winning the championship probably disappeared in a 1-1 draw at home to Banstead Town B on Sunday 15 March, a duplicate of our result against the same side earlier in the season. After our amazing win over top side Woodmansterne the previous week, it was back to earth with a bump on 8 March as we had to scrap hard for victory against a Walton Heath side who kept coming at us. That kept us secondon goal difference as Horley Albion also squeaked home by single goal margin. Kew Casuals enjoyed their greatest ever victory on 1st March, beating the leading side in our division, Woodmansterne Hyde 2-1 to ruin their 100% league and cup record. It was a fantastic team performance. We’d retaken top spot with a 3-1 win over Epsom Athletic on 1st Feb, but, with snow and half term holidays, it would be a month before we’d play again. From the top there’s only one way to go, but we didn’t expect it this soon, as Kew Casuals went down 3-5 on 18 Jan to visitors St Heliers to slip to 3rd.

We’d taken the coveted Christmas number one with a 3-6 win over Epsom Athletic on 21 Dec. Kew AFC Youth’s last unbeaten League record disappeared on 30 Nov as Kew Casuals went down 0-2 to a Horley Albion side much improved from last season. A week earlier, in the most miserable conditions of the season, Kew Casuals notched up a win against Wolves, but not before having to survive a fightback. Having gone out to a 4-0 lead, Wolves came back to draw level before we stepped up a gear to win. Kew enjoyed a fantastic first 15 minutes against Roundshaw B to seal the points with three early goals, before ending up 1-5 winners. We’d kept our unbeaten record with a hard fought 1-2 win at St Heliers on 2nd November. On 19 Oct, we beat Caterham Pumas 4-2. We were knocked out of the League Cup by premier division Banstead Town A after drawing 1-1 with their B side in a league outing on 28 Sept. Our second league match on 21 Sept saw us run out 5-2 winners over new side, Wolves, after turning 2-2 at half time. We won our opening league match, 2-1 with a late winner to beat last season’s nemesis, Roundshaw B.

For more details of all games, see Match Reports.

Click on these links for

Results


	Kew Casuals was born of the desire to continue to provide football for boys who were about to finish their final Senior season at Kingston Little League.



	Paul Clark

Andy Gates, Senior coordinator at KLL as well as Kew AFC Youth secretary, approached Paul Clark, who for three seasons had managed the Stripes and Black Knights teams in Little League. After checking with his son Oliver that he wanted to spend yet another year between the sticks, Paul agreed and began building a team, inviting boys who had been at KLL to join. He quickly realised this was not a one-man job so recruited his Black Knights assistant manager, Alastair Pettigrew to fill a similar role with Kew Casuals. He came with the added bonus of poaching his son Rob from Kew Park Rangers!



		Alastair Pettigrew

After an 8-1 thrashing in a pre-season friendly by Cobham Youth of the Epsom and Ewell U15 Premier Division, Andy’s post-match talk began “Welcome to club football”. Fortunately, Casuals had been enrolled in the U15 Division One and after three matches were looking down from the dizzy heights of the top of the League. Sadly it was just an illusion created by the luck of the draw. After losing three key players, we were on a losing streak, winning just one of our next 10 games, the low point coming on a rained-soaked December day on a mudbath of a pitch at top side Stoneleigh Athletic, where we were pummelled 13-2. After that it was about improvement in the New Year, going down by just one goal at eventual 3rd placed Banstead, drawing 3-3 with Cheam Warriors after coming back from 3-1 down, a result that ended up costing them 4th place. Most importantly, we finished the season with a string of wins which ensured we beat every team below us in the table to make sure of 8th place out of 12. A creditable performance in our first season, playing sides that have, in many cases, been together for several years.

At the season-ending Presentation evening, team awards went to Michael Oni for most-improved player, captain Tom Holmes for manager’s player and the coveted player’s player to Conagh Thomas, our top goalscorer.



		Michael Oni



		Tom Holmes



		Conagh Thomas


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