Happy New Year!

Saturday 7th January
Baris CML Challenge Cup R2
Easington United 6 DFS Welbeck Welfare 0

Less than a fortnight into 2012 and it would appear I've already fallen down on one of my New Year resolutions, namely that of ensuring I keep on top of this blogging malarkey.  Anyway, better late than never...    

Christmas was a fairly low-key event in the Slush household this time around; Mrs Slush’s latest bout of tonsillitis helping put something of a downer on any wild partying she (and I for that matter) might have had in mind.

Not that it wasn’t enjoyable, thanks to fact that both the Elder & Younger Slushette are still of an age to completely buy into the idea of Father Christmas.

Hutton Cranswick’s resignation from the league meant we were one of few teams not in action on the Holiday Tuesday.  According to CML Chairman Frank Harwood, it proved a cracking day for the league with “crowds of over a hundred reported at five games and attendances in general up on the norm”.

Lack of a game meant Mack and Nicho were quick to push for decent attendance at the three training sessions between the back-to-back games against Welbeck.  They weren’t disappointed and as 2012 arrived it did so with a genuine belief on our part that things may just be on the up again.

The Comeback Kid (with three new followers)

Mrs Slush’s inability to do much socialising over the time off had allowed me to catch up on my reading and I ended 2011 with an absolute belter in Dominick Sandbrook’s “State Of Emergency(Britain: The Way We Were 1970-74)”.

Being born in 1966, the period covered by the third instalment of Sandbrook’s historical series evoked many memories of my boyhood years living up Turmarr Villas, the small cul-de-sac of council houses adjoining the original Easington School.  And while too young to appreciate Prime Minister Heath’s dealings with the TUC, IRA and EEC, I could fully relate to the author’s accounts of what was on the BBC and ITV.

As such his chapter detailing the children's telly of the time brought back to some great memories, as did the pieces on the "classic" sitcoms of the era - The Good Life, Rising Damp, Are You Being Served, Love Thy Neighbour and Til Death Us Do Part.  Oh 'eck.

For me, ‘State Of Emergency’ provides some excellent background to events that would come to dominate later life.  Indeed, some of the parallels with recent events are quite staggering – public sector pay disputes, racial tensions and arguments over Europe.  Never mind 1981 (from which several Official Papers have just been released), a lot of what’s happening now is very reminiscent of Britain in the early 1970s.

A new Starter (sorry!)

Back in January 1972 as they prepared to entertain the likes of Humbleton and Thorngumbald, if someone had told people involved with Easington United that some forty years later they'd be hosting teams from north Nottinghamshire, they'd have been accused of sampling some of the recreational “aids” that, although associated with the “Swinging Sixties”, according to Sandbrook really came into their own during the early Seventies!

But here we are and, thanks to the work of the management over the Festive Break, here is hopefully where we’ll be staying.  This despite the rumours circulating on the unofficial CML message board that suggested we have resigned from the competition.  We haven’t and we have no immediate plans to do so.

An apt cover as it turned out!

A Christmas/New Year accompanied by weather in marked contrast to that of twelve months earlier ensured there was never any doubt that our return to action would go ahead as planned.  And so, at five to two on 7th January 2012, the latest incarnation of the Eastenders First Team emerged from the home changing rooms ready to do battle for a place in the last sixteen of the league cup.

Due to Bezza’s work commitments, Ben “Killer” Killingsworth became the second of the new recruits to make his full debut; deputising at left-back (or “left-half” as regular supporter Ted Roberts later termed the role!).  Elsewhere, Messrs. Roberts, Shortland and Start were handed slots on the bench.

The result was never really in doubt from the minute the skipper headed home on 12mins.  A superb second followed just past the half-hour only for AG to then blot his copybook when striking a second half penalty that is still rising.  No hat-trick for Graham then.

Aside from striking the woodwork at 2-0, Welbeck rarely threatened a comeback and when Nicho slotted home a second penalty our progress was assured.  A Frost goal and debut strikes for Start and Shortland capped a fine afternoon.
Dare I say the future is bright again?

Thanks to Burt Graham for the photographs

And as this song has irritated me for the past few weeks I might as well inflict it on you all too...