The season came down to this last game, the deal was simple win the game and you get promoted, loose, it was too hard to work out.

After a week of soul searching and cajoling the guys we turned up at Farnham, nervous and with an air of trepidation. Farnham are a bit like us, the club house has seen better days and pitches that are angled away into the far distance, we felt good we knew how we were going to play the game.

The secret to this season has been the way we structure our warm ups, same routine, same pace. Captain Kyle marched his team out onto the pitch, we had discussed the toss up and for once it went our way. Farnham kicked off it didn’t go the distance and a scrum to Chipstead, playing straight into our hands we won the shrike, pushed them off the ball and attacked through the hands for a couple of phases of play and Felix was held up in the corner, were the gods with us or not? Today they were, because from the scrum Sean touched down in the corner, 5 -0 . From the kick off we again ran the ball at the opposition the whole back row re-cycled the ball and Stewart hitting a great line in support touched down for one of our tries of the season, with the conversion, 12-0 our nerves were eased. Fred then added another try and conversion, 19 -0.

The only blight on the game was Ian falling over dislocating his knee or so we thought, true to form Phil and I ran onto the pitch to administer 1st aid, an ambulance was called, para - medic Graham was in attendance, the game moved to another pitch, only then did we realise that Ian had damaged his ankle, the other ankle and was able to sit out the rest of the game, Note to self for next season … get a qualified 1st aider…..

The talk at half time focussed on keeping the intensity up the talk play down and concentrate on doing the job in hand.

From the kick off Kyle scored under the posts and we thought we were there, but then came Farnham, one, then two tries, were we getting nervous? Not all Nathan R sealed the win with a try that put us out of sight. Then the ref played his part, playing what I made to be 47 minute 2nd half, a few injuries he told me afterwards had pushed us over the 45 minute mark. Eventually the whistle went, we won and promotion in the bag. Not sure how I felt other than total pride at our guys.
This game was won right across the park where every player played their part in winning their individual battles it was a joy to watch, especially after last week.

Three years ago we made a decision to put out 2 teams and in this game it came to fruition and justified our decision. 31 players have been used in our league team this season.

You guys deserved this, be proud of your achievement, thank you guys, thank you everyone that has played for us this season and thank you parents for your ongoing support.

Special thanks goes to the backroom staff of Stella, Phil, Martin and Chef Roy.

Then it was back to Chipstead for a little celebration.

The winning squad was Spiv, Daniel, Alex, Matt, Kyle, James M, Stewart, Michael, Josh, George, Ollie, Sam J, Sam P, Ian E, Anthony, Fred, Nathan W T, Nathan R, Felix, John, Tom, Sean, Jack, James W (ran the junior marathon in the morning) walking wounded Dom and Toby and Ryan who made it to the club.

Happy Days

Jay