HARLOW Town Pirates Walking Football Club (formerly Paringdon Pirates) Men’s Essex Walking Football League (Summer League).

Match Day 3 at Billericay FC, Tuesday 13th May.

Fixtures against Chelmsford Clarets, Cheshunt, Romford, Southend.

Squad (as in Photo L to R) Mal McNeill, Ben King (Capt), Bill Vint (GK), Steve Barnes (Mngr), Steve Fletcher, Damien Devine, Ron Adams.

Results: Drew 1 all against Chelmsford, Lost 3 nil against Cheshunt, Lost 4 nil against Romford and Lost 1 nil against Southend.

A challenging set of results against quality opposition. One of the unlikely outcomes of a summer league for over 60’s is that players will often be away with family and other commitments (!). The Pirates had to compete with a reduced squad of 7 players (9 are allowed), and we fielded 4 players that were over 70 !

An additional opponent was the 25 degree heat.

Against Chelmsford we had a slow start in a very competitive game and scored first with a class one/two between Steve Fletcher and Ben King who finished clinically. Unfortunately, conceding the lead to a Chelmsford Penalty.

The games against Romford and Cheshunt were tough. The former are top of the table and the latter are becoming a nemesis team for us! Both squads contained England players and trialists. We kept shape and were much more competitive than the results suggest.

The loss against Southend was disappointing as we deserved more from the possession that we had. Our finishing was not good enough and we got punished.

Pirate of the Day was Bill Vint with an excellent (and busy) session in goal!

Within FA Walking Football rules, running (or non walking!) is controlled by “Blue” cards which are issued accumulatively across the team during a game. Receive 4 and a Penalty is conceded. We received 4 penalties across our 4 games but unfortunately failed to capitalize on any which is a hard lesson learnt as we could have beaten Chelmsford and drew with Southend.

Walking football has fundamentally different rules: 6 a-side, no overhead, no tackling and no running. It is therefore is a non-contact, accurate, ball to feet, tactical game which is a lot of fun. Harlow Town Walking Football Club is always welcoming new players of all standards.

Men over 50 and Ladies over 30. We have competitive teams across genders and ages but that is only part of the club.

We have players at all levels, some never having played football since school (!) or others never before.

We meet at Harlow Town Football Club in the Pinnacles every Monday at 5pm and Friday at Noon. The sessions are only £4. (first session is free). Feel free to join us.
www.paringdonpirates.gov.uk