From September to Christmas, we were a formidable force in Senior 1 South sitting pretty at the top of the table with a healthy goal difference following an opening day 11-0 win against Worcester College Old Boys at Stadia Fishponds.

The team looked complete with a beautiful balance
from front to back. At the back, a new goalkeeper, secured each Saturday mainly because Chelsea were playing so badly – he would rather come and play for us
than go to Stamford Bridge on a Saturday afternoon. At the front, we had three goal machine strikers who were reminiscent of Firmino, Salah and Mane in their peak. It looked like we had a complete team, moral was sky high and we were already seeing our name engraved on the silverware.

However, disaster struck on Saturday 17th December when our talismanic central midfielder did his ACL on a 4G pitch in a game away
to Old Hamptonians. Little did we know, that this injury was the start of a
severe downward spiral for Sinjuns 1st XI.

From January to March, we were only able to win 1 game in 6. Our strikers went from feast to famine, our centre backs decided it
was more fun to pass the ball straight to the opposition's attackers and our
midfield had lost its bite and creativity.

Our position atop the table slowly eroded away as Reigatians and their long ball football crept up on us.

A few key games which saw us bottle it kept passing up by. Narrowly losing leads or losing games in the dying embers of multiple matches.

We managed to salvage a couple of games at the end of the season but it was too little too late. We ended up finishing in third place. One more point would have put us in second with a playoff against Senior 1 North team Old Salvoratorians to get into the Prem. However, our form and
performances from January to early March were simply not good enough.

This was not the form of champions. However, things are looking up for next
season as we have a few pre-season signings on the horizon and we might finally be able to retire some more mature players…

We will be back stronger next season.