A bit of help here please...

[coach et 64]

I can't believe this.FA Vase away game to a proper side Tring lying third behind Leverstock and Royston and what we have midweek?An away game to Sporting Bengal on a Wednesday night!!!!Then they moan if the Esl sides don't go any further.The League doesn't help with the fixtures do they?An extra day rest and 2 long yourneys away within 60 hours!!!I noticed there are another 2 teams in the same position as well.Why we had 3 weeks without mid-week fixtures and then we get this before an FA Vase game.Sure the ESL sides involved should get a bit of help.After all we are representing our League.Food for thought chaps...

[Eastside Urchin]

Coach,they are not long journeys

[syd_lexic]

I don't know. Tring is a bit off a trek from Hullbridge.

It does seem a bit strange though, how they can drop these fixtures in at times. I'm going back few years now, but when the East Anglian Cup was still a prestigious competition worth playing for, we got to the Semi-finals & had to play Harlow on a Wednesday night. Then 1 week before the game, the league gave us a re-arranged league fixture away to Romford for the Tuesday night !

So basically you are asking players to do a days work, travel to & play football. Get home late, do a days work & then travel to & play football again. The lads were shattered, we were 1-0 up against Harlow with 5 mins remaining & just folded through tiredness & let 2 sloppy goals slip in the last 5 minutes. Harlow went onto win the comp.

BTW my mate is Assistant Manager at Tring. Good luck but I think you might have your work cut out there.

[coach et 64]

We'll see.We owe the top of Spartan Midlands one.We'll get that scalp especially with top players on the mend now.

[Eastside Urchin]

syd,i do understand where you are coming from but your circumstances is a bit different from coaches,two games in basically 26 hours is taking the p1ss but playing saturday wednesday saturday is part and parcel of football and progression in cup competition.Tring is about 2 hours from Hullbridge,not exactly a million miles away,the teams that go places just get on with it.

[coach et 64]

I don't know what's going on with the fixtures this year.First week of the season we played Witham,S.Manor,Braintree and Eton Manor in 7 days then we didn't have mid-week games for 2-3 weeks. This week we haven't got another mid-week game as well.My point is Esl teams that play in national competitions should be helped by their own League with the fixture and those Wednesday games should be moved to another date that doesn't clash with FA Vase or FA Cup duties.Is that difficult?It's gonna affect some if not all players performances because there is not enough time to recover.Pros moan about playing every 3 days think about amateur players that work on building sites during the week.Crazy if you ask me.