Enfield Town vs Wingate & Finchley

[dwhe]

1-0

66 McKenzie

att 2225

Playoff final awaits

[dwhe]

9 minutes Furgie time at the end, I bet that was more like squeaky bum time

Chatham 0 Horsham 0 into extra time

Edited May 1 by dwhe

[Up the chins]

Congrats Guys, Wingate were the better team in the first half without creating anything clear cut. You defended very well. Second half you were much the better team, once you  scored the first it looked like you would score more. Best of luck in the final.

[dwhe]

Chatham 1-0 up

1-1

7 minutes left

Edited May 1 by dwhe

[dwhe]

Going to penalties

[dwhe]

3-3 so far

4-3 horsham miss

4-3 horsham miss

strange it is saying chatham won 2-1 on pens not 4-3

either way it is chatham in the final

Edited May 1 by dwhe

[cup of tea]

Well done guys - now please beat Chatham and come up with us

[dwhe]

It would be nice cup of tea, speaking of which I'm going to put the kettle on to celibrate

[Kent Towner]

Boring first half...just edged the second...but a win 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

2200+ crowd, brilliant, but emphasised the limitations of our bar/toilet/food facilities.

Also, with bag searches and 'pat-downs' at the turnstiles, how did so many flares get in? £500 fine per flare isn't it? Plus some thrown on pitch! I make that at least £3K? Utterly ridiculous 🤬

If, Gods willing 🙏🏻, we go up, we're gonna be in big bother unless we nip this in the bud!

Edited May 1 by WXEn8

[Rebel without a clue]

Scrappy first half in which wingate were the better team although neither keeper was really tested,second half much better from us probably aided by the fact cass had to be substituted late in the first half so we had to stop our long ball game and played it more on the deck ,we ran out deserved winners in the end, wingate seemed to run out of ideas , a good turnout by there supporters bearing in mind there average gate is only 100+.congratulations to all the staff and players of enfield let’s hope for an improved performance on the artificial surface at Chatham on Monday 

[Barney]

Not much to add to what has already been said - an uneventful first half, where both sides (but especially us) were intent on not being the team to make the first mistake. If that was our aim, then the gameplan was executed pretty well. No issue with using Cass as a target man, as he's such a physical presence, but we need runners off him if we're going to do that (which we didn't really commit to), as he will win his share of ball. Second half much better, we looked slightly more balanced with Payne on at left back, and his long throw is a real weapon, especially in tight games like these where you need to nick a goal somehow. Game management after we scored was spot on, and I can't remember Rhys really having to do anything significant throughout the half.

MoM was given to Marcus, and his workrate was tireless, but I thought we were excellent throughout the team, especially out of possession, where we were quick to track back, organise and get bodies behind the ball. Both centre backs were very solid, and the discipline shown from Dylan and Ollie in tracking back and doubling up negated a lot of Wingate's threat. I thought Harvest and Thomas also had good games, Thomas benefits from an extra pair of legs with him in the centre, and both of them broke up play well all evening. It might not be the prettiest, most expansive football, but Gavin has got us well organised and has a squad of players that know what they're doing, and buy into the system.

Clearly not an easy game away to Chatham, however we'd have 100% taken a play off final at the start of the season, and it's already further than we've ever come in a league which looked very tricky on paper, so a lot of credit has to go to the management team.

Edited May 2 by Barney

[townerboy]

concentrate town....

[WHY DO I BOTHER]

 I’ve no idea how we keep doing it but we do… massive congrats to Gav and everyone involved for this…. Let’s be honest the football leaves a lot to be desired… to keep beating teams that are technically superior to us by a long way is quite a tactical achievement… Neither team really looked like scoring for the majority of the game we certainly missed Joe’s long throws in the first half … people have their own ideas about the flares… personally i think it adds to the atmosphere but please don’t throw them on the pitch… i’m sure they would go unnoticed apart the the infuriating constant tannoy announcements alerting everyone to them…well the consequences of our result last saturday has come to reality and now a nightmare trip to Chathams plastic pitch… how much difference would a home tie be….

 

[Barney]

There are a lot of what ifs about the Chatham league game, we might have won with a different team selection, but we might have picked up an injury or suspension ruling key players out of last night. The Chatham equaliser might have been disallowed, but they might have gone on and scored anyway, knowing that they needed to. If we had finished second, would we have beaten Horsham last night as well? I think we could look at any game we didn't win throughout the season, and say that we could or should have won, but ultimately we finished where we did on merit over the season, and it's hard to argue with 2nd vs 3rd in the play off final.

[WHY DO I BOTHER]

your probably right Barney just i’ve got this thing about plastic pitches and our record on them….

[Benjrider10]

I remember doing a bit of research two years ago, when we last reached the play-off semis, to find out who gets what re gate receipt distribution.

The 2023-2024 rules Isthmian League 2023-2024 Meeting Your Responsibilities.pdf haven't changed i.e. play-offs are still treated as cup games (not league games). This means the gate receipts are split 37.5% home team, 37.5% away team and 25% to the league. The same applies to the final on Bank Holiday Monday. Number-crunching (these are all guesses):

1 May 2024 ETFC vs. Wingate: crowd 2,225. Let's keep it simple and say 2,000 paid GBP 12 each. Total GBP 24,000.

5 May 2024 Chatham vs. ETFC: the attendance league table says their highest attendance to-date is 2,588. Again, keep it simple and say 2,200 pay GBP 12 each. Total GBP 26,400

So total GBP 50k (give or take). And this excludes all profits we made from the bar, club shop, food etc. for the W&F match. This makes our 37.5% share somewhere around the GBP 19,000 mark. Not bad and will help with Lake Garda costs and next season's budget for sure 🍾🏆

Happy days for Mr. Chairman!

[Barney]

32 minutes ago, Benjrider10 said:

5 May 2024 Chatham vs. ETFC: the attendance league table says their highest attendance to-date is 2,588. Again, keep it simple and say 2,200 pay GBP 12 each. Total GBP 26,400

Football Web Pages has the attendance for the Chatham vs. Horsham play off semi as 3000 (which I think is likely to be their ground capacity, given the round number). Probably worth assuming that the final will sell out, so definitely worth snapping up those online tickets in advance. Unfortunately I'm not able to go 🤦‍♂️, but will be watching Twitter like a hawk with everything crossed 🤞

[Rebel without a clue]

Not sure what the capacity is at Chathams ground in some instances it’s stated at 5000 yet there was a sell out 3000 at there game last night it will be interesting to see what our allocation will be

[djwilf]

400 away tickets!!!    Shocking.

[Raingod]

the league rules say min 600 - so if safety concerns the home allocation should be reduced ...