It was a busy weekend at Lee Valley with Wapping men’s 1st XI enduring three tough pre-season friendlies.
The first two were on Saturday in a round-robin style tournament with Canterbury and Old Loughtonians.
Unfortunately, the team had poor availability of players for the weekend, resulting in some 2nd XI players, including Jonny Madill, getting the call.
The first opponent was Canterbury and the match got off to a fantastic start with new Wapping player Patrick Cochrane smashing home a volley from one yard out.
Cochrane showed great promise for the season ahead with player-coach Warren D’Souza describing him as ‘a breath of fresh air that we so desperately needed’.
Canterbury soon hit back after some defensive errors from team captain Nathaniel Crawley and then they added another goal in the first half, leaving the score 2-1 at the interval.
The second half got worse for Wapping as they shipped three more goals but they got one back through a penalty stroke from Will Cairns, which just about made it over the line, as it ended in a 5-2 defeat.
Opponent two was Old Loughtonians, who will be competing in the same league as the 1st XI this year and turned up with a full squad of 16.
Wapping started the game with more composure as they began to feel more comfortable as a team. There were several chances at either end, however Batstone missed the opposition goal four times in as many minutes.
Cochrane shone through again creating chance after chance for the team and the breakthrough came at the end of the first half with forward Aaron scuffing the ball over the line.
The rest of the game was all Wapping possession, but no more goals to show as they emerged 1-0 winners.
Sunday’s match was against Holcombe and it would prove to be a challenging contest against strong opposition, which included a handful of international players.
Wapping shocked themselves going 1-0 up via a well-worked short corner but after this promising start, they let Holcombe back into the game with a number of unfortunate errors and an adversity to working back.
At half-time it was all square at 2-2, then disaster struck as some of the older Wapping players felt the effects of playing two days in a row, resulting in heavy legs as it ended 6-2 to Holcombe.
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