10/08/2026
On a bright sunny Sunday morning the Panthers woke up from 3 months of footballing hibernation and made the journey across the a1079 to begin our pre season campaign against Thorpe Park.
It was a beautiful warm sunny morning and one I’ll look back on and wish we had more of throughout the whole of November to March I suspect!
We welcomed several new faces who have joined us giving 4 players their Panthers debuts and saw almost all of our squad turn up for the first of many matches to come.
What we saw was a great footballing display, a couple of players played in positions they aren’t used to, and notably Robbie at right back put in a superb performance.
Going forward we offered a real threat, goals from debutants Chris and Harvey, with finishes also from Jenson W and captain Haydon saw us run out 6-3 winners in a very entertaining and fair game of football.
What really pleased me was how we took the game to our opponents, looking to attack from the start and it really paid off. Everybody did themselves justice in this match, they all worked hard and were very well disciplined positionally.
But for the woodwork we would have had at least 3 more goals too, infact I’m reliably informed the goalpost at one end is still shaking 36 hours later!
Result aside, I was just really pleased to get the boys back out onto a football pitch, playing a good quality game of football against a good quality opposition where both teams conducted themselves with great sportsmanship and friendly rivalry.
You can’t play a game of football without an opponent, but it’s always much more enjoyable when the opponent is as welcoming and decent as they were so a big thank you to Thorpe Park for hosting us.
We have work to do but the signs are there already that we are in for a great season ahead, the boys are already firing, the parental and sibling support is superb as always, I cannot wait for the next match!
