Boro Comb meeting
May 23, 2012 2 Comments
I was a bit jaded by the end of the Southend Borough Football Combination management committee meeting last. This is due to the three hours endured in the airless heat of the Len Forge Centre. We had a lot to get through, and we agreed to reconvene in a couple of weeks when it became clear there was still business to be transacted.
There is a malaise hitting grassroots football, with decline evident everywhere in male open-age football. The Combination is likely to have some modest growth in the coming season, and this will largely be due to the merger with the Southend and District Football League (which, as reported elsewhere in these musings, sees more than a century of history go down the pan on Friday with its last annual general meeting).
As well as a voice for Milton I intend to be a voice for local football on Southend’s council. The local football scene was once amongst the very largest in the country. The story today is one of neglect and decline, and I do not think football has been well-served by the local council in the twenty-eight years I have been involved.
I was chatting to a bloke a few weeks ago about (I believe it was) cycling in Southend. He was talking about how many years ago there were cycling competions with teams effectively from different wards around town, and how people from all different walks of life would get together and do some form of competitive cycling locally. I can’t even imagine something like this nowadays. Getting people involved in sport like this locally is fantastic, builds ties within and without the community and I think would make Southend communities so much less insular. I hope you get somewhere and this idea really kicks off (sorry for the awful pun!).
can anyone tell me when registration evening is for Saturday teams in Borough com