The Clapton CFC men’s first team have reached the half-way mark of the Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League Division One South season.

It’s a been a long slog already with 21 league games down and 21 still to come. We’ve played everyone in the division once except for Benfleet, Harlow Town, Hutton and Park View. We’re out of the two cups we entered so we are, to use the cliche, concentrating on the league.

After a run of midweek games in quick succession there are no more scheduled all season – though of course any postponed league games may end up being played in midweek.

In his programme notes for Saturday’s game, Geoff Ocran makes it clear he’s delighted with the start to the season while stressing there’s plenty to improve on.

If someone said to us that at the half-way mark we would be top of the table in our first season after promotion, we would have thought they were playing Football Manager. Despite having played more games than the chasing pack, our aim for the second half of the season is to do better than the first and limit the amount of draws. There’s lots of room for improvement and we are continuing our development as a squad/management team.

Geoff Ocran

Although we sit on top of the league table, some teams have as many as seven games in hand on us. So a more accurate table is perhaps the points per game. In that, Clapton CFC lie in fifth place, which is the final play-off spot.

Clearly there’s a lot of football still to play, and with a very tricky run of three games against promotion challengers in the next four fixtures this table may change dramatically.

Here’s the full points per game table….

Pos	Team	P	Pts	Pts/game
1	Benfleet	16	36	2.25
2	Cannons Wood	18	37	2.06
3	Wormley Rovers	16	32	2.00
4	Hutton	19	37	1.95
5	Clapton CFC	21	39	1.86
6	Dunmow Town	20	37	1.85
7	Harlow Town	20	37	1.85
8	Hackney Wick	17	25	1.47
9	Southend Manor	21	27	1.29
10	Clapton FC	18	23	1.28
11	Basildon Town	16	20	1.25
12	Barkingside	17	21	1.24
13	May & Baker	14	17	1.21
14	Hoddesdon Town	15	18	1.20
15	Brimsdown	21	24	1.14
16	Newbury Forest	18	20	1.11
17	Tower Hamlets	20	22	1.10
18	St Margaretsbury	17	18	1.06
19	Burnham Ramblers	20	21	1.05
20	Enfield Borough	18	18	1.00
21	NW London	18	17	0.94
22	Park View	20	17	0.85