So this is the twelfth Development Diary and I’m so glad to say it won’t be the last as we stay involved in cup football after having deservedly tied up South London Laces 2-1 in a tense encounter.

While we were delighted to progress courtesy of two second half goals from super sub Annie McGrath, the weekend as a whole was a fantastic one for the women’s football section with all teams registering a win on the same day for the first time this season.

While results aren’t everything, the player pathway between teams is and this worked perfectly, a strong Open Access team winning 5-1 , and the aforementioned Annie moving up a team and putting in a player of the match performance.

Sunday saw a lot of the Open Access and Development players supporting the First Team and further proof of the pathway working as Taiyah Evans and Mozien Tak from Devs got minutes on the pitch in a comfortable 2-0 win against Denham United.

None of this would be possible without the improved communication and general relationship between the teams that was perhaps missing before mid term managerial changes. Only recently we held the first cross-team managers meeting at the Old Spotted Dog and this was a great success in bringing all the teams together under the one umbrella and ethos we all share, that of Clapton Community Football Club.

Even at training we have seen Open Access and Development training together on several occasions of late and coaches stepping in to seamlessly help when there is unavailability among the coaches.

Ellie Guedalla obviously did a great job coaching last week given the results after putting Development and Open Access combined through their paces and Sunny Hunjan is another great example of this mantra of unity, coaching the keepers irrespective of regular playing level.

I also must mention and pay tribute to Brian Bramble who in many ways is the glue who holds this occasionally fragile relation apart with wise feedback and a knowledge of the game second to none. With Brian in charge I could rest assured our cup fortunes were in safe hands despite many worried phone calls from the Dorset Coast.

Hopefully we can keep the cup interest going and stretch out the season as long as possible against our old and very hard to beat adversaries Stonewall this Saturday (12pm kick off Hackney Marshes North Marsh) – watch this space.

Yours in Football-Neil