Known then as Sedgefield Crosshills Football Club

We started the season with our strongest squad ever and during the pre-season games things were looking good on and off the pitch.
Then the usual luck kicked in with both David Taylor and Chris Lines having serious injuries that would keep them both out until after Chritmas and Keiran Cain deciding to transfer to the Black Lion so two important players lost and another who I think could have enjoyed his stay had he bothered to.
We started the season well despite a few early exits from some of the Cup competitions but like always at the beginning part of the season the starting 11 was changing every game due to players been on holiday or unavailable for the midweek games. Plus our Club captain Jamie Spencer missed the first month due to having a baby.
With Spanna back and the squad starting to settle we then lost Chris Barber who had started the season in great form certainly the best that he has produced for our Club. Chris was rushed to hospital and we very nearly lost him to an emergency operation. Luckily Chris survived but he needed time to recover and had to come to terms with the changes in his life. Testiment to him as once he was back on his feet he was raring to play again and was soon back to moaning on whilst sitting on the bench (nowt new there!!!)
We did'nt drop below 5th position all season and apart from two terrible performances v Usworth and Nevilles Cross plus a few draws that we should have won comfortably we'd all kept together to keep the chance of promotion alive.
Come March we were 4th and we then knew that we could possibly finish 2nd as it looked like Washington Usworth were the odds on favourites to finish top. We had Chris Lines and Chris Barber fit and in the starting 11 but we then lost Nicky to a groin injury and Marc Dickerson was in and out of the team due to some old injuries catching him up.
We decided to try and sign some new players to keep the squad strong and we ended up signing two great players in Anthony Smyth and Kevin Broom unfortunately due to breaking his nose Anthony didnt play as big a part than we'd have liked him to but Kevin was immense and he certainly played a big part in the final two months.
Then the worse thing possible with 3 games to go our Club captain Jamie Spencer broke his knee in what was probably his softest tackle ever!!! He will never play football again which is a major blow to the Club, he'll be a hard player to replace. Hopefully he'll keep involved with the Club in some way.
With about eight games remaining we knew what was needed to win as many games as possible and try and get something out of the two games v Washington Duke. We nearly did that apart from drawing v Quarrington Hill we won the rest but failed to take points from W.Duke we lost to two very close game 4-3 and 3-2 if these results have been reversed then automatic promotion would certainly have been achieveable.
At the finish we ended up finishing in 3rd position by 7pts to the 4th placed team Shadforth Plough. We all thought that it would go to the last game of the season but certain results went our way.

All in all a great season that could have been so much better.
A few lessons learned during the season but it is the Clubs highest ever finish so we cannot grumble too much.

Our aim during the summer is to try and keep all the current players and try and find a replacement for Spanna plus a few new faces to strengthen the squad.

Well done lads,
David