WITH Dry January in full swing up and down the country, it seems slightly ironic that I should be talking about waterlogged football pitches!

But that is exactly how we start this week’s column, with good old-fashioned rainwater behind the postponement of Saturday’s Thurlow Nunn League premier division match at home to Coggeshall Town.

A frustrating one for players, officials, supporters and programme editors alike (I’ll grab my violin and play myself a tune shortly!) but sadly, these things are just a part of football at non-league level (although having watched a few editions of The Big Match Revisited on the box lately, you do wonder if we couldn’t just get on with the game a bit more often. But that’s modern health and safety for you!).

So our fourth meeting of the season against the Seedgrowers will have to wait a few more weeks, with the match since rescheduled for Tuesday, March 13 at the Bowl and we now look forward to this Saturday’s trip to Kirkley and Pakefield.

After a difficult start, the Royals have gradually climbed their way up the table to 13th position, aided by a run that has seen them lose just once in the league since the start of December, with that defeat coming to a Brantham Athletic side that seem fairly unstoppable of late.

Whatever happens this weekend, it surely can’t go any worse than our last trip to Walmer Road, which ended in a 10-0 defeat in September 2016.

The fact I’m even now able to talk about it proves that the nightmares must have finally subsided but hopefully it will prove a successful trip up the A12 for the boys, as we look to put our first points of 2018 on the board.

One other piece of FCC news to mention is that Zach Smith-Walter has joined our neighbours Holland FC on loan (at least he won’t have any further to travel for home matches for the remainder of this season).

Zach scored the opening goal in Holland’s 3-2 defeat at Little Oakley on Wednesday evening.

Naturally, we wish Zach all the best during his loan spell.

That’s it for this week.

Thanks for reading and come on you Seasiders!