As a team we left Woodside Park feeling that we should have maintained our 100% winning pre-season record against a team who last season were playing in the Premiership of Olympian League.

Having 16 players to choose from and Jay Sleep standing on the sidelines with his boots, the plan was always to give everyone a game.

We bossed the game from the very opening and could have scored after only 30 seconds when Flynie just narrowly missed a one-on-one oppertunity with the keeper. Also within two-minutes a change had to be made to the team because young Ross Martyn had to be taken off with a nasty broken nose. This only seemed to motivate the guys even more to win every tackle and personel battle around the park.

Town scored their first after about 25-minutes via a great individual effort from the ever improving Willis.

Benfleet equilised with possably their first attack via a direct ball over the top, which continued to cause us problems all afternoon. Town soon regained the lead with another pre-season goal from the ever dangerous Flynie who everyone within the group is expecting great things from this season.

With about 4-minutes to go to half-time Benfleet once again equilised via a dubious penalty. Rather than letting this setback get the lads down, we were then treated to potentially already the goal of the season scored by Gareth Cleverley our new Welsh signing, who with a sublime peice of skill on the edge of a crowded box teed the ball up and volleyed in one movement with the result being the ball ending up in the top hand corner of the net.

3-2 up at half time we made 4-changes and the opposition made 10. The oppo managed to score their third in about the 70-minute, after which time the town managed to hit the post and have a perfectly good goal scrubbed out by young Tom Thorose in the last minute.

The town finished the game with five players under 21, which can only auger well for the future.

Currently the group of 17/18 guys are setting extremely high standards in everything they do, from the point of view of availabity, numbers at training, timekeeping, subs and most importantly their performance on the park.

These guys understand that being in the 1sts of this great club comes at a price. They are the standard barers and at the moment they are ticking every box.

Pic 1. Alex Willis beating Benfleet defenders

Pic 2. Jamie Doulton

Pic 3. Town on attack

Pic 4. Town players waiting to take the field