The Carlos Rocha Files
Jeromes introduced me many a time to all of his readers but if you didn't know I'm Carlos , a former FC United player before retiring and became chief scout this year Worthing alongside our other scouts Jelle , our European scout and Kane our British scout .
Me and Margy travelled with the squad down to Margate on the team bus driven by Dave , Dave has driven our bus since our establishment and is always there at any event and celebration , he should be made an honourable president for all the things Big Dave from Blackburn does for us.
The journey took around 9 hours die to a few stops at service stations and we had to pick up Margys wife from an airport in Nottingham. Most football league clubs would have flown down to the south of England and landed at Luton or Stanstead but not the non league teams the costs are too much so we all took the team bus.
Our squad consisted of: Mark Tyler James Larkins ; Marcus Hunt Paul Evans , Liam Marrs , Luke Wood , Robert Smyth and Garry Hay ; Curtis Draper , Daniel Riley , Toby Ajala, Steve Hall , Craig McMullan ; Dylan Gannon , Lee Hunt , Joe and Brad Smith. Loan players , Jermaine Anderson of Peterborough, Pritchard of Maidstone and Marsh of Oxford.
Our first game was against Isthmian league team Margate who have a small ground of about 500 and we had brought 340 travelling fans that outnumbered the home support in a rather dull game Gannon scored a 20 yard like driver thanks to neat work by Anderson and Hay on the left side . The gaffer was very impressed with our new team and bought us all a Chinese in celebration.
The second game was a trip to Cambridge United of the Conference they were a very physical and talk team winning many grades and took the lead from a free kick via a header by Hall- Brown in the first half . Margy wasn't impressed and hauled off Ajala and put Joe Smith upfront who scored a double , one a one on one with the keeper and the second a neat curling effort from the edge of the area , Mark Tyler in goal really impressed but has announced he will retire at the end of the season.
Our final game was at League 2 side Barnet , who are very organised and have very good playing facilities and equally good pies at half time , we were outclassed at times thanks to their star summer signing of DJ Campbell who was a constant threat upfront and lobbed Tyler from 25 yards out thankfully for us DJ pulled his hamstring in the second half and they didn't pose a problem after that
2 wins out if 3 with a new team is a great effort and now we turn our attention to a trip to the North Wales coast playing our old rivals Colwyn Bay on the 10th August , hopefully Jerome will be back for that game as I'm scouring the Scottish leagues for the next month.