Hot hot hot! And it’s only getting hotter this week as we see a number of midweek friendlies postponed across the county.
Plenty of games did take place over the weekend, not least as Welsh Second Division side Briton Ferry Llansawel played Windsor and Wokingham & Emmbrook faced Marlow in the heat.
Of course they weren’t the only games going on over the weekend but here’s a few bits and bobs you might have missed while you supped a pint of water with your feet in a bucket.
Barry Hayles gets his kit on
Well that didn’t take long. Barry Hayles is already back in the Union Jack if images from Andrew Batt at the weekend are anything to go by.
Windsor announced the return of the 50-year-old former Fulham and Jamaica striker last week in an off-the-pitch capacity but left things open about a return to playing.
Hayles though was very much ‘in action’ on the weekend in a friendly at Slough Town’s Arbour Park against Briton Ferry Llansawel of the Cymru South – essentially the Welsh Championship or Second Division.
In April 2020. we spoke to Barry on the Football in Berkshire podcast. You can listen here or below:
“I save my busy tweets for the real stuff”
We all have opinions about pre-season. At Football in Berkshire we’ll tweet about games if we’re at them but we don’t tend to bother reporting the scores on the site. You can get some odd results, sometimes there’s split teams playing two games in a day. So Simon probably has a point.
But then we always say when asked – be consistent with your social media, tweet win or lose – and I suppose that applies to pre-season as well, so there Simmy.
Cornwall away? Maidenhead United Women face some hefty days out next season
If you’re a Maidenhead United Women fan next season has some corking away days in store with the constitution of the FA Women’s National League Division One West revealed.
If the Magpies can get AFC St Austell away in late August or April then an away day to Cornwall will certainly have it’s benefits, we all know it’s going to be a cold, wet Sunday in January though don’t we.
As well as that marathon trek, Maidenhead have trips to the mildly closer Exeter City, Cardiff City and Portishead – but at least at the latter they do a cuppa in a proper mug.
Temi Eweka off the mark for Maidenhead United
Talking of Maidenhead, and of not caring about pre-season results, but we couldn’t not mark former Bracknell Town centre-back Temi Eweka’s first goal for the Magpies.
In the match report from the game against Brentford ‘B’: “Dev’s boys slowly grew into the game and were rewarded halfway through the first half as Dan Sparkes’ free-kick reached Temi Eweka, his header lofted into the bottom left corner and was too much for Brentford B keeper Winterbottom.”
Monday night football at Bracknell Town
With the release of the Southern League fixtures it looks like Monday night is the chosen night for home midweek matches at Bracknell Town and Bottom Meadow.
The Robins will play evening games against Harrow Borough on Monday 15th August and Hanwell Town on Monday 26th September – the Hartley Wintney game on 29th August is a Bank Holiday fixture, currently at 3pm.]
It’s been a long road back for Jake White
Great news over the weekend as FiB favourite Jake White returned to action after seven months out through injury. The Wokingham & Emmbrook striker and captain played 15 minutes of the Sumas fixture against Isthmian League Marlow on Saturday.
Looks like it’ll be a little longer before he’s back playing 90 minutes but this was huge progress.
And one from last week we didn’t quite get time to pop out – Jack Turner’s got his priorities right
This was from last weekends Sean Fraser testimoninal that saw a number of Slough Town favourites including ex-Reading FC boss Brian McDermott turn out to celebrate the legendary Rebel.
