Park’s first game of 2023 involved a trip down memory lane for Romford’s faithful, as we took the short journey to Cottons Park to play our closest neighbours Campion. Not that it was easy to get there. Traffic lights at the end of North Street had reduced our historic market town to complete gridlock. And when we got to Cottons Park it was impossible to park. All in all, it would have been easier to park at Crow Lane, and walk over two by two in a crocodile.

Cottons Park is a dismal place, overshadowed by trees stretching their black branches to the grey sky like mourners at a funeral. One half of the pitch has a big slope leading down to the marsh in the goal area, creating challenges for the team defending that end.
Both sides had reinforced their teams for the local derby, with well known seasonal players Terry Turkey, John Lager and the Tatty brothers all on the teamsheets. This meant that there were unlikely to be many meat pies on the scoresheet. Park started up the slope, playing into a gusty wind. All game it threatened to rain. These were not the conditions for expansive rugby, and to be fair we didn’t see much.

Park spent the first ten minutes struggling to get up the slope to the half way line. Once we got there, and could actually see the posts, the team took heart. Campion had a player binned, and Park took advantage of the extra man when a stretched Campion defence left a gap large enough for George Smith to wriggle through on the inside break. He converted his own try. 0-7.

The rest of a long first half belonged to Campion. Individual Park players made some promising breaks, but we never had enough players in support, and they got isolated. Campion played a more conservative game, giving us a lesson in looking after the ball. But it was Park’s indiscipline on the ground that really let us down, with a large penalty count against us. This made it easy for Campion to use the wind, and pin us down at the bottom of the slope. Three of the penalties were within kicking distance, and two were landed. So when the half time whistle finally blew, Park were 6-7 up.

Up the slope and against the wind, this was a good effort. But this is still a very young Park side. Once again, inexperience showed, as in the second half we failed to convert field position and opportunities into points.

Nothing happened for about thirty minutes in the second half. Still, it made for compelling watching because, as time went by, it became clear that the first team who scored would win the game. Campion had the larger pack. Park’s forwards held their own in the tight, but in loose play Romford’s lighter players were efficiently cleared out by the big Campion units. It did not help that we were still leaking penalties. Both sets of backs held their lines. The Campion 13 had devised a new way to do this, spending more time in the Park line than in his own.

Park had a number of opportunities to put the game away, but scuffed them all. We were camped on Campion’s line for five minutes, but failed to ground the ball. Twice our green log specialist Logan Petrie ran right through the opposition. The first time he was stopped by the last Campion man. The second time Logan was clean through after a lovely one-two with Dylan Wheeler, but our eagle-eyed linesman Pete O’Brien spotted a foot in touch. Pete got a lot of grief for this. As ever, I am reluctant to defend Pete, but unfortunately he was quite right.

With ten minutes to go, Campion took advantage of an overlap to score in the corner, 11-7. Park never really looked like clawing one back, and the Campion pack gave us an object lesson in how to hold on to the ball, and wind down the clock.

So another close game lost, but on the positive side Park did well to run close at Campion, who have had a good season, and currently stand third in the league. Romford’s faithful repaired to their old bar to console themselves with a losing bonus point. The bar was rammed, with two barmaids doing a really good job of serving so many punters. There seemed to be no good reason to leave the bar, with only parking tickets and gridlock awaiting us outside in the real world.