Stanway Super Successful Saturday - Champions - Essex Senior Football League 19th April 2025

Essex Senior Football League - League Champions Cup

Stanway Super Successful Saturday

League Champions - Essex Senior Football League

The atmosphere was fantastic at the FND and KMCO Community Stadium on Saturday 19th April, 2025.

It started an hour before the 3pm kick-off, with boys and girls from various Stanway Rovers Youth teams on the pitch - going through their own warm up exercises and fun football drills. We are very blessed to have some lovely talent in our youth teams, and with a development route right through to the men's and ladies first teams, who knows, these youngsters may be warming up on this pitch in years to come, for their own appearances in our first teams.

A crowd of over 300 then cheered both teams as they walked out from our tunnel onto the pitch. Our first team, in their yellow and black kits - with some of our youth players proudly walking beside them as mascots, and the Athletic Newham team looking very resplendent in their red and white kits. And what a fantastic gesture - every single one of the Athletic Newham team shook hands with the Stanway Rovers players - and fist bumped with every single one of the mascots. It is gestures like that which really garners the love of football into young hearts - thank you Athletic Newham.

Two goals in the first half, from Jordan Barnett and Ross Wall, took both teams into the half time break with Stanway leading 2-0. A red card for the Rovers goalkeeper very early in the 2nd half saw Stanway reduced to 10 men for the rest of the half. Joe Debell pulled on the green jersey, and pulled off a fantastic save from the resultant penalty to keep the score at 2-0.

The 6 minutes of added time at the end of the match seemed like 60 minutes to the cheering crowd, but the final whistle came - and Stanway Rovers had won 2-0, to finish the match as Essex Senior Football League Champions.

Very soon after the final whistle came news from Takeley Town, congratulating us on our success. And we would like to say a huge thank you back to them, for their sportsmanship and for making the run in to the final weekend of the season so close and exciting for all fans.

We won the Eastern Counties League as Division One Champions in the 2005/06 season and took our place in the Essex Senior Football League for the 2006/07 season.

Twenty years later, on 19th April 2025, we made club history by winning the Essex Senior Football League as league champions in the 2025/26 season. We look backwards on the last twenty years as a Step 5 team, and look forward to taking our place as a Step 4 club in the Isthmian League for the 2026/27 season.

Thanks

We would like to give huge thanks to:

Jamie Shaw, Anthony White, Alex Brennan and Callum Gough for leading and managing our first team to bring us this success
FND and KMCO for being club partners and sponsoring our stadium
Andreas Carter Sports and Planned Environmental Services for sponsoring our first team
Steve Blake (Chairman) and Jerry Carter (Vice Chairman) for steering the club and letting the team get on with the football
All our fans for supporting us and believing in us
Everyone else - yes absolutely everyone, at Stanway Rovers for "doing your bit", whatever that "bit" is