When you’ve just suffered six defeats in a row, you probably don’t want to go to the team that is fourth in the league but that’s what The Bridge will have to do on Saturday when they face our old friends and rivals Great Wakering Rovers. I tend to count GWR as our main local rivals, although Rayleigh Town are obviously closer and Benfleet are too. Mileage-wise GWR are 11.5, compared to Rayleigh, 4.4, and Benfleet, 8.2. Even in my short time in Hullbridge though, I have come to understand the local rivalry and the connections between GWR and The Bridge and there’s always a bit of extra spice when the GWR games come around.

GWR, or The Rovers as they are known, as I say, are currently in 4th place in the ESL Prem. and have 48 points from their 23 games. 15 wins, 3 draws, and 5 defeats have produced 51 goals for and 23 against for a +28 GD. From their 10 home matches, they have 7 wins, 2 draws, and 1 defeat, with a GD of +21 (26 for and 5 against) which is 6th for the ESL. The Bridge away are 2 wins and 9 defeats, with 16 scored and 27 conceded (-11.), but it’s not all about the stats., no honest it’s not…well OK it may be…

Here’s what The Rovers have been doing in their last six matches…
GWR – season 24/25 – The Last Six (Seven!)
(most recent results first)
Great Wakering Rovers 0 Woodford Town 0
A massive game at the top end of the ESL ended in a goalless draw as the two promotion chasers could not be separated leaving them 4th and 3rd at the end of the day’s play (no, not sure why I’ve gone all cricket either!)

Great Wakering Rovers 4 Benfleet 0
Errington Challenge Cup 1st Round
Just slipping in an extra game with this Errington Challenge Cup fixture that saw GWR win comfortably in a home fixture switched from Woodside Park due to the weather. The usual suspects were scoring the goals to take GWR through with Harry Talbot & Callum Boylan getting one each. Max Gnandi and Kingdom Dawson got the other two.

Saffron Walden Town 1 Great Wakering Rovers 1
In the “battle of the abbreviations” GWR were saved by a Bradley Bennett goal in the 90+22nd minute! Honestly, that’s what it says on FWP (he said, sneaking in yet another abbreviation). I don’t know what caused the added-on time, but GWR used it well. SWT had opened the scoring in the 67th minute (a bit more sensible!) thanks to Ex-Bridge man Solomon Ofori.

Benfleet 2 Great Wakering Rovers 0
A surprise defeat for GWR at Woodside Park as Toby Dickinson and Cameron Harris score either side of half-time to give Benfleet the surprise 3 points.

Great Wakering Rovers 5 Stansted 0
Lowly Stansted are put to the sword in an easy home win for GWR. Harry Talbot and Raheem Gray gave GWR a 2-0 lead at half-time. Three more In the second half came from Callum Boylan, Talbot again, and Dominic Locke.

Halstead Town 0 Great Wakering Rovers 3
A straight-forward win at struggling Halstead Town with Boylan and Talbot on target again. This time Callum gets the two and Harry one.

Great Wakering Rovers 5 FC Clacton 0
You can't argue with the fact that when GWR come up against struggling opposition they deliver the goods (yikes!). Five against Stansted, three at Halstead, and five against FC Clacton. Let’s hope they’ve used all their goals up! Talbot and Boylan share the goals again, Callum with three and Harry with two, one of which was a pen.

First Team Squad & appearances:
Player Appearances
1 George Martin 26
2 Raheem Gray 25
3 Harry Talbot 24
4 Alfie Whiteaker 24
5 Ben Search 23
6 Bradleigh Rowland 22
7 Max Gnandi 21
8 James White 20
9 Harry Brown 19
10 Danny Cossington 19
11 Jack Dickinson 18
12 Thomas Barton 17
13 Harrison Topliss 16
14 Shaye McKenzie La-Rose 14
15 Bradley Bennett 13
16 Perry Dunn 10
17 Dominic Locke 10
18 Kingdom Dawson 9
19 Craig Ferguson 9
20 Callum Boylan 8
21 Luca Albon 6
22(14) Shaye La-Rose 5 (Should probably be added to player 14 above!)
23 Tony Martin 5
24 Oliver Jenkins 4
25 Joe Poxon 4
26 Michael Freiter 3
27 Sonny Noble 2
28 Hafeez Elegushi (Demi) 1
29 Billy Johnson 1
30 Igli Metalia 1
31 Ryan Scougall 1

Lots of Bridge connections in that list, although some may no longer be at GWR: Alfie Whiteaker, Harry Brown (now at Romford), Perry Dunn & Oliver Jenkins and they're just the ones I know! Feel free to let me know about any others! Oh, and don’t forget Robbo & The Ranger!

Club Facts:
Founded: 1919
Ground: Burroughs Park, Great Wakering
Chairman: Steve Swain
First Team Manager: Marcus Bowers
First Team Assistant Head Coach: Lee Bunn
First Team Coaches: Aron Peters & Scot Keys
First Team Physiotherapist: Steve Newman
Nickname: The Rovers

This section was previously the club history section, but you’ve probably read most teams club history’s quite a few times now so welcome to a new section…drum roll…no, it’s not called drum roll!
A closer look…where we take a closer look at past meetings and the GWR season so far…you’re welcome!

The Bridge and GWR – recent meetings:
Season 2024/2025
Saturday 12th October 2024
The Bridge 2 Great Wakering Rovers 3
GWR travelled down the road to Lower Road for the local derby sitting comfortably in 3rd place in the table. The Bridge were 12 points lower down in 13th place. Despite a run of poor results, The Bridge pushed GWR all the way and should have taken something from the game (said that a few times!). Around this time, Harry Brown was doing a lot of the GWR scoring and he was on target again in the 31st minute to put GWR two up after Harry Talbot had put them one up after 26 minutes.

Owen Bellamy reduced the deficit to one with a 34th-minute goal to leave it at 1-2 at half-time. In the second period, Tobias Braney levelled it in the 63rd minute but GWR went ahead again just 3 minutes later with Harry Talbot’s free-kick finding the Hullbridge net. Harry had an eventful day as he was sent off, receiving a second yellow for a dubious dive, in the 75th minute. Before that, The Bridge had an opportunity to make it 3-3 but Freddie Moriaty’s penalty was saved by George Martin after James White had brought down Tobias Braney in the box.

Season 2023/2024
A good season for GWR who finished 6th with 67 points although they missed out on the play-offs by one place and 3 points. The Bridge finished 12th with 49 points. The teams met twice during the season:

Game One – 15th August 2023
The Bridge 2 Great Wakering Rovers 2
A share of the points at Lower Road with Harry Brown and Jay Leader hitting the net for Hullbridge and Ben Search and substitute Jay Nash scoring for GWR.
Game Two – 9th April 2024
Great Wakering Rovers 4 The Bridge 1
Jon Evans (midfield Maestro) scores for The Bridge but GWR hit four from Harrison Topliss, Dominic Locke and substitutes Jake Gordon and Tony Martin.

Season 2022/2023
Not a good season for either club as Hullbridge are relegated, finishing bottom of the division with 22 points and GWR go down via the play-offs after finishing 18th with 27 points. The two games played between the two teams were:

Game One – 3rd September 2022
Great Wakering Rovers 3 The Bridge 0
This was in my early days watching The Bridge and a heavy defeat to our local rivals. An Alex Hernandez penalty started it on 35 minutes, and he added a second with Danny Cossington netting the third.
Game Two – 24th September 2022
The Bridge 1 Great Wakering Rovers 0
A quick chance for revenge with the return played in the same month! Revenge is, indeed, sweet as Alex Moss scores on 30 minutes and The Bridge hang on.

Season 2021/2022
The two teams have similar seasons with GWR finishing 15th with 40 points and The Bridge 16th with 39. That doesn’t tell the whole story though as this was the famous Hullbridge “Great Escape” season when The Bridge were all but relegated but fought back to survive by 3 points!
The two games between the two teams were:

Game One – 16th October 2021
Great Wakering Rovers 1 The Bridge 0
A GWR team including Billy Harris, Perry Dunn, Jake Gordon, Charlie Morris, and Martin Tuohy beat The Bridge with the only goal coming from, not one of them…Ashley Nzala.
Game Two – 12th February 2022
The Bridge 1 Great Wakering Rovers 1
The return at Lower Road ended all square with a goal at the beginning and one at the end. Darnell Mavanga-Kithambo after 4 minutes and Joe Gregory on 90 were the beginners and enders.

GWR This season:
League positions in brackets are current position

Home: Won 7, Drawn 2, Lost 1 (F26, A5 = +21) ESL 6th
Just the one home defeat to Barking (6th) 0-2 in November. GWR have won against Ilford (16th) 1-0, Athletic Newham (8th) 3-1, Halstead Town (15th) 5-1, Frenford (13th) 1-0, Sawbridgeworth Town (18th) 6-1, FC Clacton (20th) 5-0, and Stansted (19th) 5-0.
Draws have been against: Takeley (2nd) 0-0 and in their last home game against Woodford Town (3rd) 0-0.

Away: Won 8, Drawn 1, Lost 4 (F25, A18 = +7) ESL 3rd
The one drawn game was at Saffron Walden Town (5th) 1-1 in their last away game. The four defeats were at White Ensign (9th) 1-2 (Does that count as a home game!), Woodford Town (3rd) 1-3, Stanway Rovers (1st) 1-3, and Benfleet (12th) 0-2. This leaves 8 wins on the road at West Essex (14th) 2-0, Buckhurst Hill (10th) 3-0, Little Oakley (11th) 4-2, Sawbridgeworth Town (18th) 2-1, Hullbridge Sports (17th) 3-2, Romford (7th) 1-0, Athletic Newham (8th) 3-2 and Halstead Town (15th) 3-0.

Up for the Cup!
In the FA Cup, GWR were beaten 1-0 in an Extra Preliminary Round reply at Redbridge after a 2-2 draw at Burroughs Park.

The FA Vase was less successful this season (well, they did get to the final last season!) Great Yarmouth Town won at GWR in FA Vase Round 2. The game was a 2-2 draw and Yarmouth won 4-3 on penalties.

I said above that it’s not all about the stats but you know I like a bit of analysis and, in respect of this game, most stats don’t make for a happy reading. The fact that GWR have only lost once at home (to Barking) is enough to understand how hard it will be for The Bridge to get a much-needed win on Saturday. Goals scored are in GWR’s favour too, they’re 4th best in the ESL with 51 compared to The Bridge in 12th on 42. Conceded is a similar story as GWR are ESL 3rd best conceding 23, with The Bridge 17th on 62 conceded.

League position-wise it’s 4th vs. 17th and form guide-wise it’s 6th vs. 19th so the stats aren’t going to help us there!

It’s getting very tight at the bottom end and I can confirm that two teams go down, so The Bridge need some points from somewhere. It may not be at GWR on Saturday but with games to come against Ilford, Halstead Town, Stansted, and Sawbo, our destiny is in our own hands and who knows, maybe a bonus point or three from GWR might happen.

The fixtures for Saturday involving the teams around us are:
Barking v Halstead Town
FC Clacton v Romford
Ilford v Saffron Walden Town
Sawbridgeworth Town v Benfleet
Stansted v White Ensign
West Essex v Little Oakley

None of those are easy games, so there may be little change to the ESL table come Saturday night but this is football and you never know what will happen next. If you can be at GWR on Saturday, I know Robbo & The Ranger, and the team will really appreciate the support as the adventure continues and as ever…