To survive in the Football League, Kingstonian needs a quality keeper. After Joshua Bradley-Hurst left before last year’s title and trophy-winning season, a lackluster Sam Howes took over. Let’s just say it was a good thing Mungo Bridge was often stopping the ball before it was shot at Howes.
After searching through transfer options, I grew frustrated with what I was seeing. None of these keepers had the handling I wanted, especially since I like the sweeper keeper role best. I then switched to looking at possible loan targets and saw a man with some stand-out attributes.
Ignoring the arrows, which would eventually go up, you can see from the above just how great Brighton loanee, Roco Rees, is. His Brighton teammate, Dave Burke, must have said something nice about his time at Kingstonian, because Rees was more than happy to work for us despite our status as a League Two side. Speaking of Burke . . .
Transfers
Burke’s contract with Brighton had run out so we were able to snap him up on a free. Along with another great midfielder, Tom Dinsmore, from Bournemouth, we had two solid League 2 performers with League 1 upside in the midfield, ready to feed Alfie Matthews and Aaron Pressley, along with the promoted youth intake star, Dominic Birch.
Feeling good about my defense developing while training full-time as our team had turned professional, I looked for another option at striker. I found another loanee, Enzo Cantu, a Mexican international. He wasn’t quite as speedy as my other strikers but his finishing was a sparkling 15 along with some good technical attributes.
Results
The season started well with a 3-0 victory against Cheltenham and goals from Burke, Cantu, and Matthews. But we would soon go on a terrible league form, losing 7 and drawing 2 out of 11 games from August 24th to October 12th. This included a frustrating 2 goal loss against Aldershot Town, the team we’ve been chasing up the tiers of English football.
However, our fortunes changed after a dominating performance by Cantu against Bradford City. He scored four goals, which included a hat trick before halftime.
Not to be outdone, Pressley smacked four into the net against Boston United, including three in the second half. Cantu and Pressley then both went quiet after these signature games. Thankfully, Matthews stepped up and was the primary scorer during these two months. Unfortunately, this was the last big influence Matthews would have on the year as he declined massively in form from this point on.
It should be noted that the Boston result was the fourth straight shutout by Rees.
Rees would repeat the four shutout in a row feat in January. We were really firing on all cylinders this month. I had changed our training schedule to include more regular training on set pieces and the K’s were rewarded with three Bridge goals off headers from corner crosses. Especially sweet was finally defeating Aldershot Town for the first time.
After our wonderful January, we stayed in neutral for two months, allowing Northampton, Salford, and Southend to pass us for the three automatic promotion spots. The loss to Salford especially hurt and demonstrated to us that we were not as good as those teams passing us.
We had a good April – but that was not enough. We were stuck in the playoffs and would have to win a 2-leg semi-final and a neutral final at Wembley.
The playoffs saw us do well against Oldham, claiming victory on the road and drawing at home. Matthews, showing he is a man for the big moments, claimed the second goal in the 68th minute at home against Oldham. However, he and the rest of the team failed to provide a performance worthy of discussion in the playoff final against Bristol. Matthews may have received too much praise for his goal against Oldham as he seemed preoccupied with the crowd at Wembley rather than playing the match. We would have to give it a go in League 2 again.
Aldershot Town finally had a dud of a season so I ignored them in the latter half of the season. I was a little sad then when I realized they had been relegated.
Based on our goal difference, we really should have been promoted this year.
Best XI
Kingstonian’s solid defense was undone by underwhelming performances further up the pitch. Matthews’ decline mirrored the decline of one-season wonder Jayden Reid.
But this year was all about Rees – he had 19 clean sheets, a tremendous number especially when considering our attacking ineptitude. Looking at his attributes, I think he could be a starter for us for a long time – as long as Brighton allows us to keep loaning him. I reached out to Brighton in early June and secured a renewal of the loan to the end of the following year. With that done – and our defense firm, I felt confident we would take League 2 by storm next season.
The Kings of London 