The Errington Challenge Cup is a football competition in the Essex Senior Football League. The cup has been contested since 1974. The most recent final was held on Monday, May 7th, 2018 at Waltham Abbey FC’s Capershotts Stadium. The final was contested by Sawbridgeworth Town and Great Wakering Rovers, with the latter winning the match 1-0. Great Wakering Rovers have won the cup twice, with their first win coming in the 2013/14 season and their second win in the 2017/18 season.

It’s quite difficult to find any information on this one, even on the Essex Senior League Website that carries a piece on it but goes back to 2021 with results of the finals only going up to 2008-09.

However, as you can see above, I did find a picture of it and what I believe are the first-round results and fixtures (including this one).
Anyway, here's a small snippet from that ESL website piece.

The competition was first competed for in season 1945-46 and was only open by invitation to eight clubs, Barking, Clapton, Grays Athletic, Ilford, Leyton, Leytonstone, Romford and Walthamstow Avenue. Dagenham came on the scene later and in 1960-61 secured a 3-2 final win over Leytonstone. The format was altered in 1979-1980 when many more clubs were invited with Aveley successful against Clapton, 2-1, and, in fact, Basildon United were losing finalists having been promoted from the Essex Senior League to the Athenian League in the season of 1980-81.

Some years saw League clubs entering and in 1982-83, Clapton beat Southend United 1-0. In 1988-89, Southend United lost again, this time to Grays Athletic 3-2 and in 1998/99 in a final at Rush Green Arena, Ford United took a 20th-minute lead. Southend United equalised within a minute of the second half only for Ford United to score the winner in 72 min.

Some seasons did not produce a finished competition, 1973-74 due to the Power shortages, 1975-76, fixture congestion, then in 1999-2000 the Canvey Island v Purfleet final was not played due to fixture congestion and in 2002-03 it could not be completed with the worse scenario of all, in season 2008-09 when, having seen the competition not completed once again though Canvey Island did reach the Final, it was the last season of the competition for a while.

Arguably the greatest shock result was in season 2007-08 when Brimsdown Rovers beat Canvey Island 2-1.

Throughout all this time the Trophy was a competition not directly controlled by the Essex County Football Association but in season 2019-20 the ECFA announced a re-launch under their own wing as an invitational Charity Competition and there were four Round One ties with 12 entering at Round Two. In Round One, Basildon United beat Barkingside 4-1, Great Wakering Rovers won 4-0 against Ilford, Brentwood Town saw off Hashtag United 2-0 and Hullbridge Sports beat Canvey Island 1-0.

At this stage, no one knew of the impending doom of COVID-19 but seven of the eight ties were played, East Thurrock v Great Wakering Rovers 2-0, May & Baker v Romford 0-2, Tilbury v Brentwood Town 5-2, Buckhurst Hill v Walthamstow 0-3 pens after a 1-1 draw, White Ensign v Basildon United 1-3, Grays Athletic v Bowers & Pitsea 1-3, Concord Rangers v Aveley 4-2 pens after a 2-2 draw and the unplayed tie, Canvey Island v Hornchurch. So, the competition was unable to go on to Quarter Final stage and was eventually declared along with so much else, Null and Void.

The beautiful Trophy itself is a solid silver galleon on a marble plinth and is a sight to behold.

A slightly different preview for these two games as we’ve covered both opponents a few times before in other match previews. Well, we’ve managed to draw ourselves a couple of strong teams in Woodford and GWR and this is borne out by a quick look at the league table and current form.

The two teams have been going in opposite directions recently. Woodford started the season well but are starting to drop away a bit whilst GWR are powering their way up the league. Position-wise GWR are now 4th, 7 points behind leaders Tilbury, and Woodford are 6th, 8 points behind the leaders. The Bridge find themselves in 9th, with 35 points compared to Tilbury’s 48.

The current form confirms the above as GWR are 2nd, winning their last 5 and with 1 defeat in 6, scoring 19 and conceding 7. Woodford, on the other hand, are 17th in the form table with just 1 win in 6, 2 draws, and 3 defeats. They’ve scored 7 and conceded 11 in those 6 matches. The Bridge are 10th in current form with 2 wins, 2 draws, and 2 defeats, scoring 8 and conceding 7.

What all that means I’m not sure, as the teams could be affected by missing players etc., and by how seriously the teams take the competitions. It would point to the GWR game being the tougher one but football, shall we say, can be predictably unpredictable so let’s just watch and see and hopefully enjoy.

We’ve obviously played both teams many times in the past but in recent times, in other words, this season, we’ve met Woodford twice in December and September. In December we drew 0-0 at Lower Road before 85 Friday night spectators. The September match at Ashton Playing Fields was also a draw with Jon Evans putting The Bridge in front and Jaedon Phillips grabbing a 92nd minute equaliser for the high-flying, at the time, home side.

As for GWR, back on the 15th of August, 190 watched a 2-2 draw as Harry Brown and Jay Leader were on target for The Bridge and Ben Search scored for the visitors before a 90th-minute equaliser from Jay Nash ensured a share of the points.

Lots of draws then but we have to have a winner in both matches this time, even if it’s decided by penalties.

Yemi Adelani
Andre Anderson
Billy Barr
Eli Benoit
Samir Bihmoutine
Alexandru Bolovan
Bailey Brown
Jedidah Brown-Johnson
Ben Byrne
Dimitri Christou
Patrick Clarke
Tom Cottle-Wood
Chaynie Fage Burgin
Samraj Gill
David Gokou-Siakouri
Edward Gordon Allan
Jack Hilaire
James Jewers
Myles John
Courtney Justin
Euphrapy Kalonga
Georges Kebi
Ethan Kessel
Guy Kiangebeni
Kahlil Kirwan-Meade
Samuel May-Parrott
Callum McEvoy
Opeoluwa Mosuro
Ernest Okoh
Simon Oluwadamilare Omope
Luke Parrott
Kai Peters
Marko Protic
Emmanuel Robe
James Runham
Jovan Shand-Alridge
Lee Sharpe
Jayden Silcott-Brown
Nathan Sollosi
Sam Sollosi
Luke Steele
Lewis Wicker
Sebastian Wyllie

Kojo Awotwi
Thomas Barton
Joel Bevan
Daniel Blockley
Callum Lewis Bloss
Marcus Bowers
Callum Boylan
Aiden Jon Brown
Joe Burgess
Kien Connolly
Danny Cossington
Kingdom Elijah P Dawson
Thomas Duffy
Perry Dunn
Hafeez Elegushi
Jack Frost
Harvey Gluckstad
Maximilian Gnandi
Connor Hart
Louie Hunt
Caiden Imbert-Thomas
Oliver Jenkins
Billy Johnson
Oscar Jones
Charlie Kendall
Jay Nash
Sonny Noble
Jack Nolde
Kieron Owusu
Shemarie Perkins-Palmer
Thomas Ranger
Teddy Rumsby
Julian Sarmiento-Ramirez
Ryan Scougall
Ben Search
Luis Shamshoum
Joshua Simpson
Matas Skarna
Harry Talbot
Harrison Topliss
Adam Vyse
James White
Corey Wood

Always look out for the top goal scorers, so in this case, it’s Luke Parrott with 18 (23 appearances), although Luke hasn’t been in the line-up recently, and Nathan Sollosi with 13. Nathan’s 13 have come from 18 appearances so he could be the danger man and he has been scoring most of the goals recently so, I reiterate, he could be the danger man and he might even be playing!

This was an easy one…Callum Boylan has 24 goals from 19 starts and recently scored four in the 8-0 win at Ilford, so you could say he’s a bit dangerous and definitely one to watch out for!

Actually two match days, great stuff, loads of football. Two interesting games coming up in quick succession and both are hard to predict. The Bridge were 5-1 winners last time out at Ilford and GWR won their last fixture with a good home 2-1 win over West Essex. Woodford lost 3-0 at Barking as they continued their worrying run of form and will be looking for a change in fortunes. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in these two and they could be a pointer to how the rest of the season will pan out…or not!

Anyway, I’m looking forward to a couple of cold January nights at the T.J. Cottis under the LEDs, and let's hope the football keeps us warm, if not we’re relying on the half-time cuppa’…
There remains just one thing left to say….