We went to fourth-placed Chasetown on Saturday with a depleted team, with the Hawes boys, Sheridan Driver, David Chick and Steve Joyce all absent. David had to come off just after half-time in the Leighton Town game, went to hospital and discovered that he had broken a bone in his hand.

Peter Scott

We went to fourth-placed Chasetown on Saturday with a depleted team, with the Hawes boys, Sheridan Driver, David Chick and Steve Joyce all absent.

David had to come off just after half-time in the Leighton Town game, went to hospital and discovered that he had broken a bone in his hand. He had surgery last Thursday. In came Steve Chisham and Liam Cawthery to make their League debuts and Lee Ifield also made his first Southern League start. Not for the first time lately we found ourselves conceding an early goal. We were two down within ten minutes and although Richard Howell pulled one back and we performed well in the second half, it was always going to be difficult against one of the League's best teams.

In the midweek game against Leighton Town I thought we again performed well but had to come from behind to equalise through David Hawes in injury time. We deserved at least a draw and showed that we can live with the top teams if we are able to put out somewhere near our best squad. Curtis Haynes-Brown played at centre-back and was Great Waldingfield Garages' Man-of-the-Match.

Congratulations to our Reserves, who travelled to FC Clacton in the quarter-final of the Chell Trophy and progressed into the semi-finals thanks to a goal from Ben Parker. We are away on the 28th to Harwich & Parkeston and then have a local derby against Long Melford on the 31st.

Our first team have three more difficult games coming up, with Romulus visiting us on Saturday and then we travel to Aylesbury United on April 1 and Bury on April 4.

We are pleased to be able to confirm that, with the assistance of sponsor Great Waldingfield Garages, our fourth annual Schools Penalty Competition will take place on Saturday, April 25 during our last home game of the season against Marlow. Stoke-by-Nayland won the last shoot-out and we are hopeful that all local schools will again take part.

I was recently asked by Mick Blakeman, who is writing a book about the Eastern Counties League, to put names to an old Sudbury Wanderers 1997/98 photo and it really highlighted for me the dearth of local talent these days. The team included Steve Day, Geordie Smiles, Jason Haygreen, Aaron Gardiner, Mick Stratton, Robert Sims and Brian Devereux, all of whom I believe would get into our current team and Sudbury teams over the last few years and all of whom lived within spitting distance of King's Marsh Stadium. Now our team contains nobody from Sudbury or the surrounding area.

It was not long ago that we produced the likes of Stuart Slater and Perry Groves, who went on to perform so admirably in the top League, and there was Steven Mychajluk, Michael Boggis, the McKenzie brothers and so many more who were top local non-League players. Why is it that for a decade Sudbury has not been able to produce players good enough to compete at the level we are currently playing in? I wish I knew the answer.