Season Reviews

Continuing to yo-yo between the top two divisions, CFR Clunj found themselves back in the Championship for our 23rd season following our relegation from the top flight. Here, we once more found ourselves up against a number of familiar teams from previous seasons, with the format still the same of each of the ten sides playing each other twice. There would be no changes to our squad this time round, as we continued with the usual eight of Adam, Danny, Seddy, Pooley, Tomas, Jake, Matty and George.

We would kick off the campaign with a couple of back-to-back draws; the first of these seeing The Terrace come from behind in controversial fashion, as Matty was shown a very questionable blue-card right before their equaliser, before our opponents in our next game, Cafe No 8 FC, would then also cancel out a Clunj lead to claim a point in a 1-1 draw - not the start to the season we had hoped for as we found ourselves sat in seventh place, already four points off top. Thankfully a narrow 2-1 victory against Le Thargic did then finally see us go on to record our first win though, with this backed up by a comfortable 3-0 success over Jam Factory to now push us up into third place in the table.

The following week then saw us continue our rapid climb up the standings, as another 3-0 win (vs United FC) resulted in us leapfrogging the two sides above us and into top spot after they had only drawn. With confidence now in full flow, it was little surprise to see us then go on and dispatch lower-table sides Mitrefinch (5-1) and FC Copenbadly (4-1) with ease. The nine goals scored across these two games were again scored by a combination of Danny, George and Matty, with these three responsible for all but one other goal we had scored since the start of the campaign. The latter then also went on to find the net for the seventh game in a row in our next encounter, a narrow but well-deserved 2-1 victory over familiar rivals The Fox to mark our sixth straight league win.

Following a week off due to a frozen pitch, we then returned to action in disappointing fashion; a 5-2 reverse against The Terrace seeing us suffer our first league defeat of the campaign. Having gone into that tie sat level at the top on points and still unbeaten, we had hoped this was just a one-off freak result. But instead it would actually mark the start of a complete drop-off in form from us, as a disastrous festive period saw us lose four consecutive games in all competitions. It took until the middle of January for us to finally return to winning ways via a 4-0 success over Mitrefinch - however with the other teams around us having all been in good form, it meant we now found ourselves back in fourth place and nine points off top spot.

The slimmest hopes we had left of winning the league were then all but put to bed with defeat in our next fixture against new replacement side Semi Skimmed Milik, meaning we were now left playing for second place. It then looked as though we were heading for back-to-back defeats as we somehow found ourselves 2-0 down against five-man Jam Factory FC, only for us to completely turn it around in the second half with goals from Jake(2) and Matty leading to a 3-2 victory. Following a more routine win over United FC, we then faced a crucial tie against second-placed The Fox. But surprisingly they would go on to pull out on the day of the game, resulting in a default 3-0 win for the Clunj which moved us now three points behind them, and with two matches left to play to their one.

This additional game in-hand would actually take place on the same night as that cancellation; as we came up against a Semi-Skimmed Milik we knew were a decent outfit following their previous win over us. But despite top scorer Matty's 13th of the season putting us ahead early on, it eventually finished 1-1 - meaning the final round of games would see us needing victory against bottom side FC Copenbadly and The Fox to drop points if we were to finish in the top two. However, even though their opponents Jam Factory did the job for us with a 2-1 win, we would sadly fall short as a tougher tie than we had expected finished all square - meaning we disappointingly missed out on promotion, finishing the season in FOURTH PLACE.

The cup competition for the Autumn/Winter 2020 season continued to follow the usual format for our leagues; with eight groups of four teams each, and the top side from each of these then going on to qualify for Cup Finals Night. The Clunj were this time round drawn into Group E, alongside Largentina from the Premier League, and League 1 outfits Teamwork and Kroos Control.

Our first tie came against a Largentina side we had never played before and so were a bit of an unknown, although with us on the back of a five-game winning streak in the league, we had quite fancied our chances going into it. However a disastrous performance would see us go on to suffer one of our heaviest ever defeats, eventually going down 9-1 in a game in which we just seemed to give up in in the end. A chance to bounce back against lower division side Teamwork then followed, although this would again prove to be another night to forget as a disappointing 2-1 reverse left us sat bottom of our group.

After the initial postponement of our final game against Kroos Control due to us not having enough players, this was then re-arranged for the final week of the season. But with us both by this point now knowing that we had FAILED TO QUALIFY for Finals Night, it was maybe little surprise to see them forfeit this meaningless match and hand us a default 3-0 win - the Clunj eventually finishing in third place in our group.