Bowers & Pitsea FC

Bowers & Pitsea 0 Halstead Town 3 - Essex Senior Cup, Semi-Final

Bowers Gifford, or Bures Gifford, is a small village, 4 miles West South West of Rayleigh. It once belonged to Westminster Abbey, but at the time of the Domesday Survey it was held by Ralph Peverell and Walter the Deacon. The season 2004/05 saw a new name on the footballing map when Bowers United took Pitsea Football clubs name to produce Bowers & Pitsea United Football Club, and with a new start and a new team at the helm maybe success is just around the corner because a strong link has been established with the local community and the clubs facilities offer the residence a large Clubhouse, Bar and Function room together with a ground capacity for 2000+ spectators, which includes seating for 180 in a well appointed stand, excellent floodlighting is also an advantage should the club seek to play at a higher level.


For some reason I always thought of Bowers as being situated in rural farmland, miles from civilisation (might have got the last bit right Wayne ?) and perhaps this is why I have never ventured to this venue before. In truth the Len Salmon Stadium is within easy walking distance of Pitsea station and although the match was later kicking off than the advertised 19.45, I was still able to catch the 22.02 to Liverpool Street.

There are a couple of Fish & Chip shops en route to the ground but little by way of pubs. I guess one option would be to stop of at Basildon where there is a Wetherspoons by the station but then for midweek matches you run the risk of an encounter with Hutton's finest having his post work 7 pints before going home for dinner (sorry Paul !)

Halstead Town reached the final of the Essex Senior Cup with a 3-0 victory over their hosts. In the end this was comfortable but if Bowers had got the all-important first goal that their early play deserved then it might have been a different story. Both sides contributed to an excellent match.

Peter Jones was also there and is a regular attendee of non-league football. He may prefer this to the fare served up by his beloved West Ham these days!



Admission: £5
Programme: £1
Train fare: £3.65 from Zone 6 using Network Gold Card.

Ward Churchill and Dick Cheney

That Dr. Ward Churchill is suddenly of great interest to the rightwing is predictable; his ill-conceived notions are a wellspring for those who spark and fan the witchhunts for which the neocons are famous. Between the Vice-President's wife, Lynne, and David Horowitz, we can count on them to crawl along until they sniff out something egregious.



The truly pathetic portion of the entire debacle is that the young anarchists are so influenced by Churchill's infantilism. Many aren't even aware that he is an architect of their most dysfunctional attributes and an author of none of their most inspirational qualities.



I will make a personal note here that in my now-ancient book, Meek Ain't Weak: Nonviolent Power and People of Color, I take on Churchill from the standpoint of his critique of nonviolence in his screed, Pacifism as Pathology. He's a brilliant man who is fast and loose with the facts and strong on inflammatory rhetoric. His muscularly strident calls to action appeal to the wonderful high-commitment, high-risk activist youth culture, but what he tells them to do is bereft of the analysis necessary to build--rather than destroy--movements. His post-9.11 comments were simply an enraged man's shriek for an audience. He has no compunction about wrecking a movement that is actually achieving things--such as he helped do with the global justice movement--and I trust that he will continue to offer his shallow bombast. Our task is to not allow anyone to smear his inadequacies across the broader movement.