Non-League and Academy football writer

Cally Morley is the club secretary (he also occasionally plays for the club) at Essex Alliance Football League Senior Division side Fairlop Rovers. Fairlop Rovers will be playing in the Essex Alliance Football League Senior Division for the very first time this season (2024/25), after having won their respective Essex Alliance Football League Premier Division, during the previous season. I recently asked Cally some questions about Fairlop Rovers, ahead of the new season starting.

Would you be able to talk me through how the idea of starting the club (Fairlop Rovers) came about?

Cally: My mate Dylan, he came up with the idea of us starting up a football club with all of us mates, as we were all playing football on a Saturday at the time. This was in 2019, and as we’ve gone up through the divisions more stuff needed to be done behind the scenes at the club. So I started helping out, doing admin stuff, and in the past two seasons it’s mainly been me and Dylan who have been doing the admin work at the club.

Could you talk me through your role at Fairlop Rovers?

Cally: The stuff that I do is mainly behind the scenes. I contact the other teams and help to set-up the games, and I also sort things out, such as the team-sheets and also registering the players.

Could you talk me through some of the history of the club (Fairlop Rovers) since 2019?

Cally: Our first two seasons as a club (when we were in Division Four and Three) weren’t fulfilled because of Covid, and so both of those seasons were brought to a halt. Our first season as a club was in Division Two, and we actually won the league that year. We were also the first winners of the Fenton Trophy final, which took place at Leyton Orient’s ground. After winning Division Two we were put up to the Premier Division, and so we ended up spending two seasons in that division, before winning promotion to the Senior Division, last season.

Could you talk me through a bit about last season (2023/24) at step 8 of the Essex Alliance Football League, for Fairlop Rovers?

Cally: Getting to the county cup final was a good one, and we won the semi-final of that cup on penalties, before losing the final. But it was still great to get to a county cup final. As for the league we knew that we had a strong team going into the league season, but our first big win of the season was at home to Ongar Town, when we won 1-0. After then convincingly beating Belfry, we as a team never really looked back after that, and we just kept on winning games. 

Who would you say was the most difficult team that you played (for their quality) last season?

Cally: Ongar Town were a team who were quite difficult to break down, and they were set-up quite well as a team. Waltham Abbey A were always a team that we struggled against, as it was always a close game against them. I was also quite surprised with how good Soul were, as their place in the table definitely didn’t reflect how they actually were as a club. The first time that we met them last season we had actually rotated a couple of our players, as it was not long before a county cup game. But half an hour into that game we were thinking that this team are good, and we didn’t know why they were so far down in the league table.

Are Fairlop Rovers a club who want to win promotion to step 6 in the future?

Cally: That’s the plan, and we want to see how far we can take the club. We obviously want to establish ourselves in the league (Senior Division) first.

What are some of your thoughts ahead of the new Essex Alliance Football League Senior Division season (the club’s first in step 7)?

Cally: I think that we’ll do well. I’d be surprised if we did end up going down, as we’ve got a couple more players coming into the club, to improve the squad. We’ve got a very good core of 25/26 players, and they are all very good players.