Outwell Swifts have revenge on their minds as they gear up for a North Cambs Junior Cup final tonight.
The showpiece clash against Whittlesey Athletic Reserves will take place at Wisbech Town’s Fountain Fresh Park this evening (Wednesday), with kick-off at 7.30pm.
The game represents a new high for Outwell, who are reigning Cambridgeshire County League CSI 4C champions and look set to seal a second consecutive promotion from the CSI 3B.
At the start of the 2021/22 campaign, the current crop of players were playing in the reserve side. However, after the existing first team folded, they took up the mantle.
And ever since then, under the joint-management team of Lewie Rawson and Mark Secker, it has been a near-constant upwards trajectory.
“We’re well up for it,” Rawson told the Citizen ahead of the final tonight.
“It’s been quite a tough year, including the cups and games we’ve played in the league, but we’ve done well to get here.”
Despite winning their league last season, Outwell did lose a cup final to Newmarket Town during that campaign.
While admitting that experience was “quite tough”, Rawson hopes his players can draw more motivation from a previous game against tonight’s opponents instead.
He said: “We played them last year, in the same cup in the semi-final, and they turned us over 3-0.
“So that was quite a turning point for us, in the league as well.
“We’re definitely expecting a tough game. Obviously we’re out for revenge.”
Whittlesey Reserves currently sit top of Division One in the Dor-Jan Windows & Doors Peterborough & District Football League.
With two champions-elect facing off against one another, Rawson is expecting a high quality game.
He also hopes they can match the level of performance they put in when they faced Wisbech Town Reserves at the semi-final stage.
Doubles from Jack Brand and Adan-Jay Lewis, as well as a strike from substitute Stefan Anderson, sealed a 5-1 result on that day.
On their season as a whole, Rawson said: “Especially in the league, it couldn’t have been any better.
“We had a couple of odd results at the start of the season – we lost in a cup, then lost our first game in the league all in the space of about two or three weeks.
“But ever since then, we’ve not been looking back really. We’ve got the results we wanted.
“From where we started, we started as a reserve team and our first team ended up folding.
“We’ve come a long way since the start of last season, definitely.”
