THE visit to Waltham Abbey may have been just a pre-season friendly but Heybridge Swifts manager Julian Dicks was fuming after his side crashed 7-2, writes JON LONGMAN.

The Swifts have come to grief on Abbey’s sloping pitch on a few occasions in the recent past, most recently in the Essex Senior Cup quarter-finals but this was a nightmare after the run of pre-season wins including West Ham Under-23s, Sawbridgeworth and last Thursday’s 2-1 win against Athletic Newham.

Dicks stormed off the Abbey pitch muttering “That was a disgrace” as he headed for the dressing room for a Saturday lunchtime fry-up with plenty of players on the menu.

Before the kick-off, Dicks had said: “The result does not matter as long as they put in a display, work hard and do a job.”

Trailing 5-1 at the break was truly painful but Swifts secretary Steve Crisp was more pragmatic: “I think we may be paying the price for three games in five days.”

The only bright spots in the Abbey gloom, heightened by the death of club president Mick Gibson just hours before the kick-off, were two excellent goals.

Striker Alex Teniola is revelling in his return to the Swifts after a miserable season at Chelmsford City and he smacked home a superb goal from Ade Cole’s through ball to reduce the arrears to 2-1.

But by the time trialist Jaan delivered an astute pass for sub Dan Walker to caress home, Swifts were 7-1 down and Dicks was getting more and more angry.

Dicks brought on battling midfielder Jack Adlington-Pile for a cameo role and Swifts were more combative from that point.

The bad news for Dicks is that Adlington-Pile will miss the first three games of the season after a ridiculous sending off at Biggleswade before the pandemic halted play.

Dereham has never been a happy hunting ground for the Swifts and Saturday’s Pitching In Isthmian Division One North opener (3pm) at Dereham Town will be a tough start to the campaign.

However, Dicks says that he has “unfinished business” after the FA restructuring denied Swifts promotion following their play-off final victory at Maldon and Tiptree three seasons ago.

Dicks has still to announce which players he will be signing on and vice-chairman Steve Spreadbury said: “We won’t know who has been signed until after training.”

Dicks is a stickler for training hard so there will be plenty of anxious players who will be keen to make amends for the Abbey horror show.