Respect specialists take a bow at Wembley!

Soham Town Rangers were flying the flag for the Ryman League at Wembley on Sunday before Arsenal and Chelsea kicked off in the Community Shield.

After topping the Ryman League's Respect tables for the second year running, Greens manager Steve Fallon, chairman Colin Murfitt and other proud officials from Julius Martin Lane were at the national stadium to collect the special commendation, £1000 cash prize and Gold Award they were honoured with at the Football Association's 2014-15 Respect and Fair Play Awards.

The Ryman North club were singled out by the FA for the special accolade for their commitment to high standards of behaviour after narrowly missing out on the National League System Step 1-4 Club Award, won by the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League's Curzon Ashton.

Astonishingly, over the 2013-14 campaign the Cambridgeshire club collected just one Respect disciplinary point for bench behaviour before going one better during last term's 46 game league programme with zero dissent cautions in both the bench and player categories.

An FA spokesman said: "In a closely contested category, the panel recognised Curzon Ashton as the overall winners. However, they decided that they would recognise Soham’s exceptional effort to offer an experience of football which is fair, safe and enjoyable."

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