Category Archives: 2018-19 Away days

2018-19 Away days, Football

AwayDay Bradford (last Game of the season)

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Because the new season is almost upon us, I thought I had better get this report of last seasons final game finished and posted

Campervan Adventures v2.1

I have, had two main subjects for my blogs recently. Wimbledon Away Days and Campervan Adventures. We are combining the two in this post.

I bought myself a campervan about a month ago (early April). Our final game of the season was against Bradford. It was a 17:30 kick-off, so that meant getting a train back after the game would be tricky. Getting the supporters coach would have meant arriving back at Kingsmeadow about one in the morning. So I decided to take the van and make an adventure of it.

We had given the van a try out last weekend after the win against Wycombe Wanderers. I took it down to Brighton for the night and it all went well, but this would be it’s first proper trip.

The plan as originally formulated was to have the van packed on Thursday night and leave my house about 9:30 so that I could get across to New Malden by 10:00 to pick up Diane  (who would also have everything packed and ready) and be on the road north by 10:30.

Round about 11:30 I left Wallington

Diane was a bit more organised than me. We left her place about 12:30.

The journey north was uneventful. The Big Green Bus (BGB)* proved to be very comfortable and easy to drive. The traffic was fairly heavy with people trying to get away early for the bank Holiday. but apart from that no problems

We arrived at our campsite, The Esholt Sports and Leisure Club about half past six and found a suitable pitch. It’s an unusual site, in that it is run by the local cricket club and the showers and toilets are the changing rooms. It works though and it is reasonably cheap.

I don’t know how many Emmerdale fans read my blog, but Esholt was the village originally used as Emmerdale. We had a drink in this pub, which should be familiar to anyone who follows the show.

It is a friendly pub that serves good beer. There is obviously some Emmerdale memerobilia scattered around, but not that much that it feels like a theme pub. 

We were up reasonably early on Saturday, because, althought the match wasn’t due to kick off until 17:30, we thought that we would like a look round Bradford before hand.

We found a reasonable pub for lunch, nothing special, but the food was edible and the beer was drinkable, then had a wander round the city centre. Because Bradford was a comparitavly wealthy place in the c19th it has a lot of impressive civic buildings, banks, churches and the like. It must be admitted that a lot of the banks are now pubs and a lot of the churches are discount furniture shops, but they still look impressive from the outside.

We decided to have a look round the Science and Media Museum. Entrance is free and it is worth an hour of your time. After which it was time to head off to the match.

The Match

Thanks to our win against Wycombe the week before, we were out of the relegation zone for the first time in 2019. Barring an unusual, but not impossible set of results a draw against Bradford would be enough to ensure safety. A win would have guarenteed that we were safe and even if we lost, provided the other results went our way we could still be safe.

Before the match there was a ceremony remembering the fifty six people who lost their lives in the fire that occured on 11th May 1985. The minutes silence was well observed by both sets of fans.

So onto the game. Well it was probably the least entertaining game of football I watched all season. I suppose that Wally Downes had done his homework and decided that Bradford didn’t pose all that much of a threat (which they didn’t) and that we could settle for a draw and possibly get a goal on the break. I was a bit dissapointed, not least because this was Diane’s first experience of AFC Wimbledon and I didn’t want it to be her last. We got the draw that we needed and stayed a League One team thanks to a better goal difference compared to Plymouth. Squeeky bum time, not helped by the fourth official failing to display the board for added minutes, so we had no idea of how much injury time had to be played. The referee finally blew his whistle after what felt like about five hours of added time, jubilation and pitch invasions ensued.

The “highlights”.

Pitch invasion

We watched the celebrations for a while (but didn’t join in on the pitch). After about ten minutes or maybe quarter of an hour we decided to walk back down to the station to get the train back to Shipley.  We had already decided to have a curry at a restaurant we had seen earlier in the day. The Shimla Spice does an excellent curry and some of the biggest naan breads in captivity, but does not serve alcohol so we had to celebrate “The Great Escape” with Diet Coke and water.

Sunday

Saltaire

We decided to visit Saltaire. Back  in the mid c19th Titus Salt built a woollen mill by the banks of the River Aire. He was a philanthropist and also built a model village to house his workforce. The mill like many woollen mills in West Yorkshire is now redundant. It has been restored (or at least parts of it have) and it now has several interesting, high end, shopping outlets and a gallery dedicated to the works of David Hockney

1853 Gallery

The works on display were created on his iPad then printed onto large (A0?) sheets. I had seen them before at the Tate Modern Exhibition in 2017, thought they were wonderful then and still think they are wonderful.

As well as the mill and the village, Titus Salt also built what must be the flashest  Congregational Church in the world. It is not up there with the likes of St Peter’s or St John’s in Valetta but for a Congregationalist Church, which are usually quite plain and functional it is out there. 

The Church Outside
The church inside

Ilkley Moor

After we had spent the afternoon in Saltaire we decided that because we were only about five miles from Ilkley that a visit to Ilkley Moor (ba t’at) was more or less compulsory.

  • Ba t’at
  • With hats – it was quite cold
  • Ilkley from the moor
  • Cow and calf rocks
  • Cow and calf rocks

It was quite spectacular up at the Cow and Calf Rocks, if a bit on the cool side.

Monday

Monday and it was time to head home. We had a good weekend. The Wombles were safe as League One club for at least one more season. We had liked what we had seen of West Yorkshire (including Bradford.)

Hardwick Hall

We didn’t want to just blast our way backdown the M1 so we looked for somewhere that we could stop, have a bite to eat and a look round. Hardwick Hall fitted the bill. And because we are National Trust members didn’t cost us anything.

It was built by Bess of Hardwick,a remarkable woman, who became one of the weathiest and powerful people in Elizabeathen England.

  • Bedroom
  • Elizabeathen filing cabinet.
  • Bedroom
  • Hardwick Hall

After that we did blast back down the M1 .

*My other vehicle a Diahatsu Charade is known as the LLC, or Little Lilac Car because it is little and lilac coloured. So the obvious name for the Camper was the Big Green Bus, because it is big (compared to the LLC) and green.

2018-19 Away days, Football, Uncategorized

AwayDay Shrewsbury

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Shrewsbury was the first away game that I had been to since Steve passed away. Normally if it was a fairly long trip I used to pick him up at the Sutton Post Office, give him a lift over to Kingsmeadow then we would have breakfast together at Fat Boy’s before catching the coach. (If it was a comparitivly local game we got the bus so we could go to the Watchman for something to eat after we got back and a bit of post game analysis.) I didn’t feel like breakfast on my own so I skipped Fat Boy’s and had breakfast at home before I left.

The coach trip up was fine. The players, possibly feeling guilty for some of the rubbish we have been forced to watch this season, paid for two coaches. So it was a comparatively cheap day out

I like a trip to Shrewsbury. They have neat modern ground that is usually at least 80% full. There is good atmosphere and the club make away fans welcome. Last year we found a pub about half a mile away for a pre-match drink, this year the club have opened a bar at the ground so we went there. They had one execelent beer on draught called Shropshire Lad, as well as sandwiches and pies. I would recommend it as a place for a pre-match drink.

The game it’self turned out to be a 0-0 draw. A reasonably entertaining 0-0 draw, but one in which we didn’t have a single shot on target, in fact we only had the one shot in total. Aaron Ramsdale, as he has so often, since joining on loan in January, kept us in it with an excellent goal keeping display. It was one of those games where you felt that we could nick this (with a goal in the third minute of stoppage time), but that would have been totally unfair to Shrewsbury.

Highlights??

A vital point in the #GREATESCAPE. We are still bottom, but now only nine points from safety. Then it was just the four hour trip back down the motorway.

 

2018-19 Away days

Away Day Stadium of Light.

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I haven’t written an Away Day blog for quite a while. Since the last one back in August (our trip to Barnsley) our form has taken a bit of a dip. That much of a dip that we currently sit firmly at the bottom of League One, ten points away from safety. Since then I have failed to report on:

  • Burton Albion – Good pub with good beer, rubbish performance
  • Gillingham – no pub, only lager available at the ground, reasonable performance came away with a 1-0 victory.
  • Accrington Stanley – I was on holiday so missed it, but by all accounts pretty miss-able.
  • Plymouth – Five hours on the coach, decent pub, Steve found a beer called The Beast which he said was pretty good, but it was about 6.5%. Surprised he stayed awake for the match. We had an excellent pasty on the way back to the ground. Abject performance, five hours on the coach back to London.
  • Blackpool – Got the train up, missed out on a donkey ride, decent beer, another rubbish performance, on the train back Steve and I decided that he day had cost us about £100 each and was it worth it?
  • Haringey Borough – FA Cup first round, the  first of the  boycotted games. Watched it on the telly, horrible wet night, glad I missed it, good whisky, comfortable sofa, dire performance, sneaked  a win. Neal Ardley’s last game as manager.
  • Doncaster – Looking after my niece while my sister and hubby went to a party, so I had an excuse, apparently a decent performance, but we still lost.
  • Halifax – FA cup second round. The boycott ended. Free Coaches (we are easily bribed). Stupidly early start, I picked Steve up at 5:30 to get to the  coach for six. 12:30 kick off, played reasonably against National League opposition, won 3-1. Long coach trip back but arrived home at a reasonable time.
  • Chelsea U-21’s – Find a Dodgy Plumber Trophy, easier to get to than Kingsmeadow, Wally Downes first game (sort of) in charge, almost empty Stamford Bridge, lost.
  • Charlton Athletic – No coach because every one (more or less) who gets the coach has a freedom pass. Spoons at Victoria before the match, didn’t play well, Lyle Taylor scored against us, Mitch Pinnock got sent off, debut for Tyler Burey, looked promising. Still lost.
  • Wycombe Wanderers – Drove up (therefore no beer), because I was going to my sisters with Christmas presents afterwards. Met Steve up there. We played well and WON, even more amazing Jake Jervis scored.
  • Portsmouth – New Years Day game, missed it because I didn’t get a ticket and it was advertised as an all ticket game, apparently played reasonably, Appiah scored with a worldie, Lost.
  • Fleetwood Town – FA Cup Third Round, didn’t go on the basis that I had been up there already this season. Won 3-2 with a last-minute Appiah winner.
  • Coventry City – coach up, didn’t have time to find a pub because the coach driver got lost, didn’t have a beer because the beer selection at the ground was appalling, Bovril and a Balti pie instead. Played reasonably well, Jake Jervis scored again, came away with a 1-1 draw. First time this season we have been back early enough to go to the Watchman for a post game meal and analysis.

Some of you may be asking ‘How can a team that beat a fairly strong West Ham side 4-2 be ten points adrift?’ The problem is the same team that beat West Ham also lost abjectly 3-0 to a middle of the table Fleetwood team that we had already beaten twice this season. A performance that Steve described as the worst he had seen in fifty years of supporting Wimbledon. Which brings us to Sunderland and the Stadium of Light.

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I had decided that I was going to make a weekend of it, because I had spent three years at college in South Shields, which is just up the coast, forty and a bit years ago. I travelled up on Friday, the rest, including Steve, were just coming up for the day. 

The Stadium of Light is a fully fledged Premiership Stadium that happens to belong to a team that are currently stuck in League One. Sunderland have had a few problems with owners recently and as a result of cumulative bad decisions were relegated from the Premiership two seasons ago, went straight through the Championship last season and ended up in League One this season.  They are one of the strongest teams in the division and have the biggest crowds and the biggest playing budget by a long way. However I wouldn’t bet too much money on them going back up this season. They are not doing quite as well as they should. I think that if they do go up it will be via the play-offs rather than automatic promotion.

We had a pie to help us recover from our climb up what felt like Ben Nevis. The pies were surprisingly good. We found our seats high above the goal. It has to be said that the sightlines were excellent.

The Match

To sum it up; we played well enough but still managed to lose. A simple mistake by our right back let Aiden McGeady in behind the defence to score the only goal of the game. We had a few chances in the first half but unfortunatly two of them fell to Will Nightingale, who has many admirable qualities as a footballer, but consistently putting the ball in the back of the net is not one of them. Anthony Wordsworth almost scored from our own half. He spotted the Sunderland ‘keeper off his line and tried a lob from about sixty yards. There was a lot of furious backpedalling but their ‘keeper managed to get enough fingertips on it to push it over the bar. Late in the second half we were denied a penalty, when Scot Wagstaff appeared to be dragged back as he shot. That wasn’t a surprise, we are never given penalties. So the game ended Sunderland 1 AFC Wimbledon 0

Highlights

Steve

You have possibly noticed that a guy called Steve gets mentioned quite a bit in this and the other AwayDay blogs.
A bit about Steve, or Stephen Dale to give him his full name. I have mentioned that getting involved with AFC Wimbledon really helped me after Grace died. I met Steve at a volunteers day and we quickly became good friends. We didn’t have all that much in common apart from a love of a good beer and AFC Wimbledon, but that was enough. We stood together on the terrace at the Chemflow End, we ate breakfast at Fat Boys before getting the coach to away games, we celebrated together and commiserated together.

I arrived in Sunderland about five o’clock on Friday, after I had settled into the hotel, I sent him a text telling him I had arrived and asking if he wanted me to find a pub for a pre-game drink tomorrow. I got a text back almost straight away, which surprised me, because Steve could take a week and a half to respond to a text. Only it was from his brother telling me that Steve had passed away during the week. I was, still am devastated by the news. I had been with him at the West Ham game, he seemed to be a bit under the weather, a bad cold I thought. Our friend Peter had given us a lift back to Sutton, I got out the car at the station, his last words to me we “See you at Sunderland”.  My only consolation is that the last game he saw was one of the finest AFC Wimbledon performances ever. 

Rest in Peace Steve

Steve (Centre) with myself and John at last season’s volunteer’s away day

I was glad that my brother Jim had decided to come down from Scotland to watch the Wombles for the first time. I met him at the station and told him the news, so if we were a bit subdued he would know why. The train that Barry, Fred and Alex (and Steve should have) were on was arriving about ten minutes after the train Jim was on, so we waited for them. They already knew what had happened. We found a pub that Steve would have approved of and drank a couple of beers to his memory.

2018-19 Away days, Football

Away Day No 3 – Reality Check?

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So far (two games in) this season, we (AFC Wimbledon) have looked decent. We were the better side against both Fleetwood and Coventry. All we needed to do was be a bit sharper in front of goal. The football we are playing is attractive to watch, and the intent seems to be to try and win games, where as last season the idea too often appeared to be not to lose.

We were all reasonably happy as we set off on another long trip up t’ north, to Barnsley this time. Barnsley had also made a good start to the season and were sitting on top of the league with a 100% record. They are one of the favourites for automatic promotion. So would today be a bit of a reality check?

Barnsley, is a surprisingly awkward, and expensive place to get to on the train, so we took the supporters coach . It was another early start. The coach was leaving the stadium at eight in the morning. So I was up at six to drive myself over and meet Stevie at Fat Boy’s for breakfast at seven. The consensus over breakfast was that if we carried on playing the way we had been then we should come away with a draw at least.

We had our normal toilet and coffee stop for at Watford Gap services. While we were stopped at Watford Gap this thing pulled in beside our coach.
20180818_1036053

It was the official Watford FC team coach, with no one on it except the driver. His job was to drive the coach up to Manchester, pick the team up from the airport and take them to their hotel. Then presumably drive them to their game against Burnley tomorrow. How the other half live.

The Opposition

Last year Barnsley finished 22nd in the Championship and were relegated to League One. They kept most of their Championship team together, including Keifer Moore, who caused us all sorts of problems last year when he was playing for Rotherham. They also have new owners.  Barnsley’s long term Chairman Patrick Cryne died of cancer earlier this year. In the lead up to his death , the Cryne family agreed to sell 80% of their stake in the club to an American consortium. So far they do not appear to have gone daft by trying to bring in big name players on silly money. Perhaps they feel that what they have should be enough to get them back to the Championship, then they can start to build to see if they can make the Premiership.

The Ground

After a bit of a mystery tour we found a place to park the coach just outside the away end. Someone, I’m not sure who, suggested the local leisure centre The MetroDome as a good place to get a drink and something to eat before the match. It was all right, but the selection of beers was a bit limited. The burger I had was OK, better than McDonalds at least.
The ground (capacity about 24,000) itself has three fairly modern stands on the South, East and North sides, but the West stand looks as if it might have been there since the 19th century. I am guessing that the uncovered seats were until fairly recently uncovered terracing.
20180818_1429031oakwell_top.jpg

We were accommodated in the North Stand. The sight lines were fine and there was enough leg room to sit comfortably. The attendance was about 12,000 with about 500 Wombles.

The Game

We made five changes from the team that won at Portsmouth on Tuesday. Will Nightingale replaced Rod McDonald, Liam Trotter replaced Anthony Wordsworth, Ben Purrington, replaced Tyler Garratt, Andy Barcham had recovered from his toe injury and took Mitch Pinnock’s place, and finally we started Kwesi Appiah instead of Joe Piggot. I think most of the changes were due to squad rotation rather than anything else. We have a lot of football to play in the next fortnight.
The game started with Barnsley pressing. They had a reasonable chance about five minutes in but put it high and wide. Shortly after that their keeper did well to keep a shot from Tom Soares out. For the rest of the first half it was fairly even. Our defence was solid against a lot of Barnsley pressure. We had another good chance about the thirty minute mark. Scott Wagstaff won a free kick on the edge of their area, unfortunately Kwesi Appiah’s kick was just over the bar.
The second half was similar. Our defence with, Deji Oshilaja and Will Nightingale outstanding, was still holding firm, but we were creating more chances. I was convinced that we had a goal half way through the half. Tom Soares played a lovely ball through to Kwesi Appiah who finished brilliantly, unfortunately the linesman thought it was offside. It must have been marginal. I thought he was level with their last man when the ball was played. Kwesi also should have had a penalty a few minutes later when he was held back after he had flicked the ball on for himself. Joe Pigott had a shot saved after he came on for Kwesi. We saw the game out comfortably. Tom King only had one save to make all match, and to be honest it was a catch rather than save.
There was an unusual occurrence for a League One match, no one on either side was booked. Possibly the referee, who I was not overly impressed by, left them in his car.

The Highlights

On the way back the consensus was that if Barnsley are one of the best teams in the league, then we probably don’t have too much to worry about this season. We matched them in all areas, and with a bit of luck could have won it.

Reality still hasn’t bitten.

2018-19 Away days, Football

Away Day No 2 -Searching for Unicorns

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The EFL Cup, or the League Cup as it is usually known, has had many names in its time, The Milk Cup, The Rumbelow’s Cup, The Capital One Cup to name a few. It is currently known as the Carabao Cup. All these incarnations have had one thing in common. In the eight years that AFC Wimbledon have been a member of the Football League, AFC Wimbledon have never made it beyond the first round of the competition. One year we didn’t even make it to the first round. We had to play a preliminary round against Crawley and lost.
This year our search for a place in the Second Round (something that most Wombles are convinced is entirely mythical) took place at Fratton Park – home of Portsmouth FC.

I don’t normally go to mid-week away games. I usually have to work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Unless I take the Tuesday off it would not normally be possible to get to the game, and even if I did, I would probably arrive back home about three in the morning and have to get up again for work at six, so thanks but no thanks. I am on holiday this week and Portsmouth isn’t too far away, so I decided that I would join in the quest for this mythical beast.

As the coach left at four in the afternoon there was no pre-coach breakfast at Fat Boys, and I don’t think they do afternoon teas. (I’ll check when I’m in before the Barnsley game).  Two hours down the A3 and we were at Portsmouth.

The opposition

20180814_182938Back in 2013 Portsmouth were on the brink of liquidation. The club was saved by their fans who through the Pompey Supporters Trust  raised the money required to buy the club. On the way from the coach to our entrance to the ground we passed a mural dedicated to all the people who contributed to the rescue. I was pleased to see my friend (and dedicated Pompey fan) John Elgie’s name amongst them. The Pompey Supporters Trust has since decided that the fan owned model won’t work for them and the sold the club to former Disney executive Michael Eisner. As an owner of AFC Wimbledon (we are a fan owned club) I was a bit saddened by the news, but I assume that the PST did what they thought was best for the club. To be fair he does seem to be a “Fit and Proper Person” which is more than can be said for some of Portsmouth’s previous owners.

The Ground

Fratton Park looks like a Premiership ground from the 1980’s, I think there have been a few improvements since then, but it still looks a bit dated. There are rumours of a new ground or a complete revamp of Fratton Park, but for the time being I think they are just rumours.

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Only two of the stands, The Fratton End and the South Stand were open for the game. The early rounds of the League Cup rarely sell out. The official attendance was given as 6588 including about 500 unicorn hunting Wombles. So just about one-third full.

The food at the ground was football ground food, not brilliant, but not actively harmful to health. The sausage roll filled a hole. and created a small one in my wallet.

The game.

The Pompey fans – or at least My friend John – were confident:

We are ready. Won’t be there but they can probably see the opposition off without our support.

We made five changes to the team that drew against Coventry on Saturday. Tyler Garrat replaced Ben Purrington at Left Back, Rod McDonald replaced Will Nightingale at Centre Back, in the midfield Anthony Wordsworth and Scott Wagstaff were in for Liam Trotter and Andy Barcham. Up front James Hanson got his first start, with Kwesi Appiah replacing him on the bench. Portsmouth apparently also made five changes.

The first half was a bit cagey. I thought we had the best of it. We had a few decent chances, which possibly we could have made more of. Scot Wagstaff had a lovely lob over their keeper cleared off the line at the last moment. Though to be fair Portsmouth had a couple of chances of their own. But neither of the keepers had too much to do. The team looked sound at the back, with Rod McDonald looking very solid, Tom Soares was breaking things up and linking very effectively with the attacking midfield players. Mitch Pinnock’s crosses and set piece plays were causing the Portsmouth defence all sorts of problems, with Hanson and Piggott getting on the end of them. Despite all that we went in at half-time 0-0.

Four minutes into the second half it looked as if our unicorn hunt was over. They won a corner and delivered a good ball into the back post area. No one picked up their centre-half’s run into the box, he had a free header and we were one – nil down. Last year that might have been it. We didn’t (generally) do comebacks last year. This years team is made of different stuff. Going a goal down seemed to galvanise them. I was essentially all Wimbledon from then on. There were three or four shots well saved by their keeper, a couple of reasonable shouts for penalties turned down, by that I mean that I thought they were reasonable, the referee obviously thought differently, but what do League 1 referee’s know about football.

With about 25 minutes to go Neil Ardley decided it was time to change things about and took Mitch Pinnock, who was beginning to tire, off and brought Kwesi Appiah on, changing from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3, albeit with Appiah playing as a No 10 rather than 9 as he normally does. This caused Portsmouth even more problems. In addition to having to deal with the height and strength of Hanson and Piggott they now had to cope with Kwesi’s speed and skill. There was a goal coming. In the 75th minute Scot Wagstaff floated a sublime cross into the 6 yard area, Joe Piggott lost his marker and headed in the equalizer. What happened next, I think is indicative of the mindset of this team. Instead of celebrating, his first reaction was to wrestle the ball off their keeper to get it back to the half way line and get the game underway again.

The unicorn hunt was back on. Portsmouth did have one chance on the break, but I felt that if anyone was going to score it would be Wimbledon. In the 88th minute we did. Tom Soares put a floated ball into the area and Portsmouth’s right back, under pressure from Joe Piggott tried to clear the ball, but only succeed in clearing it into the back of his own net. You could say it was fortunate but it was the sort of own goal that is brought about by putting a player under pressure. I thought we overall we deserved the win. We were the better and more positive team on the night.

Highlights

 

The aftermath

So unicorns do exist, we are in the draw for the second round of the League Cup.

And “It only took eight years.”

Here is the proof.

r2_south_drawballs.png

I wouldn’t mind Fulham, QPR, Brentford or West Ham either home or away, but we all know what is going to happen, we are going to be drawn against Newport away.

2018-19 Away days, Football

Away Day No 1 -First Game of the Season

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Before a ball is kicked in anger anything is possible, we could win the league, and the F.A cup as well, we’ll be in Europe next season, we can dream. Reality normally sets in a few minutes after kick off, but on the journey up to Fleetwood the dreams were still alive.

Our dreams this season are fairly limited, mid-table mediocrity is the limit of most of our ambitions. Last season was a bit traumatic, we only secured our League One  status on the second last game of the season. Over the summer our squad was given a major refreshing. Nine players, including last years captain, were let go. A couple of players who we might have preferred to keep, including last years leading goal scorer,  were out of contract and decided not to renew, presumably because other clubs offered them wages that we couldn’t afford. Our second striker, who always carried a bit more weight than he should, apparently turned up for pre-season training looking as if he was planning to change sports to sumo wrestling. His contract was terminated “by mutual agreement”.

Against that the players that we brought in looked decent in the pre-season games.

So with high hopes I was up at six o’clock to set off for Fleetwood and our first game of our third season in EFL League one. I was up but not particularly awake as I discovered later. We were getting the train, because Fleetwood is a long way up ‘t North. Stevie and I decided to meet at Morden Tube and have breakfast there. The Café isn’t quite up to Fat Boy’s standard, but it isn’t bad. There was only problem, it wasn’t open. We decided that we would get something when we got up to Euston. This was a mistake. Possibly we chose the wrong place to get a bacon and egg roll. However we do not recommend Leon’s at Euston as a suitable venue for a pre-away trip breakfast.

The train left on time, wasn’t too crowded, had a few fellow Wombles on board but I guess that most of them would have caught the later train. We did meet a guy from Kuwait and his son. They were on their way up to Preston to watch the Preston North End – Queens Park Rangers game. I don’t think he supported any team in particular (in the UK at least) but enjoyed football and liked to go to new grounds. I think it is his ambition to watch a game at every league ground in Scotland and England. He seemed genuinely pleased to bump into a pair of AFC Wimbledon fans. We had a good chat with him and told him that he needed to be sure to come to New Plough Lane when it opened.

After the local train from Preston to Blackpool and the tram to Fleetwood, we arrived about 12:30. Around this point I was fully awake, that was when I discovered that I had left my ticket at home. I wasn’t a disaster, because I knew that the game was far from sold out and I would be able to buy a replacement, but it was still an extra £22.00. I tried for the sympathy vote from the girl in the ticket booth, but she wasn’t having it, so I had to pay up.

If you are in Fleetwood for the football there is only one place to go for lunch. The Highbury Chippy. It is directly opposite the away turnstiles, and serves some of the best fish and chips that I have ever eaten.

Highbury ChippyWe had our fish and chips and decided that a beer or two before the match was in order. The clubhouse , known as Jim’s Sports Bar is behind the home end. Fleetwood are happy to allow away fans in. It is modern, comfortable and serves a decent selection of beers including a couple of real ales from the local Bowland Brewery. There were loads of screens showing Salford v Leyton Orient. After the end of the game we wandered round to the away end and went in.

I like Fleetwood’s ground.  It is called Highbury and the team play in red with white sleeves, so I assume that at some point in the past, they thought of themselves as a sort of Arsenal of the north. There is standing at both ends with the main stand down one side and some additional seating for about half the other side. The capacity is just over 5000, today it was probably about three-quarters full.20180804_143243

So to the match. Despite all the ins and outs of the close season, seven out of the eleven starters were with us last season, though Kwesi Appiah spent most of last season injured, so he was like a new signing.

Before the match it had been the Joey Barton show. He was announced as Fleetwood’s new manager towards the end of last season, and took up his post when his ban from football ran out. How he will do I have no idea. I got the impression that the Fleetwood fans are sceptical. He has no managerial experience, I don’t think he has done his coaching badges. He had no experience of playing at this level, so we will have to wait and see. I will be surprised if he is still there at the end of the season.

Last season there was a phase of opposition managers being sacked after they had either lost or drawn against us. Wimbledon being rightly known as party-poopers, we wondered if this might happen again.

We started off 4-4-2. Two new full-backs a new goalkeeper and a new right midfielder. I was slightly surprised that Neil Ardley decided to start Tom Soares in central midfield alongside Liam Trotter, because Anthony Hartigan and Trotter had looked pretty effective together in pre-season. Against that Soares on form and up for it (which he was today) is about as effective a holding midfielder as you will find in League 1. Last season he was apparently playing with an injury, which didn’t always help.

We started positively, looking to get the ball forward, taking the game to Fleetwood. Our new full backs looked solid in defence, and promising going forward. in fact the whole back four looked good, especially as they had never played together before, possibly not even on the training pitch. Mitch Pinnock our close season signing from Dover carried on as he had during the pre-season friendlies. He was taking players on, beating them and firing in accurate crosses. In addition to that is probably the best striker of a dead ball that I have seen at the club. Our strikers, Kwesi Appiah and Joe Piggott were a were bit profligate during the first half, at times it looked as if they had never played together before. That might actually have been the case. Kwesi was out injured most of last season. He was injured before Joe joined in January and towards the end of the season, when he was coming on for 20 minutes at the end of the game, it was normally The Pig who made way for him.

The first half ended 0-0 with us having had the best of the game. Fleetwood looked fine but never really threatened.

Second half was much the same, except that we scored. A cross from Ben Purrington, our new left back nodded on by Andy Barcham for the Pig to poke home. We could have had two or three more, but their ‘keeper was having an excellent game, he made one brilliant save to prevent Scott Wagstaff scoring, and we were a wee bit wasteful. When they hit the post and it spun out for a goal kick, we kind of felt that it was going to be our day.

We left Joey Barton with a chorus of “Your getting sacked in the morning”.

It felt much more positive than our visit to Fleetwood last season. The team looked as if they wanted to play together, they looked as if the system we were playing suited them and they looked as if they wanted to take the game to Fleetwood. It is too early to get (over) excited. If it is still looking like this ten games in, then maybe.

We shared the train back to London with the team (they were in First Class) and quite a few Queens Park Rangers fans, some of whom may have over hydrated due to the high temperature. They had been playing Preston, and the racket they were making you would have thought they had won. I mentioned that the team looked as if they wanted to play together, seeing them on the platform waiting for the train, I got the impression that they liked being together as well.

We met them again when we were waiting for the tube. I think they were going back to the training ground to pick up their cars. As Stevie said “You can’t really imagine bumping into Chelsea or Arsenal on the tube can you?”