Category Archives: Sport

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.
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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.
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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.

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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?”

 

Football

A Season With the Wombles Part 1.

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It all started promisingly with our pre-season friendly against Watford. Our new goalkeeper George Long (on a season long loan from Sheffield United) looked like he was an excellent shot stopper and also had a prodigious boot on him. Cody McDonald our new striker scored two cracking goals and there were signs that some of our home grown players, notably Anthony Hartigan, Alfie Egan, Toby Sibbick and Egli Kaja could be pushing for first team places. Some of my predictions/hopes worked out – mainly concerning George Long, the rest well ……

As I have mentioned in other posts I started following AFC Wimbledon again last year following a four year break while Grace was being treated for Ovarian Cancer. I found that I was going to almost every match. The only ones I didn’t go to we’re the ones that I couldn’t get tickets for. So I decided to get a season ticket for this year. £340 well spent .. Possibly.

During the close season we had lost a couple of players who were fairly integral to the team. Tom Elliot (last years Player of the Year) was out of contract and although we offered him a new one, Millwall, who had just been promoted, offered him a better one. So our big lump with No. 9 on his back was gone. So to was our Duracell Bunny midfielder Jake Reeves. He wasn’t out of contract, but it turned out that there was a release clause in his contract and Bradford triggered it. Neither of them was properly replaced.

My first match proper of the season was our League Cup round 1 game against Brentford. No one expected too much from it. We have never got beyond the first round since we became a League club in 2011 (and thus eligible to enter). We did better than expected, holding then to a 1-1 draw at full time. Extra time proved our undoing with Brentford running out 3-1 winners. 

We had started our league campaign the weekend before with a creditable 1-1 draw away to Scunthorpe. The following Saturday saw us back in League action again, against Shrewsbury, the other team in League One who play in Blue and Yellow. We lost 0-1 which at the time felt extremely disappointing. In retrospect I don’t think it was quite as bad a result as I thought at the time. Shrewsbury turned out to be this year’s overachievers and have made it all the way to the playoff final. I would describe them as an efficient team. Very sound defensively, and able to nick a goal when the opportunity presents. However it was an indication of where we were going to be for much of the season. Difficult to break down, but finding it almost impossible to score. If we went behind there was the feeling that that was it, game over.

Fleetwood from the away end
Our next game against Fleetwood was my first ever away match. John and Stevie, friends I had made on one of our volunteers work weekends, go to most away games and told me that I should at least do one or two. So I decided that Fleetwood would be my introduction. The game was memorable for a couple of things. Not the football, we weren’t completely abject, but we were not very good. Fleetwood were not much better, but managed to bag a couple of goals thanks to mistakes (unfortunately becoming increasingly common) on the right side of our defence. No the two things that made it memorable were meeting a Canadian football studies researcher – I had no idea that such people existed – on Preston station while we changed trains. The other thing that made it memorable was the fish and chip shop outside the away end. They served some of the best fish and chips I have ever eaten.

That seemed to establish the pattern for the early part of the season, basically a series of disappointing losses and draws, interspersed with the occasional win to give us a bit of hope. But as every footy fan knows it is the hope that kills you.

Probably the most disappointing loss was the game I missed because of a family funeral back in Scotland. We played “The Team Who Shall Not be Named” on the evening of Friday (it probably should have been the 13th) 22nd of September. I tried to watch it on a very dodgy pirate feed whilst traveling back to London. The only two points that the feed stopped freezing were when Kwesi Appiah pulled up in their penalty area with the hamstring injury that would keep him out for most of the season, and when Lyle Taylor missed the penalty that might have gotten us back into the game. The train was stopped in Stevenage as the game ended, my thoughts were that we may well be back here next season.

Relegation was staring us in the face. I was having difficulty seeing where the next goal was coming from, let alone the next win. Our strikers were either out of form or injured, the midfield were reasonably enough defensively but we’re adding nothing going forward. On top of that I was becoming obvious that Paul Robinson, our right centre-back was playing one season to many.

To be continued…….. 

Football, Songs I Love

Songs I Love: We are Wimbledon

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This is not the worlds finest song (musically at least).
Thirty years ago today on the 14th of May 1988, Wimbledon FC beat Liverpool 1-0 to win the F.A. Cup, or to quote John Motson “The Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club”. I wasn’t there. I was on the other side of the world (in the Solomon Islands to be precise) listening to the game on the BBC World Service very early on Sunday Morning.
This was our Cup Final song “We are Wimbledon”. We still play it, and sing it, at Kingsmeadow.

Football

Away Day No.3 (The League Leaders)

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This was my last Away Day for the season. I have been to more than three away games (ten in fact) but I only started writing about them a month ago. We (AFC Wimbledon)still have one more away match on Tuesday the first of May against Doncaster (the match that should have been played on Easter Monday) but I can’t make it due to work.

It was an early start, Wigan is a long way up the M6. We met up at Fat Boy’s for our normal pre-coach trip breakfast. Breakfast was fine but there was definitely a sense of foreboding in the air. Even Stevie our eternal glass overflowing optimist was saying things like ” If we can come away with a draw I’ll be happy.” the rest of us were more along the lines of “If we can avoid another 4-0 defeat we’ll be happy.” (They beat us 4-0 in the game at Kingsmeadow before Christmas). Wigan, who knocked Manchester City out of the cup, and are top of the league and already promoted could have tied up the title if they beat us and other results went their way. We on the other hand still needed at least two points from our last three games to be mathematically safe from relegation.

On to the coach for the five-hour trek up north. In retrospect I think we should have taken the train, and will do next time, but that won’t be for at least a couple of seasons.
We had a stop at a service station on the M6. As well as ourselves there were fans from quite a few other clubs grabbing a coffee. Brighton were traveling up to play Burnley, Portsmouth were off to Bury, and going in the opposite direction Rochdale were off to Oxford No hassle, but a bit of banter because Portsmouth and Rochdale are in the same league as ourselves. Brighton being a Premier League club just ignored us.

We arrived at the ground about one o’clock and got off the bus about one thirty because a jobsworth steward insisted that we couldn’t park in the place marked “Coaches” in big white letters. So we had another tour of the suburbs of Wigan to get to the place where we were allowed to park. Fred and Barry, who had come up by train saw the coach on its mystery tour and called us to say they were in a pub about five minutes walk from the ground so we wandered along to join them for a pre-match pint.

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The ground, The DW Stadium, was the smartest (photo above) we’ve been to this season (apart from Wembley), but then it’s not all that long ago that Wigan were a Premier League side. The ground feels a bit big for them. It was their last home game of the season and they had the chance of clinching the title, but it was still only half full. They do share the ground with the local Rugby League team the Wigan Warriors who I think tend to draw bigger crowds.

Our team selection seemed to be dictated by the players we had fit. No Wardrobes*. Three attacking midfielders and our right-footed left back to provide a bit of muscle. As Stevie said “When Harry Forrester and Dean Parratt seem to be the defensive midfield we could have problems” I’m not sure either of them can spell the word “defend”. We lined up 4-4-2 or possibly 4-1-3-2. With Callum Kennedy (who is left footed) slotting in at left back.

The game started pretty evenly. They were trying to pressure us at every opportunity, but we seemed to contain their attack reasonably comfortably and we always looked dangerous on the break. Twenty four minutes in LTB** latched on to a slight mistake by their centre back, fed The Pig*** and The Pig did score. 1-0 to the Wombles.  To be honest I had not expected that. A few minutes later we could have gone two up, but their keeper produced a brilliant finger tip save to push Dean Parratt’s shot over the bar.  They came back at us, but we were fairly comfortable in defence, and George Long was having a magnificent game in goal. The first half ended with us 1-0 up.

At the start of the second half Wigan threw everything they had at us but our defence was holding, even if there were a few heart in the mouth moments. We could have gone 2-0 up at about the 60 minute mark. Harry Forrester made a good interception just inside our half, and had a clear run to the edge of the penalty box. He had Lyle Taylor unmarked to his right and Joe Piggot unmarked to his left, but chose to try a shot instead and put it over the bar.

They equalised shortly afterwards. I thought at the time our centre back Deji Oshilaja was fouled in the build up, and having seen the video replay a few times I am even more convinced that he was, but neither the referee nor his assistants seemed to see it. I’ll embed the video, see if you agree with me.  From my point of view (admittedly biased) the referee seemed to ignore a lot of Wigan’s fouls, but gave everything against us.

There was another twenty minutes of almost constant Wigan pressure to endure, but we held out for a hard-earned draw. Possibly we could have won, but given the pressure that Wigan put us under for almost all the second half a draw was a fair result. As Stevie said at Fat Boys we came a way with a draw and we were happy. Even happier when we discovered that The Franchise (AKA Milton Keynes)**** had been relegated.

It all made for a contented trip back to South West London

*Our three defensive midfield players Tom Soares, Liam Trotter and Jimmy Abdou are collectively known as The Wardrobes, due to the perception of a certain lack of mobility among a section of our fans.
**Lyle Taylor (Baby) from the song we sing for him:
Lyle Taylor Baby, Lyle Taylor Woa oh o ( to the tune of “Don’t You Love Me Baby”).
*** Joe Piggot is (affectionately) referred to as The Pig.
**** The history of Wimbledon FC being uprooted and moved to Milton Keynes and the subsequent formation of AFC Wimbledon is well told in this Wikipedia article

Football, Sport

Away Day No.2 (Volunteers’ Day)

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 This time we actually got to see some football. Quite a lot of football as it turned out.

Once a year the club  (AFC Wimbledon) and one of our sponsors Cherry Red Records treat the club’s volunteers to a day out. I qualify because I go along to the Work Weekends. During the summer we give the ground a good clean up and a fresh coat of paint ready for the new season. Because we are a fan owned club, and not particularly rich, we rely on people doing stuff for free that other, larger, clubs would pay contractors to do. The volunteers’ away day is a way of thanking all the people who give their time and effort to help the club out.

The day consists of coach travel to the game, a pre-match meal, and a ticket for the game. This year’s day out was to see Wimbledon take on Walsall in what could be described as a relegation six pointer. So normal away day protocols were observed, that is breakfast at Fat Boy’s before catching the coach. Then onto the coach for a zap up the M40 to Birmingham. Lunch had been arranged at Caulderfields Golf and Country Club.   who put on a very good lunch for a hundred or so of us, Having been very well fed and watered our sponsor announced that while he was still keen to support the day out it had in fact  been nine years since we had last won on Volunteers Day. So on to the match.

Walsall’s stadium is a tidy smallish place, probably about 12000 capacity but was only about one third full today.
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Pre-match predictions were fairly positive. Walsall had not been in particularly good form of late and we came into the game buoyed up by a cracking win against Charlton on Tuesday night. Six minutes in the positivity started to slip. We gave away a free kick about twenty five meters out on the right. Normally we deal with those fairly easily, but in Erhun Oztumer Walsall have probably the best dead ball player in the League. His floated free kick found the head of his player and we were 1-0 down.

We tried to get back into the game, but to be honest we looked lethargic and disjointed. Then on the stroke of half-time we gave away another goal. Our centre backs, who are normally our most reliable players, seemed to get mixed up and both left the Walsall striker for the other one to deal with. The result was he slipped through between them for an easy goal.

We were all a bit down at half time, apart from Stevie, who was predicting that we would win 3-2. However the precedents were not good. The last time  we had come from behind to win was over a year ago, and the last time we had done it away was even longer. So far this season the rule has been, if we score first we don’t lose and if the opposition score first we don’t win.

I’m not sure what was said in the dressing room, but it was effective. Within three minutes of the restart we had a goal back. Andy Barcham was tripped inside the box. Their keeper half saved the resultant penalty but Joe Piggot (Feed the Pig and he will score) was on hand to put the rebound into the net.

From then on it was all Wimbledon. Lyle Taylor hit the post, several chances scrambled away and seven hundred Wimbledon fans make far more noise than 3500 Walsall fans. Our second goal was classic old school Wimbledon. A long accurate punt upfield from our keeper George Long found Lyle Taylor who hit it first time into the back of the net. Cue minor delirium in the away end.

It was still more or less one way traffic but the decisive goal would not come. Joe Piggot was hauled down a couple of times in the penalty area for what looked like clear cut penalties, at least from where I was standing. Finally in the sixth minute of stoppage time, George Long played a ball to Lyle Taylor similar to the one that had brought about the second goal, this time though Lyle was hauled down by their defender – penalty.

Dean Parrett took the ball for the penalty, a good decision, because Lyle had hurt himself scoring his goal, and I’m not sure that he would have converted it. He placed the ball on the spot, Fred and Barry in front of me couldn’t look, took his run up and slammed it into the top left hand corner of the net.
Cue serious delirium in the away end.
Two very happy bus loads of volunteers headed back down the M40 South West London.
“It only took nine years”

Edit 25/05
I have added this video, by one of the teams sponsors, John Green, because it relates to the game, but also because there are life lessons in there as well.

A more neutral report on the match is available on the BBC Sport website

Football, Sport

Away Day

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I haven’t written very much on the blog for the past year. Possibly a good sign, in that I am beginning to get my life into some sort of order after losing Grace almost two years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I still miss her intensely and if I could I would do almost anything to have her back with me. But my life is moving on and I am learning to find my own way of living it. With that in mind I had decided to try a slightly new slant to the blog.

Football and AFC Wimbledon in particular have taken on an importance in my life that is probably greater than it really should be. However with that in mind I thought that I would start writing about the games that I attend. Starting with today’s (April 2nd) game away to Doncaster.

The day started out well. Stevie suggested that we get a train up to Doncaster about 10:30 so that we would have time to get lunch before the game. I thought that was a reasonable idea and agreed. We met as we usually do before away games at a café for breakfast this time at Rosy Lee’s in Morden, because we were getting the train. Usually we get the Club Coach and we meet at Fat Boy’s just outside Kingsmeadow. With a pretty good (but not up to Fat Boy’s standard) full English inside us we got the Tube up to Kings Cross.

We met John at the station, decided that the Leeds train looked less crowded than the Edinburgh train, so we hopped on that instead. We had decided to pay the extra £10 to get open tickets so it didn’t matter what train we caught. This turned out to be a very good decision.

There were a fair few fellow Wombles on the train, so the conversation was mainly about our prospects for today. I thought that we could come away with a point. Stevie, who is an eternal optimist, was predicting a 5-0 win for us. The others weren’t quite so confident. To be fair we haven’t had a great season and we are seriously flirting with relegation to League 2 so I fully understood where they were coming from.

It all turned out to be academic though. John got a text message from a mate saying that the game was off. He sent one back saying that he was a day late for April Fool’s day. Unfortunately after a bit of searching the BBC, Doncaster and Wimbledon web sites, we found out that it was true. The game was off due to a waterlogged pitch. After Friday’s game which resembled water polo rather than football, we wondered how bad it really was. All the other games in the area had been called off as well, so it probably was the correct decision. It left us with a decision to make as well,  what to do with the rest of the day.

Our first thought was Plan “B”.  Peterborough were playing at home so we could get off the train at Peterborough and we would at least get to see some football. This was squashed by the man in the seat in front of us who pointed out that this train did not stop in Peterborough. OK plan “C” then. We couldn’t think of a plan “C” at least  not one that suited us all. We eventually settled on plan “Z”  and caught the next train back to London.

Coping with loss, Football, Sport

The Therapeutic Quality of Football

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I have recently started to watch live football again. I did go along to watch Wimbledon before Grace became ill, but after her diagnosis, I stopped. Most Saturdays, if Grace felt well we would do something together and if she wasn’t then I didn’t like to go off and leave her for longer than it took to do the shopping.

I think I have mentioned before that this came about because my brother persuaded me to go along to watch Hibs on Christmas Eve. It is probably worth mentioning that I am a Hearts supporter (the other Edinburgh team). I enjoyed the game, and the thought occurred  that if I could enjoy watching Hibs then surely I would enjoy watching AFC Wimbledon even more. So I dusted off my old scarf, splashed out on this years replica top, and bought a ticket for the game against Oxford United on the 14th of January. Fortunately, it turned out to be a good entertaining game, with Wimbledon winning 2-1.  I have since gone along to a few more games, all of which I have enjoyed, strangely enough even the ones we lost.

I  know that football has helped me in the process of grieving. What I am trying in this post is to work out how and why.

Saturdays, especially during the winter had a tendency to drag. Because I went to working a three-day week after I turned sixty and because I normally do all the domestic stuff, shopping, washing and etc., on a Friday I don’t have much to do on a Saturday. Also on Saturdays most people (who work five days a week) are doing other things. Going to the football is an enjoyable way of filling that gap.

What I have found is that it gives me ninety minutes when the only thing that is important in the world is what is happening on the pitch. That helps. The feel good factor of winning helps as well. Strangely enough so does the disappointment of losing. Setting it against losing Grace, losing a football match doesn’t seem to be quite so important. Supporting the Wombles means that (unlike say supporting Chelsea or Celtic) losing a game doesn’t come as a surprise. I was going to say that no one dies, but as this is the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Hillsbourgh disaster we know unfortunately that occasionally this isn’t true.

AFC Wimbledon has given me something to be part of, something to love even. For that I can only be grateful. (So much so that I have invested in a season ticket for next year)