Thurrock 0 Havant & Waterlooville 0

21jan12
Conference South
Thurrock Hotel, Thurrock
att. 194

Thurrock have come into the New Year cast adrift at the bottom of the division, holding up the Conference South like a sunken ship supports the sea. This is in the sense that the ship lies there at the bottom motionless, only burping out the occasional air bubble, as the sea goes about its business as if the ship wasn’t there. To cut a long story short, Thurrock ain’t much good this year. Then again, neither are we, so if ever a game had 0-0 written all over it, it was this.



Fun times then. All worth it, eh? Mmmmm, weeeee-ell, the adjacency of the Lakeside shopping centre aside, and the handsome bacon baguettes served in the football club’s tiny tea bar, there is little to commend this part of the borough. The Thames at its least picturesque, the A13 and M25 bundling folks functionally hither and thither, oil refineries crushing the landscape, and a tidy yet rarely-troubled-by-attendees football ground; these are the things that constitute the view from the windows of the Thurrock Hotel. I know, I know, what did I expect, herds of Wildebeest sweeping majestically etc.

So, yeah, you gets what you gets here. Purposeful, but plain. This is a pretty good description of most of the football I’ve seen in this environment too. I’ve watched us here seven times now and this isn’t my first goal-less. The Hotel was also the scene, for the record, of the only abandoned fixture I’ve attended. However, being an afternoon kick-off, there would be no floodlight failure to rescue me today.

So, we had to make our own fun. Given our striker Ollie Palmer was making his first appearance after a less than professional family fortnight abroad in early January, potentially appropriate tunes were suggested for singing as he entered the fray from the bench. Typically Tropical’s ‘Barbados’ was one, 'Come Fly With Me' another. After workshopping a Sex Pistols idea with my terrace colleagues, I have now settled on “Ollie wants a holiday in the sun/He’s going to go…mid-season”. Sadly, sitting here tapping away at 9pm, I think the moment has passed. Whenever I have a reasonable idea, you can usually gather its usefulness expired some hours before.

To further keep our minds off of what was passing for football out amongst the winds swirling around the pitch, we also had the novelty of the Hawk Supporters’ Club (Korean Branch) in our midst. Young Adrian, absent in the Far East teaching English as a foreign language for nigh on two years now, returned to check up on just how fucking terrible we’ve been in his absence. [nb. You don’t get many heavy swears in your dubSteps, and we apologise for any offence caused, but after lengthy deliberation in the conference room, no other word was deemed of sufficient weight.]

For Adrian, as a man who favours going to countries and embedding himself in local flavours, gathering as authentic an experience as he can, it is entirely appropriate that instead of a ‘wish you were here’ idealised picture postcard, the Hawks were able to offer our man an entirely typical ‘aren’t you glad you’ve not been here’ buff-envelope of a performance, only enlivened by a wicked deflection that took a Steve Ramsay shot onto the post, and chances for Perry Ryan and Ollie Palmer that were smartly extinguished by James White and Craig Holloway respectively. At the other end, Thurrock had the best chance of the lot, but Lee Boylan blazed a sitter over the bar.

Thus, a point and a clean sheet on the road but with Thurrock being like a small boy trapped down a well, we missed the opportunity to nick the satchel he left at the top. Then again, it could have been worse, and often has been, so I am choosing to be grateful for this small mercy.

Previously, on dubSteps
05dec09: Thurrock 0 Havant & Waterlooville 0
04mar08: Thurrock 0 Havant & Waterlooville 2

2011: 25 gig salute

An appraisal of the highlights of a year's gigging by your correspondent can now be found at the Vanity Project site.

Havant & Waterlooville 0 Eastleigh 0

26dec11
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 938

Take 1: Boxing Day football is great. It allows those of our persuasion to get out from beneath the hillocks of wrapping paper, tear the party popper streamers off the arms of our spectacles and be amongst our brethren full of festive cheer.

Take 2: Boxing Day football is awful. Hanging over the gifting and joy of the previous day like the sword of Damocles, as potential humiliation at the hands of your local rivals threatens to ruin Christmas like a naughty young cousin having a wee in the turkey baster.

Today was take 3. Two bald men in a ‘best bouffant’ contest - neither contender looking as though they had it about them to win the thing. It was summin’ to do wannit but, y’know, bleh.



Of course, I’d have probably taken a point before kick-off what with Eastleigh recently sashaying about like West Coast rappers, all gold teeth and fur waistcoats. With new investment and new faces in the boardroom as well as on the pitch, optimism is currently blowing through their club like a flatulent Nan bursting with sprouts.

I know many of you may be of the opinion that you cannot polish a turd but you CAN roll it in glitter, and thus Eastleigh might well sparkle for a bit before it gets to the almost inevitable ‘unpaid creditors’ stage. As such I was a little concerned that we might be early doors recipients of them flexing their new found financial muscle. However at this stage, it seems as though it’s going to take a lot more glitter for them to cover up what their season’s been like at its core.

That said, we’ve been very patchy in the glitter sense too. A recent away win brought the cooling pie of confidence within nostril range, but generally we never really know when our next good meal is likely to arrive. Here against Eastleigh, we had our chances but were wasteful, chances being shanked, quacked, zormed and flumped.

Leaving our most obvious goal scorer on the bench until the second period, whilst playing just one man up front, at home, was not the kind of statement of intent that suggested ‘Take 1’ on Boxing Day football (see above) was likely to be troubling us.

So, like I say, we had chances, so did they including the missing of what appeared to be a sitter. So, as a Boxing Day derby between local rivals, a classic of the genre it was not. It did not really live up to the billing, not like contests between us have done in the past (see links below).

That said, the game did lively up itself in the last quarter of an hour. Firstly, after Ollie Palmer (finally brought on to create a, get this, 4-4-2 formation) was felled by a tough but, frankly, fair challenge, our Lee Peacock sought retribution with a tackle that displayed more studs than a Fire Brigade charity calendar. Happily for us, he escaped with a yellow.

Not long after, Eastleigh skipper Tom Jordan also saw yellow in the 86th minute. For the second time in the afternoon. Naturally players that have left us in a protracted tapping-up saga claiming grass to be far greener in Eastleigh are rarely given a warm welcome when they return to Westleigh Park. However, they can usually be guaranteed a boisterous send off should they end up staring down a red card and thus we had our ‘victory’, albeit small and imperfectly formed, given that we failed to capitalise on our one man advantage.

It was though, at least, approaching some sort of valedictory entertainment. Minutes 1 - 86 seemed more like 40 days in the Judean desert, while the last five minutes plus injury time flew by like a Harrier jet.

Part two occurs next week, on New Year’s Day. Considering the crowd, and possibly a number of the players, will be staring through the heavy eyelids of Hogmanay, another afternoon doze of a game seems a safe bet. Which, given the number of poor calls I’ve made regarding what’s likely to happen this season, means it’ll be 4 each or summat.

Previously, on Dub Steps
30aug10: Havant & Waterlooville 2 Eastleigh 2
03oct09: Havant & Waterlooville 2 Eastleigh 2
25apr09: Havant & Waterlooville 2 Eastleigh 2
29nov08: Eastleigh 2 Havant & Waterlooville 0
01apr08: Eastleigh 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1
22dec07: Havant & Waterlooville 1 Eastleigh 0
09apr07: Havant & Waterlooville 1 Eastleigh 1

Tonbridge Angels 1 Havant & Waterlooville 2

17dec11
Conference South
Longmead Stadium, Tonbridge
att. 599

Any readers whose only source of H&Dub information is this site might have a skewed view of how the last few weeks have been. It has been six weeks since this site has managed to observe a fixture, and that was a barrelling 5-0 win. You join us again after a month and a half, and a workmanlike away win is here to greet you. You might be of the mind that the good times have been rollin’ down at Westleigh Park. Balloons, tables full of empty bottles, waking up on the local recreation ground wearing only a pink stetson and a smile, that kind of thing.

However, after our nine goals in 135 minutes in our late-October Fest, where a second half comeback against Dorchester resulted in a 4-2 win, followed up by the aforementioned ‘Lady Godiva’ against Farnborough, we then proceeded to score only two more in the subsequent six games. That run included two FA Trophy tussles against a post-financial meltdown Weymouth. Now languishing in the bottom half of the Southern League, a division beneath, they nonetheless scored two goals to our nil in the replay at our gaff.

Aside from those, our league performances have included a 3-0 dump down at runaway league leaders Woking and three draws (a scoreless against Eastbourne, and two one-eachers at Staines and at home to Weston-super-Mare).



So you haven’t missed any further wins, unless you count the 2-0 victory at Wessex Leaguers Blackfield & Langley in the Hampshire Senior Cup. And I don’t. Although we have lost those kind of fixtures before, as Shaun Gale takes the county competition about as seriously as suggestions that he should wear nothing but a comedy wig and a onesie in the dugout.

Still, that would be a better option than the tar and feathers that quite a few of our supporters would like to see him wearing. Many feel, and have felt for some time, that if this club has any ambition left, that a change in the managerial seat is needed. Of course, that is based on a clear supposition. Do we have any?

Our chairman Derek Pope appears to be quite stubborn in this matter though. Shaun Gale is, and will be, manager. End of conversation. Indeed, in the recent ‘Biggest Show of Loyalty of All-Time’ awards, Derek beat Greyfriars Bobby into a clear second place. In a way I kind of admire this kind of thing in the modern world of football, even though the grey sludge of apathy has been smearing itself across our club for some time now, with no clear end in sight.

However, every now and then we’ll get a decent result and that, despite us being entrenched in 15th place for the last month, keeps things sputtering along like a faithful old motor that can get you to the shops, but you wouldn’t trust on anything resembling an incline. If metaphors aren’t your bag, let’s just say you can’t see us putting a decent run together anytime soon. Which is a problem considering our next two games are against our bitter local rivals Eastleigh who’s top brass are bouncing around like toddlers on too much Haribo, crowing about new investment and beginning to introduce new faces as regularly as Marti Caine in the late 80’s.



Still, better we go into those games with an away win rather than not. If we can defend as we did at the end of the second half, then we might well be alright, if it’s more like the start of the second half, then we may struggle.

Neither we nor Tonbridge ever took this game by the horns but of the chances that both sides had, we made the best use, eventually. Tonbridge can rue the striking of the bar in the first half, and a wicked deflection in the second half from a fierce shot that hammered into the hoardings no more than a foot wide of the post. Similarly, we can also regard the fact that Scott Jones, Sammy Igoe and Sam Pearce had close range efforts that were not prepared to mingle socially with the net, as evidence of attacks that came close to bearing fruit.

Happily, our fruit bowl was slightly better stocked than that of the Angels come the final whistle. Ten minutes into the game, Steve Ramsay scored the type of goal (see above) for which he is becoming renowned i.e. one from the edges of the box that doesn’t so much rocket between the posts, as skid at a leisurely pace, as though on a Sunday afternoon duckpond stroll. On this occasion, it took a slight detour off the far post before reaching its desired destination.



It remained even for the rest of the first half, but Tonbridge came out after the break determined and, as is so often the case, we came out to spend a few minutes picking the half-time sandwiches from our teeth. As such it was poor marking that led to the Angels’ equaliser, Tim Olorunda crashing home after the ball was neatly headed down for him three minutes into the second period.

Arguably it was a very similar situation that eventually saw us re-take the lead with ten minutes remaining. Some good work on the flanks eventually saw the ball bobbling around in the six yard box and Ollie Palmer, on as a substitute, used considerable savvy to nibble at the bouncing ball with his forehead and guide it expertly between the panicking defensive bodies.

After this, we were required to defend stoutly, and did so. After we took the lead for the second time, the win was never in any doubt. An ideal confidence boost for the 'we v Eastleigh' panto season.

Now, I try not to worry about goings on at Eastleigh these days. However, a Boxing Day win at Westleigh Park would trump turkey and the trimmings, or chocolate coins in a big sock, as the ideal festive treat.

Magic moments

Been getting a little obsessive about seeing members of the late Captain Beefheart's band play his music live just recently. A review encompassing four dates on The Magic Band's UK tour now appears on Vanity Project.

Pre-winter break

Various other commitments (plus Weymouth away in the Trophy not appealing to my Christmas-shopping focused wallet) mean the next thing to be written up here will be H&W's away fixture against Tonbridge Angels on December 17th. Assuming it's not snowed off or something.

Let's have a party? Go on then

A review of rockabilly icon Wanda Jackson, still gigging at the age of 74, is now up at the Vanity Project site.

After the wheel

A new review of the wonderful Blurt now appears at the Vanity Project site

Havant & Waterlooville 5 Farnborough 0

29oct11
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 799

Now, of course, it’s too soon to start saying “where did it all go right?”. After all Christmas is coming, a period when, typically, the H&W goose does not get fat. If anything it shrivels like a willy in an ice bath. Indeed, traditionally, our players treat the winter like hedgehogs, in that they slow their breathing down to a bare minimum and curl up under a shed until spring.

However it’s never too soon to tell you that we’ve had an odd week. We’ve had lots of them. Picture the scene this past Tuesday evening if you will (I have to, as I was at a work thing in Manchester). It is half-time, the Hawks have put in such a lacklustre shift for the previous 45 minutes as to suggest reluctant working to rule while votes in a ballot for strike action were being counted. At this point, sirens were calling us onto the relegation zone rocks.



On the whistle to signal it was time for the tea and orange segments, boos buzzed around like militant worker bees demanding a new head of state, the manager was loudly questioned as to the exact timing of his resignation and generally the visceral side of disappointment rang out on the terraces for the first time in a couple of years.

Yet, here we are three halves of football later having scored nine goals, and conceded none further. Exciting stuff no doubt, and reminiscent in its rampantness of our ‘crazy April’ from two seasons ago (last five games = five wins = 3-1, 4-0, 6-0, 2-0, 5-2). However one must temper any excitement as we’ve turned so many corners during Shaun Gale’s tenure we’ve whittled the sharp edges of those corners to the point that it’s now a roundabout.

On Tuesday, we faced Dorchester who were looking for a catalyst that would heave their player-manager out of his job. A two-nil lead at half-time wasn’t going to do it, so we obliged by running them ragged in the second half. Three days later Ashley Vickers departed the Dorchester hot seat. Westleigh Park has not been a happy hunting ground for Vickers in 2011. This past week we’ve, essentially, tipped him off the end of the managerial plank, and back in March he found himself staring down a red card here for taking time out of another Hawk v Dorch midweek fixture to wrestle with a near-naked man.

This weekend Farnborough came to town in an environment that, not for the first time, shows they like to spend well beyond their means, like a student maxing out their loan on beer and curries before remembering the list of text books in their back pocket. It is only three years since Farnborough TOWN withered under a mountain of debt. The new Farnborough FC were sent to Southern League rehab, but they said no, no, no, we rather like ripping off our creditors, and are looking like they will sink through our division like a stone once again. Especially when you factor in their Tuesday night was spent salvaging a 1-7 half-time deficit to only lose 8-2, and this was at Truro, themselves dipping tootsies in the financial cess-pit.

At the beginning of the first half, all things seemed fairly even, but the tendency within the play was certainly more inclined to the goal we were stood behind. Eventually we took the lead after 36 minutes, Ollie Palmer following up his brace in Tuesday’s turnaround with another goal, a header that skimmed off a defensive head on the line before bobbling about in the frame in the top corner of the net. Now, if the Conference South had a dubious goals committee, there might well be a stewards enquiry into whether or not it was his head or a defender’s that projected the ball goalwards. In any case, he spirited off like a greyhound out of the traps to excitedly claim his scoring bonus.

As it was our second goal would also be lucrative for Ollie as a good run and cheeky pass by Craig Braham-Barrett put him through and his finish was sublime in its delicacy, thread the ball ever so gently past the keeper’s outstretched arm.

After Wes Fogden left for Bournemouth we wondered where the goals would come from. The answer: easy, the fella that rocked up last week. Not that Ollie turning up just before Wes cleared off was a pre-emptive like-for-like. Wes is a jinksy, beaverish midfielder, about four foot tall, and with a face like a brand new relief map of London Bridge (now that ‘The Shard’ has been built anyway). Ollie on the other hand is an old school poacher of a forward, 6’ 5” in his stockinged feet, and wearing a mush that looks like someone’s had at it with a shovel.

We know it’s early days but Ollie’s goal ratio (7 goals in 5 games since signing) is not only better than Wes’, it’s better than our club’s two most legendary strikers ‘Super’ Jimmy Taylor (138 in 297 games) and Rocky Baptiste (85 in 145). His partnership with the harrying, never-say-die Scott Jones means we don’t really need the big lump of an ex-Premiership (and Champions League) striker, Vincent Pericard, currently wafting around our club like a something-of-nothing parp-fart. One imagines that, despite playing for free, he won’t be upon our nostrils for too long, as his barely discernable presence seems pleasingly unnecessary. Give me two fresh, committed, young non-Leaguers over a famous man seemingly sliding fast out of the professional game with barely a whimper any day.

Anyway, character assassination aside, two goals to the good soon became three, our man of the season thus far Sammy Igoe showing all of his class by lobbing keeper Sam Somerville from the side of the box with an up and under that took seemingly forever to drop and bounce back up into the net.

Fifteen minutes later as Palmer tried to turn in the box to seal a hat-trick, he only managed to brush the ball with his toe as he fell backwards under the attention of several defenders. However Steve Ramsay was on hand to nick in and poke the ball home. Rambo prefers a more elaborate route to goal glory though and wrapped up the rather splendid afternoon with a thirty yarder that, in fairness, scuffed a bit, skidding like a stone on a pond before smacking the post and drowning in the base of the net.

So, that’s twelve goals in three games in the last week, nine in three consecutive halves of good football played. Stringing two halves together has been troublesome enough so we’ll delight in this whilst being aware that greater challenges await. Such as away at Woking next Saturday. Will normal service be resumed, or will we see something really remarkable? This site will aim to report back to you on this next week.

Hampton & Richmond Borough 3 Havant & Waterlooville 3

22oct11
Conference South
The Beveree, Hampton
att. 475

When it comes to taking a decent lead but squandering it and ending up disappointed, this season we rank up there with Kevin Keegan’s first stint with Newcastle and Adolf Hitler’s ill-fated Europa League campaign. Havant & ‘Ville gaffer Shaun Gale currently remains more popular than Hitler but that’s mainly due to the lack of any crossover with the Combat 18 membership amongst our week-in-week-out crew.

One has to acknowledge the fickleness of saying, as we have recently, that as long as we watch some entertaining football, win a few at home and pick up points on the road, we can handle not being serious contenders for promotion. Make no mistake, this was a terrific game to watch, however our desire to see a pulsating contest ebbs away somewhat when we take a two goal lead away from home whilst lying two places, and two points, above the relegation zone.



It’s not as though it’s hasn’t been a familiar tale of late. We let a two goal half-time lead slip in similar fashion at home to Sutton whilst the two games prior to this have seen advantages disappear like a magician’s assistant. Two goals in two minutes did for our hopes against Bromley, whilst last weekend in the FA Cup, an early Steve Ramsay goal from the penalty spot led to nothing more than a 3-2 defeat to Weston-super-Mare. A Cup run into the propers may have anaesthetised the escalating ache amongst our support. As it is the operation was botched, but we’re awake, alive and desperate for a new physician to oversee our recovery.

It will be a sad day when Shaun Gale leaves this club, he has been a loyal servant for over eleven years and it is that close-knittedness which means he retains the support of friends in high places. However I am more than prepared to deal with that sadness if it means we can begin to move forward and start enjoying ourselves again.

There has been little in terms of vocal anger on the terraces thus far, it’s mostly coming out on the online forum; the energy certainly feels like it has sapped amongst our hardcore. Our singing here at Hampton certainly lacked gusto, having as much vocal power and harmony as a playgroup carol concert comprising only the very shyest and tone-deaf of toddlers.

As we’ve said about eight thousand times before, “we looked good in the first half, but…”. As at Weston, a very early lead was ours, Sammy Igoe tapping a free-kick to Lee Peacock who unleashed a furious shot that took a slight deflection and sailed over Hampton keeper Matt Lovett. On the half hour, the lead was doubled when Lovett got his substantial frame in front of Ollie ‘Oi’ Palmer’s poked effort, but Scott Jones a.k.a. Jesus (the long-hair + surname combo meant, nickname wise, blasphemy was the only way we could go) was on hand to bounce a shot off the turf and over the now prostrate keeper. Perry Ryan also hit the post with a long range shot to add to our confidence levels.

Once again the half-time team-talk appeared to go along the lines of “well, I’d take it easy now, they look terrible”, and given Hampton are currently acting as entrenched foundations to the rest of the Conference South’s structure, one might well have assumed that all their morale had now vanished. A goal early in the second half for the home side sorted all that out, especially with it being such a fine one. Frankly it looked like Maradona in ’86 (the good one not the nawty one), Nathan Collier going through our midfield and defence like a puppy let loose among the Gormley’s on Crosby beach.



Astonishing, and their second effort was also easy on the eye, James Simmonds unleashing a well judged lob that left Lyall Beasley grabbing for air like a trapeze artist with timing problems. Happily we responded well to this set-back, re-establishing a lead within three minutes as Jon Macdonald’s long throw was met by Ollie Palmer’s scalp, the ball looping from it over a stranded Matt Lovett.

To put three past Lovett is a rare treat, as he’s been fantastic against us over the years and such a genial presence in terms of responding to behind-the-goal banter that he’s a popular figure amongst us without ever having played for us. Paul Bastock, formerly of St Albans City, was similarly feted.

So when Lovett’s knee-injury flared up, causing him to go down unchallenged twice in quick succession, he left the field warmly applauded not only by the Hampton fans, but equally so by our collective. The upshot of this was that Hampton, without a sub keeper on the bench, had to put a gangly outfield player in goal. Yet in the fifteen minutes he was on the field, he was never tested, and this came back to bite us, although it took Hampton three bites at the cherry.

Firstly a goal was chalked off for offside, then Lyall Beasley was required to save a penalty. Finally in the lengthy extra period caused by Lovett’s injury double, a Hawk clearance was smashed straight into the referee, the rebound falling kindly for Hampton who were able to work their way easily through our defence again, and score comfortably. Unless you have ref’s watching from a television monitor at the side of the pitch, there’s always the risk they’ll get in the way if you decide to wallop it at them. Certainly doesn’t mean you should wave the opposition through afterwards.

If one has to take the positives from the game, it is that Ollie Palmer has now scored three in three since signing with us and his partnership up front with Scott Jones looks like it has potential. It reminded me a bit of the days we had James Taylor and Jamie O’Rourke up front, and if they can be half as fruitful as that double-act, then that’ll be something to keep the home fires burning.

However our real problems lie in defence. Scoring three away from home is always good but not if you’re thinking, “mmm, I think we really need 4 or 5 here” against the team lying bottom of the division. I’d like to say the only way is up, but it isn’t, the relegation places are chomping away like hungry mouths, and we are the tasty morsel that is hanging directly above them.

Previously, on dubSteps
11sep10: Hampton & Richmond Borough 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1
15mar08: Hampton & Richmond Borough 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1