Welling United 3 Havant & Waterlooville 1

21feb12
Conference South
Park View Road, Welling
att. 381

Regular readers of this site (if there are any left given the weary, grumpy tone we have adopted of late) will have noticed we have adopted a weary, grumpy tone of late. However, another day, another 3-1 defeat and, yet, I am here to praise the Hawks as though they were a dead philanthropist.

In previous missives, I have responded to draws and wins with groans, moans and bellyaches. Today, you find me, post-defeat, with a level head, so level in fact that it’s currently tucked into a brickie’s toolbox. I could probably have chosen a better phrasing there.



Usually I stand behind the goal we are attacking but took the opportunity afforded by the fact we were unlikely to be ‘mobbed up’ for this fixture, to take a look at things from the half-way line and, to my astonishment, I spent 85 very happy minutes watching us defend. Yes, you read that correctly. Well, not just defend, but after Scott Jones was tunnelled just before half-time, it was always going to need a committed rearguard rather than an attacking flourish.

Depending how you look at it, Scott Jones two yellows were harsh. I’m not convinced his red-sealing dive was as described by the match official, but I’m perfectly prepared to accept the first yellow was worth his being introduced to. Certainly it was a take-no-prisoners tackle usually associated with midfield malcontents than sprightly strikers.

We had taken the lead ridiculously early, the second minute to be exact; a beautifully flighted free-kick being met with a Perry Ryan header as crisp as a frost-covered lawn. Welling pushed forward, brushing the bar with a cross from a tight angle, but with little else to report in the first half.

Detriment, in the form of a man being removed from our XI, would in theory give Welling license to roam a bit further in the second period but, by and large, they were given precious little space, the defence and midfield standing strong, while Ollie Palmer ran about up front in a way not seen since before his term-time holiday. Naturally though, our attacking forays were to be few and far between.

Lyall Beazley made a couple of good saves, and one great reflex one, finger tipping over the bar from a prostrate position with Loick Pires having most of an open goal to aim at. However it looked as though we would run down the clock, our rugged, gritty effort (the antithesis of the limp, lackadaisical display at Chelmsford) combined, to be frank, with not a little time-wasting, countering anything Welling had to offer.

Then there was the crazy four minutes. Preceded by eighty-six pretty good minutes they may have been, but crazy there were. First Welling were awarded a penalty for a trip, five seconds after they should have got one for handball. Lee Clarke’s kick was damper than my Chelmsford trousers and Lyall moved the right way to make a decent but relatively straight-forward save, however it fell right into the path of Harry Baker who fired home. Straight from the kick off, Luis Cumbers bombed forward before laying off to Ben Greenhalgh who struck home a gorgeous shot from the edge of the box. Gone in sixty seconds.

Shell-shocked, it was now like Culloden and we were the ones wearing the kilts. Three minutes later a third Welling goal was scored, a run and side-foot stab from Greenhalgh hitting both posts before being followed in by Cumbers. At this same moment, the injury time board was showing four minutes and it felt like Welling had time to get a couple more. We were deflating as quickly as the balloon that slips off your finger as you’re trying to get enough purchase on the knot.

However, much as one is inclined to add this to the litany of woe being aimed at the manager, the truth is this 240 second aberration could have happened in any season, and came at the end of the best Hawk performance in some while. However, in those others seasons, we might have built in a little slack (y’know, by winning a few more games) to cover evenings like these.

With this as one of the games in hand on those below us currently attempting to grab our ankles and drag us into their burning pit, this was certainly not the time for a decent performance to go unrewarded. Yet three away games in a row now have ended with us conceding three and we go to Dorchester on Saturday, a side managed by our former goalkeeping coach Alan Knight, who has turned things around for the Magpies and will know ALL about us.

You'll forgive me my fear won’t you?

Previously, on dubSteps
06mar10: Welling United 1 Havant & Waterlooville 0
26apr08: Havant & Waterlooville 1 Welling United 0
10mar07: Welling United 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1

Chelmsford City 3 Havant & Waterlooville 1

18feb12
Conference South
Melbourne Stadium, Chelmsford
att. 859

Why am I even here? One of the great philosophical questions. Indeed, so existential has it got for us terminal Hawks, you'd half expect to find Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus turned among us behind the goal.

Yet, dwindling enthusiasm is never likely to be turned around when your trousers are working as reservoir for enough rainwater to irrigate an arid village; when swirling winds are highlighting your ‘how many layers shall I wear today’ guesswork as being poorly thought through; and when your team aren't so much dogged and bushy-tailed, as they are bushed and lying doggo.



Not that we turn up and expect much in terms of entertainment these days, especially when the second half starts within a downpour that suggested the match had angered God in some way. If this was the case, then He would have found many a like-minded soul amongst the Hawks behind the goal in the second half, all standing, damp, cold and dispirited, watching a display so flat you could have posted it under a locked fire-door.

Why don’t we expect much? Because our tactic these days, given wintry pitch conditions and our league position, is to go caveman on it. Our manager has never quite put it like this, but his Plan B is to go one-up-front more often than not, to sling out the fancy–dans and sling in the doggers.

This leaves us watching the kind of action one might usually see on the last day of a fitness camp for obese eight year olds; lots of huffing n’ puffing n’ hoofing. Indeed, one imagines that most of our team have spent their games recently looking over to the car park, hoping their parents have arrived to collect them.

Not that I would complain about the bullish tactics, of course, if they worked. You might guess from my tone though that there has been no discernible upturn in fortunes based on this adoption of these more utilitarian/austere/downright fugly methods. Our last four league results have seen us draw against two of the more hopeless sides in the division, Thurrock and Hampton & Richmond Borough, then lose to bitter local rivals Eastleigh and now here at Tickle-Me-Chelmo, conceding three goals in each of the last two.

All three of Chelmsford’s goals seemed to require decent finishes but apparently little resembling effort leading to. Their goals were fairly evenly spread out, appearing in the 20th, 68th and 90th minutes, but it wasn’t until after that last one that we got ours. Scott Jones, more than anyone else on our side, deserved a goal and took his, a good run and finish, with great maturity. Scott is a whole hearted striker who is winning many friends amongst the faithful by always looking as keen as a puppy chasing a squeaky toy especially considering he is often required to act as a lone striker despite being pulled out of Wessex League football only six months ago.

However this was virtually the last significant kick of the game and as prizes go, it was like the last thing left on the table in the charity raffle, the box of pencils you’d insist they keep for their next draw cos, you know, “it’s a good cause innit” (code for "I'm not cluttering up my bedside drawer with that rubbish".)

Two tough away games follow this week against Welling and Dorchester. Thanks to the ineptitude of the teams below us, we remain six points ahead of the relegation spots, but how long we can keep up the brinksmanship of relying on teams to be that little bit more terrible than us, without pressing the reset button, remains to be seen.

Previously, on dubSteps
24apr10: Havant & Waterlooville 5 Chelmsford City 2
13sep08: Chelmsford City 1 Havant & Waterlooville 2

Toy box

New review of bubbling-under London five-piece Toy now on the Vanity Project site

Hatched, matched and despatched

Hatched

Congratulations to my fellow Hawk and sometime dubSteps contributor Adam Cole and his wife for their production of a new member for the London Branch. Now we number three, albeit with one of us as yet unaware of the fact. In years to come young Sam Cole may well look back on these early years envying the blissful ignorance enjoyed by his younger self.

I am sure Adam held up his handsome lad on his birthday and said, "I support Havant & Waterlooville, son. One day all of this disappointment could be yours".

Matched (well, linked anyway)

If you enjoy the style of the postings here, and need something to read in those weeks when we aren't in a position to post anything new, you might like to try View from the West Stand, a nicely irreverent blog about my local Football League club up here in east London, Leyton Orient.

Despatched

The Hawk Supporters' Guild (Korean Branch), Young Adrian, also responsible for the occasional guest article on his many travels, has returned to the Far East after seeing two draws (one turgid, one entertaining) against two of the sides in the Conf South relegation zone during his visit. 'Twas nice to see him and hear his stories from a life teaching English as a foreign language, but one can understand why he'll be quite happy to bid us farewell and get back to watching his current 'locals' Busan Transportation Corporation FC.

Apparently one of Adrian's colleagues in Busan often gets a "Gimme a 'B'..." chant/spelling bee going, whilst Adrian himself has been known to don the club's mascot costume (a kind of 'Thomas the Bullet Train Engine' effort) and thus, for services to ridiculous terrace endeavour, I doff my cap to them.

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.