Havant & Waterlooville 1 Dover Athletic 1

16apr13
Conference South
Westleigh Park
att. 594

Of course, as fans of omens and the superstitious will know, as soon as you spend a few paragraphs extolling the virtues of an abandoned game, lauding how 60 minutes was as good if not more value for money than some full 90’s, you’ve kind of written the script for the fixture redux.

Here we convened, 75 hours after the first go was brought to a premature halt, to take this game to a finish. Sadly, Saturday’s game now is but a figment of our collective imagination, a ghost game, an event the record books would tilt their head away from and pointedly snub if they were to pass it on the street. This is what we now have to show for Havant ‘Ville vs Dover in the 2012/13 campaign…



In terms of scripting the future, perhaps giddily overstating the Hawks’ dominance in the lost game made it inevitable that a rejigged Dover XI, cast as lifeless bystanders in Saturday’s effort, should grab their second bite of the cherry with greater relish and it took them only nine minutes to take a lead, Harry Ottaway finishing off a very effective Dover break after controlling the early proceedings.

After this it was clear a message was taken to the Hawks to remind them Saturday’s goal no longer counts and it wasn’t in fact one-each. Thus a positive approach to deficit reduction was then taken with the head of steam gradually building in our favour as half-time approached. Around the half-hour mark it was much like Saturday’s performance, as everything began to click, Christian Nanetti skidded a handsome shot just wide to signal “relax guys, a goal is coming”.

It came with five minutes of the half remaining, a Chris Arthur corner being met beautifully by Alex Grant to directly the ball into the far corner where it nestled smugly as a big noise boomed from behind the goal. Three minutes later Arthur swung in a free kick from the same flank where Ollie Palmer’s header flicked off the bar.

At half time, we thought, mmm, if we can keep this momentum up, we can have these Dover types – surely the ‘several hours on a coach’ legs will kick in and we can kick on. Sadly it wasn’t to be, with Dover having marginally the better of an attritional second half in which both sides seemed to be be concerned with soaking up threat rather than providing any. Still, a home draw against a side guaranteed a play off spot would, six-eight weeks ago, have been met with no little fanfare. We’ve travelled a long way, confidence wise, in a very short time.

Sadly for me, despite the fact the Hawks have two fixtures remaining, I am unable to make either game so that’s it for me, and thus the match reportage on ‘Destination Havant ‘Ville Departing Waterloo’ is also at an end. Certainly a much less dramatic denouement than last year’s vital final kick, but I wouldn’t toss the last three months or so back in just for a tension filled final week. It seems like only a few days since I was thinking “ah, I can’t make the final game – what if it’s another ’three points needed to stay up’ scenario?” so to be in with a mathematical shout until now, with only 180 minutes left of the campaign goes way beyond my expectation.

Once those games are done, I shall try and encapsulate a season of two halves without getting myself at it too much for next season. We’ve done that before, and cautious optimism is, in my view, a much better bet. Still, this remains a work in progress and the sky may well be the limit.

Havant & Waterlooville A (1) Dover Athletic A (0)

13apr13
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 844

MATCH ABANDONED (62 MINUTES)

Football, then. 90 minutes comprised of two 45 minute halves. Pah, why bother, when 45 + 17 is nearly as much fun. In some ways, attending an abandoned game can be quite frustrating, especially for the away side who have to travel again but, purely, from a spectating standpoint, this afternoon’s 62 minutes were good value for the £12 in.



You know, we’ve been waiting for an opportunity for many months now to be able to watch football without garbing up like an Eskimo with hypothermia and when the warm finally came out of hiding, it’s a shame he had to bring his unpopular mate, rain, as his ‘plus one’ to the party, just because he was feeling sorry for it.

Queuing for half-time tea presented little in the way of fun (more liquid on my face than eventually in it), but all that went on around it just continued the sense of buoyancy that currently envelops we Hawks. Bouncing back from a rare defeat the previous weekend at Maidenhead, a further away game at Boreham Wood on the Tuesday saw a tough 2-1 win grabbed in the 87th minute, our new gigantic Argentine centre-half Juan Cruz Gotta popping up with the goods.

Then here, despite the grass struggling to process the incessant rain, we put in a first half performance that belied the conditions. In these sort of games, it is difficult to put together runs and passing moves as the ball tends to get a little lodged just as the momentum picks up. Despite this, Christian Nanetti didn’t appear to be changing his game much and was creating problems down the right flank. At the times the ball did stick, it seemed someone else from our ranks would be in the right place to limit the potential damage.

We adapted to the conditions like a squirrel to tree climbing while Dover took to it like an owl to kayaking. They did not appear to have the physical wherewithal, or indeed the interest, as the ball spent the majority of its paddling time in their half. Ollie Palmer scored a typical striker’s goal, heading in neatly on the edge of the six yard box from a pin-point Steve Ramsay free-kick after twenty minutes and we descended like Niagara upon them throughout.

We were surprised going into half-time, not so much about not being further ahead (although our dominance might have warranted it), but as we walked along the side terrace, about how much water was sitting on the surface of the pitch. Had you thrown a rubber duck on at the top of our ground’s slight slope, it may well have merrily bobbed along from one end to the other, unimpeded by divotry.

Looking at it objectively, we knew it was always going to be hard to get another 45 minutes out, considering the rain was continuing to fall, but the referee appeared game to completing the, err, game. However, the consensus on the terrace was that all it might take would be one mistimed challenge and around the hour mark, Dover’s Steve Thomson tested the theory, upending Perry Ryan as though he were a metaphorical apple cart. Perry being a bit of a hot head reacted with some distain before eventually collapsing to the turf. Thus Thomson was sent off, as was Pezza, shown the rouge rejoinder whilst he was being stretchered off.

During the subsequent melee, a further Dover indiscretion apparently went on – not that one could make much out through the cluster of sodden, angry bodies – and Lloyd Harrington also got his marching orders. Not long after so did the crowd, as after a short discussion with the managers, three loud parps were heard from the whistle. Nothing more to see here. Still, for the disappointment that a virtually guaranteed three points playing ten versus nine and a goal to the good, there was plenty of incident and lots to admire in the Hawk performance.

I’ll take that and besides, VFM or not, ticket stubs remain valid for the re-arranged game to take place this following Tuesday, so we can do it all again at no extra entry cost. Hopefully we’ll witness similar performances from both sides in drier circumstances.

Hayes & Yeading United 1 Havant & Waterlooville 4

01apr13
Conference South
Kingfield Stadium, Woking
att. 167

About three seasons ago, we experienced a phenomenon we now refer to as ‘Crazy April’. It was called this because we won our last five games of the season, scoring 20 goals in the process. We went into the final game needing to win by five clear goals and scored them, albeit only after Chelmsford had scored two themselves.

It was the only time, really, in the last five years (post-Cup run) that there seemed to be any sense of giddy abandon around Westleigh Park, the kind we had grown quite accustomed to in the early-noughties days of having Paul Wood, Tim Hambley and Jimmy Taylor as combined creative treasures. However that wildness and lack of restraint has returned, Lee Bradbury winning the Conference South Manager of the Month for a March in which we won five home games and drew the one away game, a tough one, at Dover.



When I speak wistfully of us having an embarrassment of riches back a decade or so ago, this is to ignore the fact that we have three genuinely prime assets at the club at the minute. Ollie Palmer led the league top scorers chart going into this game, topped it up considerably during, and has scored 40 goals in 78 appearances thus far. As goals per game ratios go (0.51 in his case) he’s up there with all our striking greats Rocky Baptiste (85 in 145, 0.59), Dean Holdsworth (34 in 66, 0.51) and Super Jim (138 in 297, 0.46).

The league scouts continually sniff around Ollie and had Colchester United’s transfer window bid two months ago been slightly better than a tin of shortbread and a coffee-stained doily signed ‘To Sandra, best wishes, Les Dennis’, he might well be playing in the Football League now. If he is not there, and still playing with us next season, we should consider ourselves looked upon favourably by the footballing Gods.

The same applies to Chris Arthur who each time he chases with a defender appears to have one eye on the ball and the other on the British land speed record. As hard to handle as a pre-heated baking tray in an oven-gloveless hand and as impossible to knock over as a concrete cow, he is ‘The Beast’ and watching him barrel down the left flank in full flow is as invigorating as damp fingers in a shoddy plug socket. Again with regards Chris we are genuflecting to those aforementioned deities that they might really spoil us for the 2013/14 campaign and keep both Palmer and Arthur in our ranks.

The remaining asset of the three stated I will come back to but, seeing as its paragraph six already, let’s talk about the actual game. The first half was comfy for us, if perhaps a little niggly, and we went into the break a goal to the good, a scoreline which our relative dominance deserved but perhaps fortunate in and of itself.

We’ve been trying a free kick option recently, a three-touch-trick to wrong foot the wall and leave a player, usually Steve Ramsey, to fire at the goal less impeded by oncoming torsos and limbs. Usually, a defending body loitering will stick its arse in the way and send it ricocheting back to the half-way line; today though the practice made perfect. Well, not perfect really, more perfectly acceptable, as a rogue buttock still knocked the ball off its trajectory. Happily though the trajectory hitherto had been towards Milan Stojsavijevic’s gloved paws, and the intervention merely sent it bobbling away from the keeper’s momentum and into the net. It was a deflection so wicked, it might as well have been riding pillion behind a Disney stepmother on a nicked broomstick.

While the first half was about bits, the second was all action, with Hayes & Yeading emerging from the changing rooms much more giving of effort. Indeed, all the momentum was theirs until Steve Ramsey hung a steep cross upon the stiff cold breeze in the 63rd minute. Stojsavijevic, up to that point, had been pretty effective with anything swung into the box but made a mess of it [see pic above] to the point of it resembling an open landfill; all placcy bags and used needles. Waiting behind him was Ollie Palmer who slotted home despite standing virtually on the by-line. The angle was so acute it was like watching keyhole surgery, but in off the far post it went.

Ten minutes later, we gifted Hayes an’ ‘Ding a way back into the game when Clark Masters fluffed a poor clearance directly to Luke Williams who had little to do to slot the ball underneath Clark and his rapidly reddening face. Given the home side’s momentum (I say home side but he we were in a virtually empty Kingfield Stadium that is better known as the home of Woking FC) this could have got very wobbly very fast. Thankfully, we re-established a two goal cushion within three minutes, Ollie Palmer getting behind the defence to calmly instep the ball home.

However, we still couldn’t coast as just a further two minutes later Alex Grant pulled down Tom Collins to give the referee an easy decision to make. Collins stepped up to take the kick but Clark Masters dropped on the poor attempt. Had they scored, we may have been in trouble. As it was, we adopted a counter-attacking method that gave Ollie his hat-trick in injury time. Kelvin Bossman, looking full of energy after coming on, raced half the length of the pitch before putting in a precision cross to the six yard box where Ollie was able to tap in with effortless aplomb.

That was Ollie’s 25th of the season and he’s churning out hat-tricks in the same seemingly endless way as an Estée Lauder production line farts out lipsticks; his third goal-trio of the season, indeed since the turn of the year. His motivation was questioned in the games subsequent to us turning down Colchester’s bid, but since then he has signed a new contract, hugged the manager after scoring against Sutton (something you don’t often see anywhere really) and bagged ten goals in the last seven games alone. His motivation is no longer discussed and he was worthy of man of the match here with or without a matchball in his mitts at the final whistle.

I threw that thing about his hugging the manager after scoring last month for a reason. That third ‘prime asset’ I was talking about is our gaffer. Lee Bradbury has taken a bunch of huge underachievers and turned them from relegation battlers and mid-table settlers to a collective that is making us believe that we have an outside chance of making the play-offs, albeit with another ‘Crazy April’ required which is a big ask given we’ve only just emerged from what we can now remember as ‘Mental March’. He was not a universally welcomed appointment at the start, but show me a chap inside Westleigh Park on a matchday now who doesn’t have a big boy crush on Bradders and I will show you an away fan.

Whereas Stuart Ritchie, the man who started the season in our hot-seat had all the magnetism of a soggy cloth, and the motivational qualities of a photograph of a derelict bungalow, Lee Bradbury has the respect not only of the players and board, but of the fans. We’re in this together now, and we’re loving it, play-offs or not.

Havant & Waterlooville 2 Maidenhead United 1

26mar13
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 308

It would be fair to say we’ve had a good month. At the end of February we were in 18th position, having not won for a while but having picked up a few draws against top half sides. However it was always felt, having seen those games through and only lost to Welling in that sequence, we would need to capitalise on our less stressful set in March and early April, before another murder run at the back end of the campaign.

Safe to say, so far so good then as March has thus far seen four home wins (including a 5-0 thrashing of Billericay) and a hard fought away draw at Dover Athletic, having gone into half-time there two goals behind. We presently sit ninth, ten points from the relegation zone, and nine from the play-offs and, with rock-bottom financial basket-cases Truro due to visit Westleigh Park this coming Good Friday, we have power to add before April cheerily greets us with an away game against Hayes & Yeading on Easter Monday



I mention the play-offs as a marker of how far we have come rather than an expectation of a push. It is far too late for that, but it means that despite the maths, I am entirely relaxed about our Conference South status and, indeed, about our home form. At no point travelling down to this game, nor as I clicked through the turnstile, nor indeed during our second half performance which was so weak it looked like it’d been on hunger strike since Christmas, did I think anything other than three points were ours.

We made hard work of it without doubt, passes and clearances always seeming to end up at Maidenhead feet, our positioning not as solid as we have come to expect during this splendid string of successes, but nonetheless it is often said that the sign of a team doing well is a tenacity and ability to grind it out when it isn’t happening at an inspiration level. We’ve been spoilt lately on the latter score, so I’m certainly in no mood to criticse.

Indeed, our attitude to winning now has come a long way and our relationship with three-point bagging is similar to that between the Cookie Monster and cookies – the next one never seems that far away and is what we’re all about. That might sound obvious for a football team, but at the start of the season, we appeared to have lost our appetite for cookies altogether.

The manner of today’s victory was shaped by a dominant first half bookended by goalsch. After eight minutes, the incredible Chris Arthur, a man who could moonlight as a Japanese bullet train, hurtled past a Maidenhead defence looking like concrete-reinforced fence posts compared to Chris’s galloping stallion moves. He then walloped in a first time whelp that he made seem effortless, the clinical nature of it taking us all a bit by surprise.

The second goal followed on 41 minutes when Sahr Kabba was felled in the penalty box. The linesman seemed pretty convinced, immediately bringing the flag in front of his chest like a man ashamed of his nipples suddenly realising he was publicly topless. However, if we’re brutally honest, it was softer than foam-pies-at-fifty-paces.

Still, if you believe in natural justice, then the fact that Christian Nanetti hit a poor penalty which was easily pushed away by Billy Lumley will sort you out. However, it was to be rough justice as first to react was Steve Ramsay, slotting home swiftly before dancing and laughing round Lumley as though he were bullying a maypole.

In the end this was sufficient a cushion for us to be relatively untroubled by the poor performance during the second half. Another home win against Truro on Friday would certainly put Lee Bradbury in contention as Conference South manager of the month. Although given the apparent curse of said bauble, I’m quite happy for us to be satisfied with a job well done by a gaffer who has won us over relatively quickly after our suspicious minds greeted his appointment with extreme caution, and leave the awards for needier managers.

Havant & Waterlooville 2 Bath City 1

05mar13
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 406

Last time I reported from Westleigh Park, it was to sketch out a poor first half performance being leapfrogged by a spirited second half fight back. Ten days later, we are back here at the Theatre of Dreams and, well, I have much the same report, only this time with additional WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!

As against Salisbury, we started off looking lively for all of five minutes before reverting back to the joys of not being able to put anything like some threatening business together. Bath sat on us like a fat sixth former trying to extract lunch money from a scrawny, spectacled first-year. We pretty much handed over the cash without much of a struggle as it went, as Alex Grant’s rare error allowed Bath to calmly pick our pocket in the ninth minute.



After this, both sides drifted across the remainder of the first half like a drowsy Douglas Bader going solo in a pedalo. After the relative successes of 2-2 draws at home to Salisbury, and then away to Eastleigh, plus a clinical 3-0 win over Sutton here on the Saturday just past, this was not the puffed-chest strut of a confident side. Passes were not coming off, and attempts on goal were hit a little too heavy and lacking in guile.

Come the second half though and the transformation could not have been more pronounced, with the combined bustle of so many of our headline turns, and even some less celebrated ones, building a sufficient head of steam to have us shrieking like an unwatched hob kettle.

So many of our young squad were stepping up to the plate in the second half that the plate was in danger of snapping under them. With Chris Arthur hurtling down the left like a ball-seeking missile; Christian Nanetti skipping through legs like a gamboling gnu; Perry Ryan putting himself about like a prostitute’s calling card; and Sahr Kabba biting ankles like a terrier with an elastic band freshly clasped around his gonads, there was a freshness there, a spirit, which means we are not nearly as afraid of relegation as we were last season, despite the mathematics showing that there is still work to do.

Now plenty of stuff was happening and we fashioned an equaliser in the 56th minute, Sahr Kabba dribbling like a cracked sink before offloading to Ollie Palmer, who turned and curved the ball expertly into the bottom corner. Further chances fell to Sahr, Ollie and Dan Strugnell before the 71st minute when the comeback was completed. Skipper Ed Harris doesn’t score many goals but was in the right place to turn home an Eddie Hutchinson lay off from close range.

We didn’t stop there either, five minutes later Christian Nanetti hit a shot that was palmed skywards by keeper Jason Mellor, the back spin taking it seemingly inevitably goalwards, only for Dan Ball to get back first to boink the ball away for a corner. Then with two minutes to go sub Steve Ramsay gave us a reminder of what he can offer from midfield, rasping a shot from thirty yards that Mellor had to palmed wide. Only trouble with Stevie is that these reminders come round as infrequently as Father flippin' Christmas.

The final whistle was welcome, we’re not yet so confident in our chaps that we don’t like a bit of final whistle to calm the assault on our fingernails. However, the more wins we can pick up before our murder run-in in April the better. We are eight points clear of the relegation places and amongst a big group of fellow battlers. Plenty more stories to tell, but I’m much preferring this position to the 18th we were languishing in this time last year. Is that Brian Wilson playing a theremin I can hear? Whether tis or not, I’m definitely picking up good vibrations of some sort.

Havant & Waterlooville 2 Salisbury City 2

23feb13
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 837

Just when you think the lacklustre gremlins of the bad old days have returned to deaden legs and slacken shoulders, a fire catches deep in the belly and the heart is rescued before it too can be brought low. That’s my overwrought one line summary of this tough, eventually well-earned point at home to Salisbury City who are currently swashbuckling away with Welling United at the top to see who will end up as champions.

Last weekend we were away at Welling and they looked every bit as professional and organised as you need to be to escape this league, with their player-manager Jamie Day, once a candidate for our recently vacant managerial seat, leading by example with a superb midfield performance. We lost 1-0, but took great heart from the fact we had played well, just been pipped by the better side.



See, this is the difference, not that long ago, we’d have lost matches like that 1-0 but never really looked in it or interested, hence the exasperation that often sighed from the terraces, but we’re not unrealistic in our expectations, we are not in the position to challenge right now, so we will get results like this. It’s how we hold ourselves in the face of this that is the key.

So, given the recent solid away performances at Farnborough, Welling and Chelmsford, two points taken against good sides with play-offs or direct promotion on their minds, not to mention our two previous home games garnering six points and nine goals, we went into this game against high-flying Salisbury with no fear, and even a tickle of excitement that we might overturn a long standing run of not winning against the sides at the top.

However, despite an opening ten of bustle and initiative, we were fortunate to go into the half-time break without being a goal behind, Clark Masters diving like a bodyguard trying to stomach an assassin’s bullet at one point to paw a shot against the post; one of two Salisbury efforts that hit the woodwork in the first period.

The deadlock was soon broken after the second half kicked off though, as Salisbury took a lead within three minutes, as Dan Fitchett punished a slackness and fired home. Two minutes after that Clark Masters was again required to make like Stretch Armstrong and push a shot away from danger.

Fitchett certainly had his eye in as on the hour he scored again; a superb strike from the edge of the box into the top corner. Two goals behind and all three substitutions having been made, it might have felt like ‘game over’ given Salisbury’s position in the table. Thankfully from that point forward, them Hawks put together the kind of spirited display that we had forgotten had existed until very recently.

Perry Ryan, brought on as a sub for the injured Sahr Kabba in the first half, is by no means a regular in the starting line up these days, and certainly not a man oft amongst the goals. The only way I’d imagine he’d ever be described as a consistent scorer was if he was, week-in-week-out, the only male attendee at his local Grab-a-Granny night. Yet, we have scored three goals this week and he’s bagged them all.

Firstly, within two minutes of Fitchett’s second, our Peregrin was able to follow up when Ollie Palmer headed the ball onto Willem Puddy’s fingertips and the ball spun like a model globe towards goal. Perry, noticing defenders were shaping up to clear, threw himself forward and gave it the Glasgow kiss. Galvanised, our players gathered the ball from the net and sprinted back to the centre circle.

Until this week, Christian Nanetti was pretty much guaranteed a start, but this was mostly it seemed due to goodwill extending over from his extraordinary spell of form at the end of last season. This year, we’ve not seen much of that player, possibly largely in recent weeks due to gloopy pitches meaning his brand of jinksy behaviour tends to grind to a halt in the soggy brown jam.

However, appearing from the bench on a steadier surface seemed to do the trick for Christian. As soon as he appeared, he was that electrifying imp once more, and it was his ability to tangle defender’s legs like an elaborate bow of ribbon on an oversized birthday gift that led to our second goal after 70 minutes. Taking on the retreating defence, he made his way to the by-line, before weighting a cross beautifully, the ball gliding like a dandelion seed on a light summer breeze, to the back post where Perry had once again bombed forward like a loose caboose and was happily in place to head the ball goalwards. Whether he meant it or not, the header was just as perfectly weighted as Christian’s cross, the ball looping over Puddy’s arms and underneath the bar.

The momentum was all with us but seven minutes later, the breath was taken both from the game and the lungs of all those behind Puddy’s goal. Jumping to collect a cross, he raised his knees to the same point at which Scott Jones’ face was fast arriving. With a sickening thud, Scott thumped unconscious to the surface, Westleigh Park falling into a tense, concerned silence save for a few angry shouts in Puddy’s direction. Eventually strapped to a stretcher, he was taken straight to the car-park and a waiting ambulance. He’s apparently okay, but it was a nasty one.

As a result of all this, eleven minutes of injury time, in addition to the twelve remaining, were left to play with us now down to ten men, having used up all our subs, of which Scott had been one. After witnessing such a comeback and such a nasty collision, it would have been demoralising to lose from there, but chances came at both ends and the irrepressible Perry was on hand at the other end to prevent Fitchett claiming a hat-trick. Our boy Pezza seems a player transformed from those uninspiring opening weeks under Stuart Ritchie’s command.

Upon the final whistle, there were exhalations of relief and shouts of delight. This was hard work paying off and although we are just one place above the relegation spots, I think we’ve seen enough fight in this current team to ensure we can go into the run-in confident that a drop back to the Southern League will be avoided

Havant & Waterlooville 4 Basingstoke Town 1

02feb13
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 635

I’ve been feeling something after the last two Hawk home games. It’s not a new feeling as such, but one that’s become unfamiliar. Like greeting a cousin at the airport who you’ve not seen since they were an eight-year-old Star Wars obsessive but who now has a beard, dreadlocks and a small hookah pipe poking out the back of their rucksack. It took a while but I worked out what the feeling was: pleasure; a sense of satisfaction, of money well spent. Greetings, old friend. Did you enjoy your years bivouacking in Phuket?

The weather and postponements have been frustrating, and we’ve as many defeats this year so far as wins, but we are only a short way into this project and I had genuinely thought I might never feel this way again – you know, feeling like I’m enjoying watching my club play football, and the sense that there might be more to come, rather than the sense of lumbering futility that has wafted it’s guff around Westleigh Park in recent years, reminding us that as our ‘true selves’ would almost certainly be back to being hapless the following week.



While it is true to say that Basingstoke didn’t bring a lot to fear, having one of the worst away records in the division save Truro and Eastleigh, the division remains a hive mind of relegation battlers, most of us buzzing away in the six-point gap between 8th and 21st, most teams seem to be on a level-playing field at kick-off.

Speaking of level playing fields, it was certainly the case that our pitch was in better shape than Dorchester’s last week, but was still as moist as the chin of a hippo chewing a bag of oranges. Thus a lot of our early long balls, as we descended from atop our slope, merely skidded into the advertising. However, most of the attacking vim was coming from us and eventually it paid off after 17 minutes when Sahr Kabba was able to turn and fire off a shot from just outside the six yard box, despite the sticky mess beneath his feet, and beat Basingstoke’s veteran keeper Ashley Bayes.

Bayes, full of smiles and Brylcreem, looking like Tintin’s years on the Western Front, certainly did not deserve the eventual result in this game, making one astonishing save in the second half in particular, clawing over from beneath the bar. In part he was let down by the defence in front of him, part of that defence being Jay Gasson, once of our parish.

Good old Gas, once a Hawk, always a Hawk we like to think, and he seemed to prove this when, three minutes after Sahr’s opener, as an Ollie Palmer cross trickled gently towards Bayes’ untroubled arms, Jay inexplicably dangled out a leg like a dog’s tongue lolling out of a car window. The ball, almost embarrassed on Jay’s behalf, trickled crimson-cheeked between Bayes and the post. Still, for all his humiliation, Jay at least got his name chanted by his old friends on the Hawk terraces. I expect he greatly appreciated it. You may see it listed as an Ollie Palmer goal in some newspapers but let me tell you, he’s only got a slightly greater claim to it than I have.

Seven minutes later, a wobble occurred when Shaun McAuley capitalised on some lax defending to fire solidly past Clark Masters. Happily however, a two goal margin was re-established just after the half hour, as both Sahr Kabba and Chris Arthur barrelled down upon the retreating defenders like disturbed rocks down a mountainside. Sahr kept his cool and waited, before unloading to Chris who is not often to be found in the opposition box, unless crossing from the by-line, but finished with the aplomb of a seasoned striker.

Clearly Chris has anticipated this rare occurrence though because a celebration had been prepared, channelling the character of Rex Kramer in Airplane!, although exchanging dark glasses for football kit. As he ran off in giddy delight, Chris peeled off his #11 shirt, to reveal a smaller version of the exact same shirt underneath; a youth’s #11 H&W shirt which clung to Chris’ physique like lycra leggings to a rugby player's thigh at an 80’s-theme fancy dress night. The slight popping sound we could hear at his point was the ref’s brain exploding as he considered whether or not this was a bookable offence. In the end he decided it was not.

Chris Arthur, pictured yesterday

Three-one at half time and very comfortable. Of course it could not continue like this and the second half was long and tense as Basingstoke pressed. However, we defended stoutly with Clark Masters’ always well aware of where his sticks were. When charging out to attackers, he has the timing of a Test-class opener calmly facing down a barrage of toe-breaking yorkers.

Whilst never totally relaxed, as the game wore on, our confidence in our defending grew although even when the board indicating four minutes of injury time went up, there was still a sense of “oh, I hope we don’t screw it up here” floating about. Still, what makes football exciting is this jeopardy, and, happy as we were that this was the case, all that dissolved in the 91st minute, as substitute Scott Jones got hold of Steve Ramsay’s cross-field ball, taking it forward and firing it into the six yard box where Sahr Kabba, increasingly the ‘sniff-sniff-what’s-that-I-smell?-a-chance?-BOOF!-GOAL!’ player we thought we’d signed, was in the right place to turn the ball through Ashley Bayes’ collapsing flail. 4-1. The end.

Again, not to get carried away but the differences between 2012 and 2013 are already marked. It took us til March 23rd to score eleven goals at home last year, and 10th April to secure two home wins. Of course, the problem we may have is we are currently juggling a number of loanees and there may come a point where we dry up on that front, so I’m trying my best not to get myself at it, as we are still capable of a shocker, no doubt about that.

However I just want it on record that in January and February of 2013, we put in two home showings that whilst not totally dominant, weathered the oppositional storms with solid performances in defence and midfield (Dan Strugnell, Ed Harris and Eddie Hutchinson getting most of the cap-doffing here) before putting the game to bed. What’s more, they were performances we could take pride in.

The ‘Welcome Back’ balloon I brought with me to this reunion with enjoyment is pumped with helium and tied tightly to my wrist. I can only hope that it still looks in such good condition after the four away games in nine days that await us, beginning next Saturday at Farnborough.

Dorchester Town 0 Havant & Waterlooville 0

26jan13

Conference South

Avenue Stadium, Dorchester

att. 455

We’ve not had much luck with the weather of late, experiencing more postponements than Frank Sinatra’s retirement do. Since my last despatch of three weeks past, we have only managed a single further game, a midweek away defeat to Tonbridge Angels. Thus I turned up after this brief winter break still not entirely sure if we’re any good or not.

Five goals last time out, but when the Hawks come a-calling, you’re never quite sure who’s ringing the doorbell – will it be some responsible types returning your lost wallet and reaffirming your faith in the human race, or will you open the door to find a brown paper shopping bag both ablaze and filled with dog logs, as a gaggle of guttersnipes scatter like dropped marbles?

Fair play to Dorchester for getting the game on today following an overnight downpour, not to mention the thawing of the snow that has put paid to many a fixture around the country recently. We now only too well how hard it is to combat the elements, with a crowd of our own hardcore fans (heroes all) turning out at Westleigh Park regularly armed with wellies and shovels, only for referees to decree that a square of the pitch, usually equivalent to the floor space of a small shed, is too boggy for the game to be safely played.

Whatever was thrown upon it from the skies, the game was able to go ahead here, safely, but not necessarily surely, as the bogginess of it meant nothing resembling a flowing move was really possible for either side. Christian Nanetti trying his usual tricks on a surface that looked like a braille Bible was never really going to work, while up front Ollie Palmer did not look his usual dynamic self. However, Chris Arthur’s work bombing down the left flank was certainly worthy of note, while Eddie Hutchinson energetically stomped around the midfield like a man frantically shuttling buckets of water to a number of small, concurrent fires.  

Also catching the attention were our two latest loanees. Sadly, as soon as the ink dried on the extension to left back Dan Butler’s loan, a signature which was greeted with great joy and fanfare, Portsmouth enacted their twenty-four-hour recall clause, news which was met with heavy sighs and scratchy violin solos. The transfer window in the Football League had recently opened causing half the Pompey squad to fall out of it. As such Dan, despite his bumfluffed chin and unscuffed satchel, was required to mix it with the big boys and shore up their depleted regiment. Great for him really, but disappointing for us as we had grown rather attached.

However no sooner had we said goodbye to one young Pompey left back, than we said hello to another, Alex Grant arriving by way of apology. Furthermore, midfielder Jesse Kewley-Graham, who has recently made appearances on the team sheet at Wycombe Wanderers as well as on a bronze plaque hanging outside a firm of accountants, has also signed up for a five week stint. With not much money to go around, Lee Bradbury is working the loans system, and has done it pretty well, with both lads impressing here despite the leg-sapping, football-limiting nature of the pitch. It was sticky out there, wood-flooring-in-seedy-back-street-club sticky. Never an easy environment for a young man out to impress; peeling yer soles off the surface with every step.

As such the game descended into a kind of lottery, with the ball rarely falling exactly where you’d want it; getting stuck beneath feet like the fluff from a new pair of sport socks. Both sides had chances, and we spent a great deal of time in and around their penalty area in the second half, but players who probably shouldn’t be given too long to consider their options were being given too long to consider their options. Sahr Kabba, Ollie Palmer and Christian Nanetti were all guilty of thinking this surface was capable of withstanding oh-just-one-more-touch-should-do-it style dithering.

Nil-all was a fair result all told, and it was good to get a game on, but this certainly wasn’t one for the purist. Ninety minutes later and it still isn’t easy to pinpoint exactly where we’re at. A run of four further tough away games awaits in the next few weeks, weather permitting, so it’d be nice to think we’d be going into those at top form and confidence. Next weekend’s home game against Basingstoke represents a good opportunity to firm up on both fronts.

Havant & Waterlooville 5 AFC Hornchurch 2

05jan13
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 641

In terms of competitiveness, you can’t argue with the Conference South this year. Not in terms of who’s going to win the title and go up, of course. That’s probably between Salisbury, Welling and maybe Dover. WHO ! CARES! What is exciting is that all important race for seventh place. Yeah, gets the pulse racing just thinking about it, eh?

As I type this out, only seven points separate Farnborough, currently holders of the 7th place yellow jersey, and Eastleigh in 21st place. That’s everybody’s-pre-season-tips-for-the-title Eastleigh. And just to be clear, that’s them in 21st place, bottom but for basket-case Truro and their points-deducted as-good-as-relegated malaise. We’d be unwise to crow about this too much though as there might be eight teams between us and them in the table but only three points. If it’s like this come late March, this league will be squeakier than a family of mice in a gymnasium wearing their Christmas brogues.

So, even though we’re a long way from the finished article under Lee Bradbury, and those three points from being the de facto bottom position continues to clang alarms bells, there has been considerable improvement. Our squad is being streamlined and we’re closer to understanding what our most effective XI is.



Sadly as part of clearout, we’ve lost Tony Taggart, hero of our first big FA Cup scalping at Notts County. Returning in the summer of 2012 after four years away, Taggs’ legacy was never tainted during our early season slump, displaying an exemplary attitude when others around him were not showing the same courtesy to the paying customer. He goes to Hampton & Richmond Borough due to work and travel issues, and Ryan Moss has followed him there. Mossy’s also taken his banjo with him, but the cows of south west London were reported as saying they didn’t feel this was any cause for alarm.

Also, exiting have been Sam Page to Staines, keeper Matt Pegler is currently spending some game time with Walton Casuals and loanee Stefan Hamilton-Forbes has to the manor returned. However coming in through the door have been further loanees Dan Butler who, to our great delight, has had his loan extended until the end of the season by Portsmouth, while Dan Strugnell is being granted another month to enjoy our hospitality by AFC Bournemouth. In addition Harvey ‘Lemonade’ Whyte has been recalled from his loan spell at Bognor. The deck is being shuffled, fancy croupier style.

However, we continue to experience ups and downs, our hefty defeat in the Trophy at Grimsby being followed by an away win at a wind and rain swept Eastbourne on Boxing Day, but then a 3-2 home defeat to the same opposition on New Year’s Day. Trailing 0-3 with a couple of minutes remaining, a couple of late goals by Sahr Kabba and Dan Strugnell was, in the context of that fixture, ultimately futile.

Clearly however, we brought some of that momentum into this game against AFC Hornchurch, that and the concept of a late doors goal rush. Winning a number of free-kicks early on, the pressure eventually told after quarter of an hour, with Chris Arthur’s kick being met by Dan Strugnell’s head on the edge of the penalty area. It was a superb bit of work, the ball’s trajectory being as balletic as a balançoire at the barre, curving like the earth to loop between the lackadaisical efforts of keeper Joe Woolley and the woodwork.



A minute later Christian Nanetti broke into the box and got busy with the fizzy, his shot sadly steaming over the bar. Christian was buzzing about all game, albeit well handled by Alex Bentley who has always had good games against us, and often from within poor teams, as was the case here. Another hassling presence was Sahr Kabba who, after trouble with injuries, is starting to show us what made Weston-super-Mare so aggrieved to lose him. This is in terms of his work-rate, his hassling of opposition defenders, and also in front of the onion, striking all of his three league goals this season in the last four games.

On the 28th minute came that third Kabba goal. Being put through by the red-hot Chris Arthur, Sahr took on Woolley and rounded him easily, but his shot was badly scuffed. Thankfully there on the line to welcome it was covering defender Elliot Styles. Now, John Arlott once described a Clive Lloyd stroke as being that “of a man knocking a thistle top off with a walking stick”. Styles attempted clearance reminded me of the same man, but drunker, and instead of a thistle, it was a tipsy swat at a fly with his right leg; the fly actually turning out to be a speck of dust on the man’s spectacles. As his foot hung out limply following the mistimed swing, the ball bobbled on through and into the net. The subsequent reaction behind the goal was part cheer and part chortle.

This wasn’t it for the half either, Ollie Palmer rounding Woolley in the same direction as Sahr just before half-time, hitting a more powerful shot with less leg to beat but from a much tighter angle. A good finish, in short.

It’s not often we take a lead into half-time, let alone a three goal one. Indeed, I’m told that in 2012 we only won three Saturday home games. Clearly our new year’s resolution is to do more of it, and we’ve started well. Not without a wobble though. The match was coasting along fairly serenely until a burst of four goals in the final ten minutes.

Midway through the second period we made a double substitution, conserving legs for games to come, with Steve Ramsey replacing Eddie Hutchinson and Harv Whyte’s Lemonade coming on for Chris Arthur. Harvey looked a lot stronger for his time away with Bognor, however we looked a lot weaker in midfield overall. When Hutch first arrived at our club, we were promised a strong presence in the middle and I remember him opening up his breaker’s yard in the centre circle in a game against Salisbury and thought him to be excellent. Today was the best performance I’ve seen from him since then, and we really noticed his absence after the substitution, especially given he had been replaced by a chap whose season has been all about looking absent, despite actually being there. Steve Ramsey’s cold-sweat-nightmare of a campaign continues, I’m sad to report. Ranking eighth in our all-time appearance makers, one retains a soft spot for him but if any player needed a change of scene to rejuvenate them, it is him.

With Hornchurch afforded more space to create, Lewis Smith struck home via Ed Harris, and we are not yet so confident that we could dismiss it as mere consolation. However, rather than be rocked, our chaps responded within two minutes, re-establishing a three goal cushion, Ollie Palmer flicking home with some assistance from a defensive leg.

Hornchurch, disappointed that their efforts had been so quickly cancelled out, just as rapidly reduced the deficit once more, making it 4-2 virtually straight from the kick off as our defensive unit went to sleep at the same time, like a box of puppies weary from over-excitement; Wayne Gray being as unmarked as a mint condition collectable to head home Hornchurch’s second.

Not that it was overly nervy, Hornchurch were being flattered by this scoreline considering what they had put into the fixture, and our dominance was underlined by a fifth goal for us and a third for Ollie Palmer in the final minute. Christian Nanetti’s free kick speared through the defensive wall, but was saved low at the near post, only for the prowling Ollie to follow up. He is now the top scorer in our league and, like James Taylor and Rocky Baptiste before him, is a re-assuring presence up front for us; knows where the goal is, calm with his finishing, and can sniff out opportunities with an almost canine-like sense of smell.

So we climb five places, not that that means too much given the spread of teams on a similar amount of points, many of whom have not played as many games as us. Thus the job is far from over, but this game shows what can be done if we press hard, score first and don't waste the opportunities we create. Can only be good for the confidence.

At this level, cutting out those silly mistakes early on can make all the difference, and with the greater discipline that is clearly being instilled in the side by the management team, there’s every reason to feel positive about what happens next. With four league fixtures in the next fortnight, this would be an ideal time to put a run together. To pull out of this pack sooner rather than later would be the ideal.

Previously, on DHVDW
06oct12: AFC Hornchurch 2 H&W 2

Grimsby Town 4 Havant & Waterlooville 0

15dec12
FA Trophy 2nd Round
Blundell Park, Cleethorpes
att. 1,215

Exit Cleethorpes station and you are immediately presented with a big sign. On it a cartoon bear dressed in a sailor’s outfit that only comes down to his midriff, his face wearing the look of a drowsy sex offender, points like Lord Kitchener and says “Hi Kids – welcome to Fantasy World”. Next to him this ‘Fantasy World’s big logo has had chunks taken out of it where errant hoodlums have no doubt welted stones at it.

This can be seen as indicative of many things. First and foremost, Fantasy World being there. That’s being rather literal though, what else does it tell us? Well, Broken Britain perhaps, throwing stones at an insignia with a seafaring bear on it suggests a troubled mind, even if that bear does look like it has to sign a register of some kind every week.

It also betrays the decline of the British seaside town. Where once they thrived, now they cannot compete with cheap foreign jaunts and have given up trying; a helter skelter gathering dust next to a rusting, bent set of fairground train tracks on the beach being another symbol of lost enthusiasm.



This sense of decay and things needing repair also mirrors the fortunes of the local football club, Grimsby Town plying their trade not only in Cleethorpes but in the Conference, and merely ten years since they were doing so in what is now the Championship. The collapse of ITV Digital in 2002 was the start of the rot and their ninety-nine year stint in the Football League, which included three years in the top flight in the inter-war years, came to an end in 2010.

Grimsby stills feels like a League club, and one can only empathise with what their supporters have gone through in the last decade. The elder members of the Mariners’ support will be well schooled in a yo-yo existence but this Conference stint remains a nadir unless you count their failure to be re-elected exactly a century before their recent return to non-League. That time though they only spent a year in the Midland League before promotion back, however they are now in their third season at this level, with rising levels of desperation to get back to what they no doubt consider their rightful place in the 92.



They are certainly going the right way about it this season though, getting over a bad first fortnight (after which they were 17th) to lead the Conference Premier going into this fixture. Indeed, on forums and such like, it was pretty clear that for many of their supporters, this was an irritating distraction rather than a game to be savoured.

It was almost as if some of their fans were unable to acknowledge the FA Trophy as being an actual ‘thing’, like a genocidal maniac refusing to recognise the jurisdiction of a war crimes tribunal. One fan on the Fishy Forum went so far as to remark that “I hope we win as I do every game we play, but this trophy just rubs our temporary tinpotery even more in my face”. Just over a week before Christmas, the crowd of 1,215 was between a quarter and a third of their regular attendance. We could only hope that their team were also taking the competition with so little seriousness that their appearance in it could only be considered as a kind of footballing satire.



However, having made hard work of dismissing with Buxton after a replay in the previous round, that was probably asking an awful lot. It also appeared they weren’t expecting any away fans to turn up, with the turnstiles and bar in our area still closed forty-five minutes prior to kick-off. A special request was made and once the shutters snapped up, it appeared we were the first set of supporters to make this request since the early 70’s.

A rag tag collection of pews and chairs seemingly collected from car boot sales, a Masonic committee room and a backstreet porn cinema surrounded a table, and floral cloth, preserved in aspic from a Charles and Diana wedding street party. The telly also appeared to have been stolen from an allotment shed.



However, for all my remarks gently poking fun at a town and team that has seen better days, one should say that the welcome we received from the Grimsby support and staff was nothing less than cheery – and Blundell Park, despite being all-seater (in theory), is a decent old-school football experience. Also if you want to talk about decline, let’s talk about Havant & Waterlooville as a giant-killing side.

We’ve been fairly lucky over the years, with the blood of several scalpings still on our hands – York, Notts County, Swansea, Crawley (twice), Forest Green Rovers, Histon. Indeed, less than two weeks ago we removed Conference Premier Braintree from this competition to set up this tie, but I can’t view that as a giant-killing, having played Braintree many times in the Conference South over the years (most notably in the play-off semi-finals in 2007) and I imagine it won’t be long before we see them again.

One just gets the feeling that this is the sort of thing we should try to get used to, i.e. being a middling Conference South side that, when placed in society with clubs of a higher standard, will be given a working over. We have quite a young side with Jake Newton at 28 being the granddad of the team, and it showed here, with Grimsby’s concise, unfussy, bish-bash-bosh-job-done style effectively winning the game for them by the 9th minute.



With only two minutes on the clock, Shaun Pearson rose highest to meet a free kick with a header as firm as stale sourdough (see above). Seven minutes later, it was virtually the same, only with Andy Cook providing the forehead as Grimsby continued to dominate us in such a way as to suggest we were being given the cat-o-nine-tails whilst chained face down to a torture rack.

Chance after chance flowed like a steep weir for the home side, with saves and posts coming to our rescue. Rather than harrying and eager we looked overawed, like raffle winners playing a full 90 in a charity friendly against a team containing ten Manchester United players and a loose Wildebeest.

We held out for another twenty-five minutes before another goal came but again it was a closer range header, with the marking slack, which led to it; Greg Pearson being the man to flick it past Clark Masters.



What was particularly cruel was that being a segregated game, something we’re not used to in the Conference South, was that we had to watch these three goals from painfully close range, with the hook of The Fratelli’s Chelsea Dagger being used as a celebratory sting each time. Clearly the PA man doesn’t trust the home fans to make enough atmosphere for themselves on scoring.

If this wasn’t all depressing enough, come the half time respite, the tannoy was then used to play out Mistletoe & fackin’ Wine. Not that I can say much about it, I believe I own an original 7” copy of it, for reasons that escape me.



In the second half, Grimsby were able to go about their business without much fuss until a rush of blood to the head caused Joe Colbeck to lunge in on our loanee Dan Butler and earn himself a second yellow (when a straight red might have been more appropriate). Now then, we thought, our 11 against their 10, that should even it up. So, naturally, they scored their fourth within a minute of this, Andy Cook beating Ed Harris and powering a handsome drive into the far corner.

Our best chance, well our only chance really, came early in the second half. Ollie Palmer receiving a Dan Butler cross in so much space he could have spent a couple of minutes lining up a trick shot rather than heading the ball softly and directly into keeper James McKeown’s gloves.

For the final quarter of an hour and our hopes as sunken as the Belgrano, we treated it like a party anyway, pretending we’d scored, singing all the abuse towards ourselves a less kindly group of home fans might have directed towards us (“We’ll never play here again”, “If you’re not going to Wembley, clap your hands” etc.) and requesting that various people in the Grimsby employ do Gangnam Style. The keeper, stewards and wandering reserves offering nought, but a small ballboy shyly offering crossed and bouncing wrists to our great delight.



So, yeah, a comprehensive taking apart by a good Grimsby side took place here. No shame in that per se, but the game raising you might expect in these situations never really came. At least now we can concentrate blah blah blah on climbing the table blah blah blah, and that does need concentrating on. Shoots of recovery are there (a 3-1 home victory over Staines last week settling a few nerves), but we still need to be putting a run together.

Finally, once again, for all we might cast Cleethorpes, Grimsby and, well, Barnacle Bear as things on a low ebb, I would not be surprised if the good people of this part of North East Lincolnshire have a League club to watch again come next August. I wish them all the very best in that endeavour.

Road To Wembley
F: Grimsby Town 1 Wrexham 1 (1-4 pens) [att. 35,266]
SF2: Dartford 0 Grimsby Town 0 [att. 2,153]
SF1: Grimsby Town 3 Dartford 0 [att. 3,573]
QF: Grimsby Town 3 Luton Town 0 [att. 2,791]
3R: Welling United 1 Grimsby Town 2 [att. 1,037]
2R: Grimsby Town 4 Havant & Waterlooville 0
1R: Braintree Town 1 Havant & Waterlooville 2 [att. 192]
1RR: Buxton 0 Grimsby Town 1 [att. 444]
1R: Grimsby Town 0 Buxton 0 [att. 1,389]
3QR: Bognor Regis Town 1 Havant & Waterlooville 4