Liverpool 5 Havant & Waterlooville 2

26jan08
FA Cup 4th Round
Anfield, Liverpool
att. 42,566

Only 41, 989 more than our last home league game then.

About an hour and a half before kick-off, whilst in the Flat Iron pub a short walk down from the Anfield Road away end, one of my regular associates, Chris, suggested that he didn’t feel any different than prior to any normal big-day-out away game; before an Eastbourne; a Lewes; a Bath City or such. In the pub, with chums, looking forward to the game – always fantastic. After all, you’ve never lost at this point of any Saturday. I felt the same, the difference being that I don’t usually spend nine whole days before going to, I dunno, Sutton, feeling at once anxious, giddy and consumed by belly fizz.

This is not to say that we did not appreciate the enormity of the occasion, but we’re tossing out these BIGGEST! GAME! EVER!’s like mints at a Halitosis Anonymous blue-cheese and cigars away-day at the minute; we barely get a chance to allow one to sink in, before another comes along. Just a week and a half to enjoy beating, quite comfortably I might add, the side currently romping away at the top of League One? It’s not bloody good enough I tells ya! Who might I complain to?

The walk from the Flat Iron made all the difference. Suddenly I’m happening upon people I haven’t seen in over a decade, since my college days; upon a friend who lives in Blackpool, here with his sister and fiancé who have come up from Havant for the day. Joke as we regulars might about daytrippers and Johnny-Come-Latelys, but when it comes down to it, I am delighted to see so many people excited about, and indeed present at, a Havant & Waterlooville game.

A great many will not have been to a game before, and of those, a fair majority will probably never do so again, but it certainly can’t hurt to have 6,000 people taking an interest. Up until a month ago, people asking who I supported would usually follow my answer with an incredulous exclamation. Usually ‘Who?’ sometimes ‘where?’, and once or twice ‘Why?’ Of course, given our double-teamed moniker, the clever-clever retort would be ‘Which?’ However, l reckon I’ll be waiting a long time on that one, or indeed to hear again any of the others as unless I talk to someone that’s been living beneath a rock that’s underneath a big sheet of thick tarpaulin, below an ever bigger rock, I reckon they’ll have a fair idea. “Ah yes, the famous Havant ‘Looville – you were going to Wem-ber-lee, is that right?”. Yes. Yes it is.

Once inside the ground, and we had exchanged hellos, through wide eyes and toddler-at-Christmas smiles, with those that had made their way up on the long convoy of coaches, it was time to ascend the steps and breathe in the ground for the first time. Needless to say, I had to slap the overhang on the way through, no ‘This Is Anfield’ sign up there admittedly, but it had to be done. It’s a rite of passage that only really works at this ground, it’s not like I’ve made the effort to, I don’t know, sprinkle holy water on the terraces at Merthyr Tydfil, or lick a turnstile at Hayes.

Once inside, it hits you like a cloud of glitter settling over a mountain top. This is indeed Anfield, one of the most iconic football grounds in the world, and my team’s playing in it. Supporters of Premier League teams might snort, but we ply our trade five Liverpudlian relegations below all this caper and we will play here once and once only. I think it’s fair to say we’ve used up our FA Cup vouchers this season, the now barren ration book meaning that, next year, we can look forward only to losing to Slade Green in the pissing rain.

So, trust me, we’ve made the most of this. I’ve bought so much news print in the last month or so that if you pulped it, you could make a papier mâché cathedral at a scale of 1:1. Every day there’s been something new somewhere. It’s not only been our moment in the sun, it’s been our moment in the Guardian, the News of the World and the Times as well. We also made the cover of the Daily Sport. A long think-piece entitled something like ‘Stunna says if Havant win, she’ll get in the team bath with ‘em’. Whether this, or The Sun’s ‘H&W keeper to get Mercedes if he keeps a clean sheet’ effort, was the greater incentive, we will never know. Cos we lost.

Or did we? I’ve seen the H&’Dub concede five goals on one or two occasions before, but never spent the next day jumping around the living room shaking my fists and whooping at the fresh memory of it. Mind you, we’ve never played a starting XI packed solid with international star names. You have to doff your titfer to Rafa (even if Liverpool fans are starting to turn, or at least if the taxi drivers we exit-polled are anything to go by), he said he wouldn’t take us lightly, and didn’t, fielding the likes of Crouch, Mascherano, Riise, Hyypia, Finnan, Benayoun and Pennant from the get-go.

With our famous fellas on the field, it was only a matter of time before we put their team full of bin men to the sword. Or something. Actually, before the game, all the talk was of ‘how many Liverpool goals would it take to ruin our day’, conversations mostly started by me I might add. Humiliation was a bigger possibility than ever. I feared it at York, Notts County and Swansea, hoping that we might get away with a light 3-1 defeat and a good day out, but never to the point of dreading double figures. I mentioned before that I’ve approached each game with a mild pessimism, but never before with the kind of blind panic that requires two sharp slaps to the chops and an iron bucket put over my head.

This wasn’t helped by the fact that we were without both regular fullbacks through suspension, Brett Poate for his two-footed tackle at Swansea and Justin Gregory for accumulated bookings. We had, during the course of the previous week, brought our away game at Thurrock forward by six days so that Justin’s one match ban could be cleared and he would be able to play at Anfield. However, as we widely publicised this rule-bending strategy, the FA enforced the Anfield ban. Thus Justin briefly became a cause célèbre, fans across Britain protesting the decision, and even Alan ‘We am the Daily Mail’ Brazil on Talk Sport allowing his festering head to go so scarlet with indignation, it was causing cars to screech to a halt five streets away.

As it was, any attempts to overturn the decision became immaterial by the fact that Thurrock’s floodlights went out 24 minutes in. This was a great shame in itself as we were putting in the best away league performance for some time, and leading 1-0. So, we were without two regular defenders, still-keen-to-leave-for-Eastleigh Tom Jordan forced to start, and Phil ‘PolyPhiller’ Warner shunted to left-back after playing on the right and in the centre in previous games, not to mention having only started about five games all season. Just the kind of stability you need when faced with Liverpool’s reasonably well-oiled attacking machine. They did put eight past Besiktas after all.



As such, it genuinely was a shock when big Richie Pacquette headed us into an 8th minute lead. Not really in the guide book this, so we were rolling about everywhere in trying to deal with it. In the Sky Soccer Saturday studio (see above), Matthew Le Tissier almost fell out of his seat, partly through delighted disbelief and partly in trying to poke Phil Thompson in the ribs, while several texts came almost at once, forcing my phone into an elongated buzz and all beginning with minor variations on a ‘FUCKING HELL!!!!’ theme.

After, 6,000 grazed chins were slotted back into place, the singing ante was upped. By placing most of the regulars together, we had hoped to be able to impart our lyrical wisdom to the new fans, but 200 regular singers trying to marshal 5,800 proved to be quite trying, and using the folk word-of-mouth tradition was never going to work in trying to teach the lyrics to ‘Under the Moon of Love’. Next time, we’ll produce a folio on finest calfskin parchment. Still, “we are the Hawks” kept it nice and simple, while some people were keen to play the irony card with a gigantic collective-raised-eyebrow “Who are ya?”

For virtually twenty minutes we held that lead, with the now injury-free Neil Sharp and Tom Jordan just fantastic. Indeed, despite all the bad blood that has flowed between the club and Tom, I will now find it hard to hold too much of a grudge against him when he, almost certainly, completes his protracted move. Without injuries and suspensions, he'd have been sat in the stand for nigh on three months now, but having to help out, he has been utterly professional and putting in the sort of performances you might expect from someone who’s after a new contract with his current club, not someone else’s.

It took a wonderful curled finish into the top corner from Leiva Lucas to sort Liverpool out, a shot that would have beaten any keeper. However this restoration of order only held for four minutes as we went back up the field, possibly breaking British law in taking the lead. Again. Just to remind you. Liverpool. Anfield. H&W 2-1 to the good. Huh huh [clears throat] YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! If there had been room, adrenaline would have easily enabled me to loop my cumbersome frame into a Lua-Lua series of somersaults.

Alfie Potter had raced into the penalty area and placed a cute side-foot in the direction of the far corner, but debut-making defensive klutz Martin Skrtel’s out-stretched leg caused the ball to beat keeper Charles Itandje on his near-side. Some are giving the goals as a Skrtel OG, but we’ll have none of it, it was going in either way. It would be just reward for Li’l Alf, who looked very much at home on this big stage. Peterborough United will be loving the fact their player has been getting loan experience like this. They think he’ll go far, and so do we. In fact, when in the future he breaks into their first team, I imagine I’ll make the effort to go and see him, as he’s been just wonderful for us. He may be young, and look even younger, but he’s a sensible kid who has mucked in, and not played it like he’s above our level of football. I’d adopt him if the forthcoming restraining order wouldn’t prohibit it.

It took us a while to realise what had happened, as both of our goals occurred at the other end of the field. Disappointing for us, but I’m sure both Richard and Alfie were able to cope. If you’re going to score in front of a stand your own fans aren’t in, the Kop does make a pretty fair consolation.

We’d have loved to go into the interval with a lead, but sadly Yossi Benayoun wasn’t reading the Mills and Boon and came up with another great finish, calmly watching Scriv’s movement, before hitting the ball with the outside of his boot into the corner of the net. Indeed, it seemed Liverpool could only get through our rear-guard with amazing strikes, Benayoun scoring another on 56 minutes off the underside of the crossbar on the turn, before completing his hat-trick three minutes later.

4-2, two quick goals, and if the floodgates were going to open over dropping heads, it would be now, but we stilled believed. “We’re gonna win 5-4” was our chant. Clearly fearing this, Rafa, increasingly cricket-ball cheeked and chewing his bottom lip like it was a corn cob, sent on three substitutes one-by-one: Dirk Kuyt, Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard. Yeah, whatever, we’ve got Charlie Oatway coming on. “Charlie Oatway, Sexy Football”, possibly hooked up to a PCP drip, replacing Shaun Wilkinson.

In fact, it was at the times of our three substitutions that I was at my most emotional I think. Holding up scarves and keeping down our noise while the Kop sang ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ before the start was something, but when PolyPhiller went off injured on 40 minutes (replaced by Tony Taggart), Big Rich on 57 (Jamie Slabber), and then Wilko on 74, and the ENTIRE ground stood as one to applaud them off, well, it was like being all of their kindly old Nans at once.

A Peter Crouch tap in finished it, a goal that was three feet offside if you are including his legs, about an inch if not. Five goals even without reply would not have been an embarrassment, yet our goals weren’t a reply, we were sending out the invitations to a white-knuckle ride and daring Liverpool to RSVP. Had Neil Sharp kept his shot-down to make it 2-0 in the first half, or his header not been pawed away in the second, then who knows how much longer that ride would have gone on for Liverpool. They knew they’d been in a game which they’d not been allowed to boss, and their fans stayed around to stand in ovation as our players completed their full lap of honour.

While some fans do everything to bring disrepute on their club with their dealings with opposition fans, the people of Liverpool (of every footballing hue) have been a credit to their city before, during and after our game. From comments on our message board to effusive wishes of good luck on the Anfield streets to shaken hands in pubs as well as thumbs up and winks from cabbies, we were able to revel in a way I doubt fans of other Premiership clubs would have allowed us to do, without patronising or sneering, of which the Reds did neither.

As you might imagine, we made a night of it, with beers, curries and close-ish harmony singing. We weren’t the only ones keen to serenade though. In the Indian Delight house of Ruby, a well-oiled old chap came in to collect his dinner, and began singing away in the waiting seats. After applauding his efforts, we gave him something back from the far end of the fairly empty restaurant. Showaddywaddy, of course. This brought him to join us for a bit as he started up again, belting out his tune through a face that curved like a rugby ball from his high forehead down to the kind of beard you could wire a piano with.

His singing came in club style-quasi-operatics much like Vic Reeves harmonising with Josef Locke if they happened to wake up on a Sunday morning in the same bin. His favoured tune was ‘Rose Marie’ but so slurred was it, it could equally have been ‘Edelweiss’, ‘Myfanwy’ or even just a theatrical recitation of his takeaway order. Eventually, the staff’s patience wore thin and he was pointed in the direction of his home, or possibly a karaoke bar. A wonderful insight into Liverpool life, I imagine the Capital of Culture judges made their award solely based on him promising to be around.

So, about as classic a Hawk weekend as they get. I think I can now say, without fear of contradiction or getting egg on my face later, that it doesn’t get any better than this. After the game, the sign that had been prepared by Blue Square for the players to hold up read “We’re going to Wembley [then in smaller letters] it’s on our way home." Although it isn’t, of course, not unless they were planning a long detour to north London to drop Rocky Baptiste off at his front door. The SmokeHawk Branch on our way back to London however, did pass the big arch, and together let out a wistful sigh. Maybe one day, in the FA Trophy, but this year’s road is finally over. After being 1-0 down at Bognor in September, we almost made it to February still in the Cup, despite losing a manager and all but one of his staff the day after that eventual Bognor win. The one who stayed loyal has taken us further than we ever let ourselves dare dream. “Shaun Gale, there’s only one Shaun Gale” – now heavily stitched into the tapestry of our club’s history.

To finish this piece, here’s a trivia question for you. What do Wigan Athletic, Porto, Derby County, Toulouse, Besiktas, Birmingham City, Cardiff City, Fulham, Marseille, Luton Town, Bolton Wanderers, Portsmouth, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United all have in common? Answer? All of ‘em have played at Anfield this season and not scored twice. I know a team that did. The “little” team that could. I think, by now, you’ll have heard of them.

Road to Wembley
F: Portsmouth 1 Cardiff City 0 (att. 89,874)
SF: Barnsley 0 Cardiff City 1 (att. 82,752)
QF: Barnsley 1 Chelsea 0 (att. 22,410)
5R: Liverpool 1 Barnsley 2 (att. 42,449)
4R: Liverpool 5 Havant & Waterlooville 2
3Rr: Havant & Waterlooville 4 Swansea City 2 (att. 4,400) [HOBO]
3Rr: Liverpool 5 Luton Town 0 (att. 41,446)
3R: Swansea City 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1 (att. 8,761) [HOBO]
3R: Luton Town 1 Liverpool 1 (att. 10,226)
2R: Notts County 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1 (att. 3,810) [HOBO]
1R: York City 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1 (att. 2,001) [HOBO]
4QR: Havant & Waterlooville 3 Leighton Town 0 (att. 378) [HOBO]
3QR: Havant & Waterlooville 2 Fleet Town 1 (att. 386)
2QR: Bognor Regis Town 1 Havant & Waterlooville 2 (att. 426) [HOBO]

the Hobo off-Road 2007/08
click here for links to all 2007/2008 FA Cup pieces

Previously, on Dub Steps
03aug05: Liverpool 2 FBK Kaunas 0

Links
Liverpool website
Havant & Waterlooville website
Independent report
Guardian report
Observer report
Sunday Times report
Sunday Telegraph report
Mail on Sunday report
Sunday Mirror report
Jamie Collins back-to-work piece in the Guardian
Some People Are On The Pitch preview
FA.com piece
Twohundredpercent review

off-Road to Wembley 2007/2008

Havant & Waterlooville

When Saturday Comes article

4R: Liverpool 5 Havant & Waterlooville 2
3Rr: Havant & Waterlooville 4 Swansea City 2
3R: Swansea City 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1
2R: Notts County 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1
1R: York City 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1

**Experiencing the first round draw**
4QR: Havant & Waterlooville 3 Leighton Town 0
2QR: Bognor Regis Town 1 Havant & Waterlooville 2

Others

3QR: Kendal Town 4 Woodley Sports 0
2QR: Dulwich Hamlet 2 Chalfont St. Peter 1
1QR: Spennymoor United 2 Brigg Town 1
PR: Erith & Belvedere 2 Ashford Town 0
EPR: Sporting Bengal United 0 London APSA 0
EPR: Stansted 2 Hullbridge Sports 0

Havant & Waterlooville 4 Swansea City 2

16jan08
FA Cup 3rd Round replay
West Leigh Park, Havant
att. 4,400

One downside of our FA Cup run, in the ‘proper’ rounds at least, has been that all our games prior to this replay have taken place roughly 200 miles away. I say it’s a downside, but it’s really an upside on the field, in that it has made the achievement all the more laudable, incredible, un-buhlinkin-believable. However, in terms of galvanising the local community into taking us to their hearts, it has been a bit of a problem, in that there has been no opportunity to build up a Cup fever head-of-steam.

Managing to get Swansea back to West Leigh Park for a replay has shown just what we’ve been missing thus far. West Leigh Park totally sold out for the first time, and the atmosphere a mixture of excitements, the first-timer’s new-experience stuff, as well as the passion of the old lags brimming over like a neglected pot in a busy kitchen. In the past we’ve had crowds at the top end of the three thousands, but that’s been for pre-season friendlies against Portsmouth when, in fairness, 75% of the crowd is there to twitch along with ‘Arry.

I love our ground and love the fact that it’s improved about one hundred fold since I first started going in 1999. It’s a place that deserves to be filled to bursting and tonight we managed it with ease, sold out signs going up on our single ticket booth (also known as the club office) within two days. It took a while for our shared local rag, The News, to get into the spirit, although like I say, distance breeds detachment.

I guess this whinge about local coverage comes only by comparison to the national reportage, the English football media appearing to have set up an elaborate hack Kibbutz in the car park. The attention has been astonishing: The Sky News helicopter chasing Shaun Gale’s car at high speed down a motorway; Justin Gregory doing adverts for the Post Office (“More than just stamps”); and Brett Poate sauntering down a film premiere red carpet somewhere, arriving just before Craig off of Big Brother, Billy Pearce and the mush who used to play Sgt Cryer in the Bill. Such has been the fervour, every night Leigh Park’s urchins gather eagerly in the car park, awaiting a glimpse, all they need is a glimpse, of our club secretary, TV’s Trevor Brock, also known as The News’ Page 62 stunna!!!!

Of course, none of those things have happened (although I wasn’t able to pop down to check on the last one), but I’ve half expected to see such shenanigans each time I switch on my telly. If this is our media circus, the trapeze artists are flying higher than ever before, Nellie the elephant is Cossack dancing on a medicine ball and the clowns are actually funny.

It’s not just the telly either. Kevin Scriven has been pictured being toured around his building site in a wheelbarrow, Tony Taggart has been getting enough mean-and-moody-in-high-viz-vest portraits for a celebrity bin-men charity calendar, and we’ve been the Non League Paper’s cheeky centrefold, a double page spread reporting on the team’s cotton-wool-between-the-toes, cucumber-on-the-eyelids pampering session in advance of the replay. All paid for by the league sponsors too. Nice of the people at Blue Square to reward their best performing side in this year’s FA Cup with, well, with a hen weekend.

All very nice like I say, but I’m not sure having to look at Charlie Oatway’s moist nipples over breakfast is entirely conducive to a relaxing Sunday morning. Still, we need to milk this publicity cow while it’s ambling through our fields desperate for our plucky-non-league cud, and although I’m not sure I could get used to our strike partnership being one of the features on Football Focus, it’s nice to have seen it more often than never, as had been my prior expectation.

The main focus of that interview was Rocky Baptiste, who had rescued a lacklustre season by his standards with the equaliser at the Liberty. As each game passes, we get a new hero. It was Mo Harkin against York (pretty low-key by our growing standards), Tony Taggs at County, and now Rocky. Named after Brazilian legend Jairzinho, Rocky has had a lot to live up to in footballing terms but, despite having been here before scoring for Farnborough against Arsenal at Highbury five years ago, I’m not sure if dealing with the nation’s media would be something he’d like to do week-in-week-out. In fact, Rock’s Match of the Day interview after the original Swansea game ranks as possibly my favourite Hawks-on-telly moment yet. Asked about H&W’s chances in a replay he replied softly, in a manner that suggested he’d just lifted up his head from a particularly heavy waterbong hit, “hopefully we can get a result and [lengthy pause] that’ll be nice”.

Take the sentence apart if you will, and I just have, but there’s nothing to argue with in there, particularly with the slightly swirly hindsight I find myself currently swimming in. Cos we done ‘em. Their accusations after the first game that we were a bunch of nasty pub-band doggers kicking their marshmallowy lads up in the air came first from manager Roberto Martinez, and then were propagated across our web forum by a few non-representative Swansea fans looking to exhale nothing but righteous fury and jibes about our semi-pro status.

Then Swansea defender Garry Monk decided to regale the Daily Star with stories about how much of a hell-hole our ground is, recalling how he’d been spat at, and seen towels set on fire there whilst turning out a few years ago for Southampton reserves. That it was a game against Portsmouth reserves, and not us, is not mentioned, and achieved nothing aside from stoking our fires (internal, not bathroom linen).

There’s no getting away from the fact that we were very fortunate in the first game and, by rights, should have been beaten by what was, obviously, a much better side. However, with the carrot of a trip to Anfield now dangled in front of our horsey faces, back on our tight pitch and surrounded by 4000 fans baying for history to be made in front of their own peepers, tonight would require more than earnest endeavour.

Clearly Shaun Gale was able to communicate this, as we came out of the traps like a greyhound that’s eaten its way through fourteen sachets of Winalot Chunky Chicken and Amphetamines. We looked busy alright, like we were quickly tidying away the Friday afternoon paper aeroplanes in the anticipation of the boss sticking his head out of his office, but more than that, we were looking classy. I’d go as far to say it was the best half of football I’ve seen from a H&W side. Well, if you’re 3-0 up against a side 83 places above you in the football pyramid, it would seem overly picky not to.

Firstly, in the fourth minute, the big frame of Richie Pacquette bearing down on Garry Monk forced the Swansea defender to put the ball past his own keeper and prove that karma really does exist. Such unexpected delights and behind the goal we tumbled together as elbow-locked sardines in a space where you can usually run up and down and do a few squat thrusts after a goal. Tonight, we mosh (and fall over) as one unit. The safety-unconscious pulsation was to occur again after 25 minutes, Jamie Collins’ shot bouncing off a few legs before settling in the net, then after 37, Big Rich’s scuffed shot across goal was met at the far post by Rocky’s out-stretched leg. This we had not prepared for. We felt sick. Collectively. But in a good way.

However, this is not to ignore the fact that half time could have been a lot less buoyant than it was. Just two minutes after Rocky’s goal, Swansea got one back, a quality finish from Guillem Bauza. Then two minutes after that, Phil Warner’s late tackle earned them a penalty. Our hero for tonight? We’ll take Kevin Scriven, who pushed away Leon Britton’s spot-kick.

Of course, always having the 83 place gap in mind, we knew we couldn’t afford to rest on our laurels, and it all started to get it a bit too real again, when Jason Scotland slotted home a ball rebounding off the post to bring it back to 3-2 a couple of minutes into the second half. The spectre of blown opportunity was starting to knock about the place. However, this was batted back by us not actually falling to bits but going back on the attack and scoring a 4th, from the head of a man desperate to leave our club, Tom Jordan. His third goal in two games. At this rate, he can leave our club as often as he likes.

Before the end Swansea hit the bar again, the fifth time over the two games. Thus I could only say I was totally relaxed at the point Andy D’Urso pursed his lips and aimed his whistle towards the ‘o’. Once he’d finished expelling air through it, the invasion began. Scenes I thought I’d never see out our place; people streaming on, players being carried off on shoulders, coming back out for a lap of honour, the lot. I stayed back behind the goal, embracing anyone who came within range. I’m starting to think I’m only in this for the cuddlin’.

So now they tell us we have to play Liverpool. I can’t tell you how gutted I am. I was really looking forward to our home game against Weston Super Mare.

Road to Wembley
F: Portsmouth 1 Cardiff City 0 (att. 89,874)
SF: Barnsley 0 Cardiff City 1 (att. 82,752)
QF: Barnsley 1 Chelsea 0 (att. 22,410)
5R: Liverpool 1 Barnsley 2 (att. 42,449)
4R: Liverpool 5 Havant & Waterlooville 2 (att. 42,566) [HOBO]
3Rr: Havant & Waterlooville 4 Swansea City 2
3R: Swansea City 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1 [HOBO]
2Rr: Swansea City 6 Horsham 2 (5,911) 
2R: Horsham 1 Swansea City 1 (2,731) 
2R: Notts County 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1 (att. 3,810) [HOBO]
1R: Billericay Town 1 Swansea City 2 (att. 2,334)
1R: York City 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1 (att. 2,001) [HOBO]
4QR: Havant & Waterlooville 3 Leighton Town 0 (att. 378) [HOBO]
3QR: Havant & Waterlooville 2 Fleet Town 1 (att. 386)
2QR: Bognor Regis Town 1 Havant & Waterlooville 2 (att. 426) [HOBO]

the Hobo off-Road 2007/08
click here for links to all 2007/2008 FA Cup pieces

Brazilian 2 Indian Gymkhana 0

24nov07
Middlesex County League Premier Division
Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, Crystal Palace
att. 9 (approx.)

If you go and watch two teams linked by ampersand playing each other, like say Tooting & Mitcham at home to Wingate & Finchley, you’ll usually get at least one stranger nudging you in the ribs whilst in the tea bar queue. You know exactly what they’re going to say, something along the lines of “how’s it going to work with four teams out there. Eh? Eh?” while wiggling their eyebrows up and down so feverishly their flat cap catches fire.

Now remember, in this situation, you are permitted under British law to go round the back of the stand, pick up one of the spare flip-up seats that invariably has been discarded there, return to your new chum and beat out the fire with it. Social common sense further suggests you continue pounding away even after the flames have been extinguished, but in legal terms, that’s much more of a grey area.

Teams supposedly representing two communities should suggest social harmony, a stretching of the hand of friendship, but quite clearly this example shows they are actually a catalyst for deep unrest. Which is why I think we should congratulate the more reductively named football clubs, those which suggest there is only actually one bloke turning out for them. Like Kingstonian, or Kingston Ian as I know him. Then there’s, err, Hibern Ian and, ahem, Cheddar George. Actually, that last one’s not real. It’s a shocking pun.

The Ian’s do appear to have the one-man club thing sewn up; just like Humber Premier League side Smith & Nephew take the gold for the duos. Mind you, I am of course forgetting our old mate up in the Highland League. You know, Keith. IT programmer during the week but an entire football team on Saturdays. Fair play to him. He’s come a long way since his younger days. When he was a Rugby Seven.

One of the more exotic Ian’s in British football at the minute, Brazilian, have been part of the Middlesex County League since 2003, winning promotion from Division One at the first attempt. Paulo Cezar Batista, who arrived in London in 2001 to study the business of European football, is the president of the club and founded it in deference to Englishman Charles Miller who brought the game to Brazil in 1894. While Miller went to Brazil with a football and a dream, Batista appears to have made the return journey filled with more hubris than Kevin Pietersen’s bedside diary.

If we take the history page of the Brazilian FC website as read, Batista’s formation of a football club was less homage to Miller than his gift to the English game. Essentially the message is ‘You gave us football; now allow me in return to give you good football’. We might think of him as a cheeky scamp, and even get all righteously indignant about the implication, were it not for the thought that if England and Brazil came to a comparing willies style contest in terms of World Cup pedigree, the sound of Brazil slapping their credentials on the table would be much deeper and weightier than England’s tinny clink.

He’s not the first to vigorously promote South American methods in England though, what with Simon Clifford’s pushing of the techniques via his nationwide network of Brazilian soccer schools and academies, as well as through his idiosyncratic stewarding of Garforth Town FC. However, where the two men differ is that Batista is going about it by using actual Brazilians. Legendary hirer and firer of musicians, Mark E. Smith of The Fall, was once asked about his recruitment procedure and replied that he was “like me Granddad, [he] used to stand outside prisons an’ that, and when they were released, he’d say ‘you work for me.’” A similar process appears to be in operation at Brazilian FC, and I imagine there may well be a fella in a big coat permanently stationed outside the arrivals at Heathrow awaiting the Iberia Airlines flights.

All the players appear to have come straight from clubs in Brazil, or in Southern Europe, with one or two like Andre Azevedo and Rogério Portes who have participated for other clubs in England. Their website is certainly encouraging the support of the Brazilian community, with photos suggesting that families and friends have turned up waving flags and decked out in yellow and green. However, despite a move in the last six months from the rather insalubrious second pitch next to Isthmian League Waltham Forest’s ground at Wadham Lodge in Walthamstow to the much grander confines of the National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace, the ex-pat community is notable by their absence today.

The stadium holds 15,500 but today, if you discount subs and coaching staff (two of whom double as linesmen), there are 9 of us rattling around in it. Before the drizzle comes, we all eschew the embarrassment of seating riches in favour of stalking the touchline like Sunday morning parents, albeit with less immediate danger to the well-being of the referee. It’s all a bit otherworldly to be watching a game by walking up and down a wide athletics track like a dizzy distance runner losing control of his internal compass. Free to come in it might be, but therein lies the challenge.

The National Sports Centre is a bit like Penrose’s endless stairs illusion and thus entry does appear to require both an inquisitive mind, time on your hands and access to some elementary tunnelling gear. Nor does it help that while the game was being advertised online as being at 13:00 throughout the preceding week, it went back an hour on the morning, a message appearing on one forum that someone had phoned the Indian Gymkhana’s secretary who could only say that it was “14:00…at the moment”.

Brazilian eventually scamper out from the changing rooms at five past two, one sub forced to jog all the way around the pitch to put the flags in, while the goalposts are moved into the correct position. Meanwhile the starting XI have a warming knees up, during which they mirror their leg thrusts with a chant akin to a Gregorian Monk being repeatedly punched in the stomach. It might possibly also be the Portuguese for “crikey it’s brass monkeys ‘ere, mush.” At the other end a Gymkhana pokes a light shot that bobbles into the goal, under the net and out the back, which always bodes well.

In the early part of the first half, which eventually gets going at quarter past two, the samba football sensibility of the home side is being a touch undermined, firstly by a free-kick just outside the box which balloons high, wide and, well, gert fugly. Just after, a ball is dummied nicely only for the following player to swing and miss his attempted cross that he banana skins into the air before landing arse-first on the ball like a toddler being carelessly dropped onto a space hopper.

The game remains tied up to the interval, which the ref calls a halt to three minutes prematurely. The Brazilian players head back to the dressing room, Gymkhana remain at pitch-side, while the ref picks up the ball and trots off to the otherwise empty stand to reclaim his sandwiches and have a bit of a sit.

Within seconds of the re-start, Brazilian score, a huge roar going up from the Brazilian ‘bench’ causing at least one prick to look up from the stop-watch he’s trying to re-set. Sigh. In this half, Brazilian look much more the silky and skilful, by comparison at least. It’s just like watching…, well it’s just like watching a load of fellas in t-shirts the colour of diluted urine. However when the passing moves come off, they are a joy to watch. A little confidence and consistency will do them wonders.

If they keep scoring goals like their second, that confidence will rocket. In the 77th minute, one of their midfield generals shows a flash of class, as he slaloms apropos of nothing before placing a twenty-yard shot into the top corner. It is an indicator of just what Brazilian may be capable of, and finishes the game off.

The club’s mission statement makes their ambition quite plain, not only to “win championships and get known by everyone” but also to “reach Premier League.” Ten promotions may be a tall order, but considering this result saw them leap-frog both Gymkhana and Barnet Town to go top of their division, they are moving in the right direction.

Links
Brazilian FC website
Indian Gymkhana website

Swansea City 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1

05jan08
FA Cup 3rd Round
Liberty Stadium, Swansea
att. 8,761

The London Branch extends by one with each cup round ‘proper’ we partake in. Two in the 1st, three in the 2nd, and now one further joining up with our Paddington party – the Fantastic Four, where back at the start of December we were just a t’riffic three. So, basic arithmetic suggests that our conclave will number nine by the time we get to Wembley. And we are going there. Quite clearly.

Once again, the start of the day begins with the usual FA Cup traditions. Listing omens out loud, by way of straw-clutching, working our way through all the potentials for the coming weeks, months and seasons; and road-testing chants we’ll never be brave enough to try out in the crucible that is the terrace itself. Besides we never did quite satisfactorily finish our tribute to hero of the last round, stealer of bathrobes, and now celebrity refuse collector, Tony Taggart. We got as far as “Tony Tagg’s a bin man, he wears a dressing gown…” but eventually gave up, knowing it was pretty moot anyhow.

Another thing that unified us was a lack of over-confidence but that’s no bad thing. I have approached every round thus far with a modestly pessimistic outlook, virtually trudging around as though barefoot in wet mud, tolling a hand bell and proclaiming “the end of the cup run is nigh” on a home-made sandwich board. Believing that we will be on the end of a 3-1 defeat each time has served us well so far, so why deviate from a successful formula?

Speaking of formulae, our cup run does appear to defy conventional mathematics or, indeed, the rules of any of the sciences. In our two games against Football League opposition a combination of circumstances has meant we have been forced to play a side which isn’t really first choice. Playing away from home at professional sides about 50, and then 83, places above us in the football pyramid would be difficult enough, but being closer to the bare bones than a team of grass snakes on an archaeological dig has made that task harder still.

 First the dispute between our club, Eastleigh and want-away Tom Jordan has meant he has been despatched from the squad for fear of disrupting the sides team spirit, while his replacement Gary Elphick is cup-tied having appeared for St Albans City in the qualifying rounds. On top of that Neil Sharp suffered an injury in our 4-0 away defeat at Lewes and failed a fitness test. Which meant our defensive four consisted of two right backs and two left backs, one of the left backs (Justin Gregory) being stationed at right back. I do hope you’re following this. At the centre was Jay Smith (whose “such-a-polite-young-man-isn’t-he” hairdo gives him the look of an apron-string-attached son of a marriage guidance counsellor and a Duplo road sweeper) and ferrety Phil Warner, the latter starting only his third game this season.

On top of that Charlie Henry, Nathaniel Peprah-Annan, Craig Watkins and Chemal Fenelon were also cup-tied, Brighton didn’t want Gary Hart to become the same and we had also further reduced our midfield by allowing Andy Gurney to leave. Gurney had a vital part to play in our cup run, scoring the equaliser at Bognor Regis Town on the start of the journey and performing brilliantly both that day and against Leighton Town in the fourth qualifying round. After that though he began to remind me of Milton Jones’ joke: “About a month before he died, my grandmother covered my grandfather’s back in lard. After that he went downhill very quickly.”

So it was with Gurney, well greased at the rear, as it were, by a struggle to cope with the travelling and, it seemed, the pace of the Conference South. However he remains in it, having returned to Weston-Super-Mare, possibly so he could be closer to home, or possibly because he wanted to get his name down quick on a choice beach hut and a sheltered flat. It was like an elderly police steed being put out to pasture. Which is just as well, as the ire inspired by his performances had begin to rise to a level where some would have been quite happy to have him taken out of West Leigh Park and shot. For those performances against Bognor and Leighton alone however, I would like to think we now wish him fairly well.

Being in his mid-30’s and retired from the professional game didn’t put paid to assistant manager Charlie Oatway’s involvement however, even despite the fact his knee injury looks likely to put paid to his semi-pro playing career sometime soon as well. However, no one can argue with his desire to be part of it, and get amongst it. Even if from now on he’ll be freebasing ketamine and horse tranquillisers in the dressing room just to get him through it, one imagines he won’t allow himself to become a liability on the field. He has too much class and professionalism for that.

So, a pretty ramshackle XI to compete with the likes of Swansea and not long into the game it looked as though we might be in for the real hiding you always fear in games like these. From early on, we were looking every inch the semi-pro side against much fitter opposition, although you would expect us as a 12th in the Conference South side to look a little bit leggy against the side clear at the top of League One. Certainly we were riding our luck (the luck having been obtained from rubbing Adrian’s lucky hat - well it worked at Notts County), Swansea hitting the bar more often than a narcoleptic pub landlord with an iron head. The most comic of which was the one which bounced straight back into the hands of keeper Kevin Scriven, Scrivs reacting like he’d just picked up a recently discarded sparkler with his bare hands, but thankfully without the tears and mummified mittens to follow. That heavy head image I mentioned before also works in describing Swansea mascot Cyril the Swan, whose flaccid neck gives him a permanent recently-admonished-and-sent-to-bed-by-his-mum look. I’d imagine it’d be hard to be hyped up by a bird that looks continually disillusioned.

So, it was not a classic H&W performance, but then it was never going to be beautiful to watch, and while we didn’t look quite as up for it as in previous rounds, we did just about enough, and certainly were quite prepared to go about it not in the plucky-non-Leaguers-going-round-the-country-making-friends-isn’t-Charlie-Blakemore-nice-and-cuddly Chasetown way, but by getting stuck in and doing it ugly, even little teenage midfield wizard Alfie Potter sliding in like a veteran full-back. It was a little bit too ugly at times, based on Brett Poate’s tackle for which he was correctly tunnelled and which led to a mass brawl which resulted in the further dismissal of Swansea skipper Alan Tate.

By this stage, with Chasetown and Cambridge United despatched in earlier kick-offs we were, in terms of non-League sides, the last man standing. These men don’t tend to last long but, as it turned out, we would live to fight, possible in a number of senses, for another 90 minutes at the very least. In fact, and I do not condone the tackle nor the afters in saying this, but the adrenaline from the scrapping, combined with Swansea’s lack of organisation at the back, seemed to galvanise us, and thus in the 87th minute, an equaliser came.

Rocky Baptiste, in a very lean patch after two miracle seasons prior to this, rediscovered his goal radar and placed a mid-paced shot across keeper Dorus De Vries and into the far corner. Right in front of us travelling fans too. However, rather than celebrate with us, Rocky went on a mazy slalom to the halfway line. Perhaps typical for a man doing the Knowledge, he went all around the houses and still ended up in the wrong place. Not that we cared of course being as calm and collected as a Brian Eno box set behind the goal. Not really. We woz going nutty and stuff.

What is it about the 87th minute? Winners in the big games against Notts County and nasty Eastleigh arrived at this moment, and now an equaliser at Swansea. It’s like there’s some mystery deity up there operating the controls. A flick of the switch to the right and it’s like the players all suddenly jolt upright, take on a glazed, but focused thousand-yard-stare expression, and intone a “must score vital goal, must score vital goal” mantra. Possibly a flick to the left would be “must water the garden, must water the garden” or something so thank goodness whoever is sorting this all out has remained nice and alert so that we get late winners and equalisers rather than having to watch our players suddenly begin simultaneously, and involuntarily, weeing on the pitch.

Three more minutes of normal and four of extra time brought waves of Swansea pressure but ultimately no goals, and after much jumping about (but no nudity on the part of the players this time) it was a long but easy stroll back to the station. We awaited the train along with a collection of pubescent Swansea oiks who joined us in our carriage attempting to goad us into a sing-off which, and apologies to anyone else who happened to be on our part of the train, was a gauntlet we occasionally took up, but not always; their chant of “is that all you take away?” being met with a comically matter of fact “no, that was about ten times what we take away” from my old chum Mr Ketchup.

Sat one carriage ahead of this largely good-natured banter was Alfie Potter who was probably less bothered about being on a train with the chimpy Swansea teens as he was with the fact that the nine of us were on board. The congratulations and thanks we had offered while we all walked along the platform were met with a sheepish grin that belied his status as a youngster who is tipped for big things in the pro game. Indeed, our New Year’s Day home game with Bognor had seem him put in such an awe-inspiring skilful performance, that he earned himself a song; “Alfie Potter, taking the piss, Alfie Potter, taking the piss.” Naturally, when noticing him entering the toilet cabinet between carriages, we quickly ran up and gave him a rendition of it, in soft choral harmony through the vent in the door, artfully exchanging the words ‘taking the’ with ‘having a’.

 Actually that didn’t happen. I just went up and gave him a version of Kiki Dee’s “Star! That’s What They Call You” in a piercing falsetto instead. Well, that’s not true either, but who can really tell by now what is genuine and what is artifice in this astonishing cup run? For example, I’ve provided three photographs of personal celebration in this piece, one posed post-game, and two slap bang in the moments after the equaliser. Two natural, one 'staged' after the fact but, as exhibitions of utter elation and gleeful disbelief, all entirely genuine.

Road to Wembley
F: Portsmouth 1 Cardiff City 0 (att. 89,874)
SF: Barnsley 0 Cardiff City 1 (att. 82,752)
QF: Barnsley 1 Chelsea 0 (att. 22,410)
5R: Liverpool 1 Barnsley 2 (att. 42,449)
4R: Liverpool 5 Havant & Waterlooville 2 (att. 42,566) [HOBO]
3Rr: Havant & Waterlooville 4 Swansea City 2 (att. 4,400) [HOBO]
3R: Swansea City 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1
2Rr: Swansea City 6 Horsham 2 (5,911) [BBC]
2R: Horsham 1 Swansea City 1 (2,731) [BBC]
2R: Notts County 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1 (att. 3,810) [HOBO]
1R: Billericay Town 1 Swansea City 2 (att. 2,334) [BBC]
1R: York City 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1 (att. 2,001) [HOBO]
4QR: Havant & Waterlooville 3 Leighton Town 0 (att. 378) [HOBO]
3QR: Havant & Waterlooville 2 Fleet Town 1 (att. 386)
2QR: Bognor Regis Town 1 Havant & Waterlooville 2 (att. 426) [HOBO]

the Hobo off-Road 2007/08
click here for links to all 2007/2008 FA Cup pieces

Links
Swansea City website
Havant & Waterlooville website
Some People Are On The Pitch report
Independent report
Observer report
Sunday Times report
Sunday Telegraph report
Mail on Sunday report
Sunday Mirror report
BBC Hampshire photographs
Ynysforganjack's photographs