Kentish Town 1 Wellingborough Town 1

17aug08
FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Copthall Stadium, Holders Hill
att. 179

It’s that time of year again, the start of the FA Cup, when a variety of different footballing vehicles phut through a noisy push start on the Road to Wembley. This site has dabbled in the FA Cup a great deal in the last few years, for reasons I have detailed before (such as here, amongst several others), but not in any organised way, just turning up as and when logistics and fancy lubricated it.

Nowadays though, there are plenty of other sites (such as here, here and here) covering this kind of territory and no doubt, with the democratisation of prose through this ‘ere blogosphere, there will be plenty more to come. Books are being published on the back of these blog sites. Sell-out capitalist bastards. No danger of that here comrades, because all this stuff is provided, free, just for YOU! And also because it almost certainly isn’t good enough to warrant a physical tome. I imagine if Mr Penguin or Messers Faber are reading this, they are all nodding in sage agreement right about now.

Also, on top of your Roads to Wembley, this coming year there will be a Road from Wembley coming to a bookshop near you. With all these other guys doing such fine work, I thought to myself, what am I left with? Surely, it’s obvious… Roads near Wembley: the excitement and intrigue of cul-de-sacs and thoroughfares within a ten-mile radius of the national stadium. As such, I’ll be writing, in detail, about Georgian Court, Tokyngton; Cornmow Drive in Dollis Hill and the southbound carriageway of the A406.

Or, if you prefer, I can pen up on games taking place within that plot. How do games in Kingsbury and Holders Hill sound? Knowing that this gambit might not last very long given the nature of the draw and my H&W season ticket limiting my options somewhat, it seemed prudent to take advantage of the fact that Sunday 17th August presented a back-to-back opportunity in the Extra-Preliminary Round. A mid-day kick-off in Kingsbury, followed by a three-mile stroll to the 3pm boogle involving Kentish Town. For no reason, lets work backwards.

Kentish Town, as a club, are based in the relevant outpost of Camden but necessity dictates that their games are played out in the sticks, relatively speaking, at the Barnet Copthall athletics stadium. They are a new club, formed only in 2003, but with clear ambition, and unmistakably excited about this, their first foray into the wonderful world of FA Cup.

So delirious are they, they appear to have door-stepped a number of relevant locals for their thoughts for the local paper and the matchday programme. These include Channel 4 newsreader and Camdenite Jon Snow who states “I have no doubt that Kentish Town FC will go all the way,” a platitude that suggests a left eyebrow raised so high as to be interfering with commercial aircraft.

However, this is not to belittle Kentish Town, being conferred with an FA Cup entry adds an extra stripe of seniority to their sleeve, and also gives them a chance to test themselves against opposition unfamiliar from their Spartan South Midlands League-confined action thus far. Wellingborough Town, of the United Counties League, are also a young club, being a re-incarnation of one that folded in 2002 after 145 years of existence. Despite their youth, the Doughboys attract a relatively sizeable and vocal away support who display a few flags, between two of which is a mini-scarf-and-beanie clad teddy bear clinging to the barrier with a look of giddy excitement slapped in perpetuity across his cute little mush.

Also, sadly, they brought a drum. Worse, a drum operated by a child. In fairness though at least it wasn’t like a toddler crashing incessantly at a saucepan with a wooden spoon, indeed he displayed a percussive maturity beyond his years. Beats or no’, there was plenty to keep the Doughb’s excited in the first half with Darren Frost and Tom O’Brien testing Kentish Town keeper Neil McBaid early on. Boro’ were rewarded for their pressure on the half hour, McBaid unable to do anything as Frost curved a sweet right foot shoot over him and into the far corner. The travelling throng gasped with stunned delight.

The home side fought back as the half came to close, a couple of successive corners eventually leading to a bit of box-bagatelle, the ball landing at the feet of Karim Essigaghie, who could only blaze over from eight yards out. However this merely served as a taster for what was to come after the break. Indeed, it was certainly time for a recharge all round. The Copthall may be a fairly bleak place to watch football, being a fairly shabby athletics stadium, but the smell of a kitchen cooking up for half-time bacon bagels covers many an evil.

Aside from a gilt-edged chance for Wellingborough’s Josh Urquhart, who headed over from Ady Fuller’s pinpoint cross, despite being virtually close enough to clutch the far post, the second half belonged solely to Kentish Town. David Dawson tested Doughboy keeper Matt Finlay, while Jason Scotland-sized striker Jonathan Donaghue could only tumble over the ball like a felled Redwood after Essigaghie fired it into the mix. The locals, by this point, were getting quite excited.

However, it was the introduction of substitute Javier Rivera that finally made the difference. Lively? You could have used his buzzing legs to defibrillate a fading heart. First he went close from long range then, with five minutes to go, he rose well beyond his grounded stature to flick home Sarfaz Pavino’s corner. The noise that followed is unlikely to be matched at Copthall anytime soon as clearly, from the amount of people in the home ‘end’ that called out to players by name, today’s record crowd (well, I assume, last season’s league average was 28) was made up, aside from the groundhopping fraternity, mostly of cousins, friends of friends of cousins and many a called in favour.

Pavino almost won it for Kentish Town as the game entered injury time, but his shot went just over. As such, the tie went back to the Dog & Duck, Wellingborough for a replay the following Tuesday. However this tie will remain Kentish Town’s only FA Cup jaunt, for at least a year anyway, as Wellingborough made the most of home advantage, winning 2-0. They now go on to face Croydon Athletic of the Isthmian League Division One South, away from home.

Words and pictures from Kingsbury London Tigers vs Eton Manor can be seen here.

Road from a road near Wembley. To Wembley
F: Everton 1 Chelsea 2 (att. 89,931)
SF: Arsenal 1 Chelsea 2 (att. 88,103)
6R: Coventry City 0 Chelsea 2 (att. 31,407)
5R: Watford 1 Chelsea 3 (att. 16,851)
4R: Watford 4 Crystal Palace 3 (att. 10,006)
3R: Watford 1 Scunthorpe United 0 (att. 8,690)
2R: Scunthorpe United 4 Alfreton Town 0 (att. 4,249)
1R: Alfreton Town 4 Bury Town 2 (att. 1,060)
4QR: Retford Town 1 Alfreton Town 3 (att. 922)
3QRr: Ilkeston Town 1 Alfreton Town 3 (att. 848)
3QR: Alfreton Town 0 Ilkeston Town 0 (att. 820)
2QR: Stewarts & Lloyds Corby 2 Ilkeston Town 3 (att. 177)
1QR: Stewarts & Lloyds Corby 5 Croydon Athletic 1 (att. 65)
PR: Croydon Athletic 3 Wellingborough Town 1 (att. 126)
EPRr: Wellingborough Town 2 Kentish Town 0 (att. 112)
EPR: Kentish Town 1 Wellingborough Town 1

Links
Kentish Town website
Wellingborough Town website

England vs South Africa

01-02aug08
Third Test
Edgbaston, Birmingham

England 231 (Cook 76; Bell 50; Kallis 3-31)
South Africa (McKenzie 72; Kallis 64; Flintoff 4-89)
England 363 (Collingwood 135; Pietersen 94; Morkle 4-97)
South Africa 283-5 (Smith 154no; Boucher 45no; Flintoff 2-72)
match scorecard

South African win by 5 wickets

days 3 and 4

The fancy-dress that has become popular at provincial test match Saturdays allows the lazy hack to wax metaphorical about the fortunes of the England team. So here goes. Take the group of Baywatch lifeguards all clad in orange shorts and yellow t-shirts – just what was needed towards the end of South Africa’s second innings when it became clear that England’s bowling attack were no longer waving, but drowning.

Or we could focus on the troop of Amy Winehouses, all clearly struggling with rehabilitation despite wide public concern for their welfare. To their right in the Eric Hollies stand were several WWF superstars; Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, Hulk Hogan and, clad all in leather despite the humidity, The Undertaker. Perhaps the latter was here on official business. That though would possibly stretch the allegory of terminal decline a touch too tightly.

However it is clear that this test match saw the end of an era. Michael Vaughan’s captaincy has played a pivotal role in England’s recent success, taking the well-drilled survivors from Nasser Hussain’s boot camp and adding a twinkle of Brearley-esque tactical nous to a team that were attuning their cycles, like an all-female student dorm, towards the same peak. As is now clear, that peak (particularly for the bowling unit) came in September 2005. Injuries, retirements and a collective, no, national belief that the Ashes represented the acme of their potential achievement have, of course, led to a steady decline since.

As sad as Vaughan’s departure is, perhaps it will turn out to have been fundamental if Peter Moores is to create a successful Test team of his own, Vaughan being so tightly aligned to the Duncan Fletcher regime. However he leaves some very big shoes to fill, being the most successful and inspirational captain England have had in some years, if not ever, so it might be best to consider that the regeneration starts again from this point, and not focus it on Ashes contests, prior or forthcoming.

A need for greater consistency is required from the batsmen and more guile and determination from the bowlers but it is not as though a wholesale clearout is necessary as the current England side have certainly contributed to a thoroughly competitive and, more often than not, exciting series. This third test match was the most captivating we’ve had on English soil since the Australians were last in town.

Sadly, only turning up on the third day, I wasn’t witness to Andrew Flintoff’s vigorous working over of Jacques Kallis in the South African first innings, but it represented the start of a fightback, echoes of which would be felt throughout the remaining two days, and kept the play riddled with tension all the way up to around the last hour when Mark Boucher had settled in with the imperious Graeme Smith and the game was really up.

It took an hour and a quarter of the third day for England to clear up the remains of the South African first innings, although it might have been quicker had Paul Collingwood and Monty Panesar not shelled fairly regulation catches. Thankfully, Michael Vaughan was on hand to take a difficult one in mid-air, to restrict South Africa to a lead of 83 which, given the nature of England’s first innings collapse, might have been a whole lot worse.

A further capitulation looked on the cards when England found themselves essentially –13 for 3, the top order giving their wickets away so cheaply, it appeared Tesco might well be aggressively marketing them as a loss-leader. Alistair Cook and Ian Bell’s came as a buy-one-get-one-half-price twin-pack, both mistiming pulls that skied into the hands of a scurrying Mark Boucher, and were so inexpensive in terms of effort that Makhaya Ntini could have come out for the day without any foldin’ money, and still have enough of his shrapnel left afterward for his bus fare home.

When Michael Vaughan came out, on a king pair, the atmosphere in the ground resembled that in a stuck lift containing only Graeme Smith and Kevin Pietersen. However he soon hit four glorious fours but, once again fell for a low score, popping an Andre Nel delivery into the hands of Hashim Amla at short extra cover, despite looking in good touch.

Nel is an odd one, his awkward bowling action resembling a filthy bearded tramp taking a meth-fuelled swing at a hanging basket. As does his overly pumped-up attitude, or rather that of his, almost literary, alter-ego Gunther. He is Captain Hook, King Rat and both Ugly Sisters all at once, playing up to the crowd’s antipathy, cupping an ear and conducting the chorus of abuse from the Hollies Stand. Unsurprisingly though Gunther doesn’t respond to their request for a wave, particularly as it follows a chant of “You’re shit and you know you are.” It’s not cricket, I tell you.

The ball boys were much keener to get involved, one having several long conversations with Makhaya Ntini as he fielded at fine leg (although it was the apparently socially-starved Ntini badgering the kid for small talk on each occasion), while another came scurrying onto the pitch when umpire Aleem Dar’s hat billowed towards the boundary like a hoop being manipulated by an invisible child with an equally imperceptible stick. Most were keen to give a “c’mon-give-it-some-more-noise” gesture in the direction of the Hollies Stand drunks.

It was a worthwhile gesture for just as the crowd had been instrumental in summoning up the atmosphere to accompany the bowlers as they tweaked the pressure, they were much needed by the batsman to get their confidence going, particularly at four down with barely a lead to speak of. As once might expect, Pietersen took this atmosphere to mean he was in the middle of a Twenty20 beer match, and had a couple of cracks at his switch-hitting as he took the attack to Paul Harris.

However he was eventually hoist by his own petard, his disdainful attempt to smack Harris over long-on to take him from 94 to three figures falling short and into the gleeful hands of AB De Villiers. Arrogant, perhaps, but we praised him for similar when he took the wind out of Australian sails at the Oval three years ago, and England needed the runs just as much here. His innings also allowed the out-of-form Paul Collingwood to settle through a nervy start, his confidence growing visibly as he attempted to ape KP’s gung-ho approach, crashing Morkel for successive boundaries with a clear swagger.

With KP gone, and Flintoff following swiftly after (possibly distracted by the streaker who decided a £1000 fine was cheap at twice the price for the chance to show 20,000 people his acorn-sized wang), Collingwood was the man who hung around. He may be a dogger, but he’s the people’s dogger. With his Test place on the line, a dreadful summer enveloping him like a Venus fly-trap and the game as taut as the Incredible Hulk’s dental floss, his innings was simply stunning, even just getting to 50 won him a standing ovation.

Eventually he reached his three figures, going from 94 to 100 with a six into the RES Wyatt Stand off of Harris which, given the manner of Pietersen’s dismissal, took cajones so large you could demolish a factory with them. Harris was later seen fielding on the boundary in front of the Stanley Barnes stand grinning like a goon at the hecklers, his smile saying clearly “I know Geoff Boycott and probably all of you lot think I’m third rate, and I might just have been clubbed for six, but I’ve got the wickets of your two best players in my back pocket. So do one.”

Both Tim Ambrose and Ryan Sidebottom stuck around a while to help Colly out, but Ambrose’s 19, even if it did take an hour and a half to compile, will ultimately be regarded as another failure. Sidebottom was another playing to exorcise the demons of another lacklustre bowling performance, hitting a few fours before offering a catch to slip that everyone in the ground, save the umpires, saw as clean; the TV ump once again erring on the side of wrong, based on the poor evidence that television pictures provide. Sidebottom, fully aware of recent history in this area, sensibly stood his ground.

However it wasn’t long before Brian May eventually succumbed, for 22. Mistiming a pull, the ball flicked off his glove and spooned behind Amla at short leg, causing the fielder to scamper like a groom’s ageing spinster sister after the bride’s bouquet. Eventually Collingwood was the last man out, giving England a lead of 281 that seemed pretty unlikely when Ian Bell had perished the previous afternoon.

Initially South Africa were allowed to scamper away, before a flurry of wickets fell, Flintoff once more making Jacques Kallis his bitch, even if the South Africans were suggesting Freddie should credit an assist to the pavilion windows behind his arm. However, for all the thoughts of a collapse, with Flintoff still picking bits of cotton wool off himself in readiness for wrapping up the wearied and ineffectual Ryan Sidebottom in them, it was clear that an obdurate partnership would come and, indeed, South Africa finished off with two of ‘em.

First de Villiers with 27, then Boucher with an unbeaten 45 stood tall with their captain as he resolutely put together one of the finest fourth dig chasing knocks you’re ever likely to see. So as the Hollies Stand left their seats, first to join a conga line featuring eight Winehouses, fifteen Mexican banditos and seven cowboys on inflatable horses, and then to go home, South Africa took the extra half hour to put a tired and demoralised England out of their misery without having to all come back in the morning.

A disappointing result for those watching on as England fans, but both sides contributed to a tense, enrapturing game. English cricket moves on with a new captain and, although he might consider him a bit of a prick, Kevin Pietersen would do well to observe how Graeme Smith has grown within the role. One must respect the strength of Smith’s will, organisation and skill, and admire the fact that his team are able to follow so consistently in his footsteps.

St. Albans City 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1

09aug08
Conference South
Clarence Park, St. Albans
att. 522

It’s raining, the Hawks ain’t playing particularly well and, on the terraces, our Malcolm is dealing with his personal space issues by adopting a weightlifter’s pose to squeeze out yet another furious fart. Football is back. Proper football. You can smell it. Well, we can smell something, and it’s causing our support to part quicker than the Red Sea. It’s weird what you come to miss during the close season.

Speaking of summer, it’s been a pretty interesting one for us. There’s been cheeky beanos to the Channel Islands, Reading phoning us up to request an urgent friendly at a week’s notice (they all want to come down to see the Hawks these days) and our signing of 36% of last season’s Conference South winning Lewes XI at their club-takeover-whoops-change-of-plan-lets-give-instant-relegation-a-try end-of-season fire sale. Let us welcome Gary Holloway, Jay Conroy, Ian Simpemba and Paul Booth from Sussex then.

The latter shared last season’s divisional golden boot with Greg Pearson of Bishop’s Stortford, but has played no part in pre-season due to a persistent hamstring injury and as such we’ve been trying to work out our best attacking options throughout. We weren’t helped by the fact that our cult hero of the last three seasons, Rocky Baptiste, was out of contract, apparently considering himself worth a new wage well above the club’s valuation, and was geographically out of negotiation range. His whereabouts were described informally as “in the West Indies, apparently. We don’t know.”

I quite like the idea of Rocky, locked in a bump n’ grind groove in front of scuzzy, bass-heavy, dub-plate sound-system PA stack somewhere for three solid weeks suddenly going “oh shit, I’ve not sorted out a club for next season” before dropping his rum and running straight to the airport without bothering to pack, or even put a shirt on.

Despite his being touted around clubs such as Hayes & Yeading United and Eastleigh, he eventually came back to us a couple of weeks ago, saying he wanted “to play for these fans again.” A cap doffed in our direction there, possibly for us to throw money into, we’re not sure. While negotiations recommence, Rocky will play on a week-to-week basis in exchange for a cash n’ carry box of king-size Rizlas a week and, if the Danger!-Danger!-High-Voltage porn-‘tache he’s been sporting for the last three years is anything to go by, his very own love caravan in the car park. Please note: everything after “week-to-week basis” may not be true. Except the description of the moustache. Which is.

While striking issues have been causing concern, our confidence for the season has been mainly bolstered by the fact we have an embarrassment of riches at the back. Sorting something out between ourselves and Eastleigh so that Tom Jordan could finally make his dream move (arf!) meant a freeing up of wage-bill cash to allow us to add Simpemba, Conroy, Woking’s Jay Gasson and Brighton veteran Guy Butters to the already in-situ Jay Smith and Gary Elphick. Hear that purring? That wasn’t next door’s cat. That was us.

Midfield has also looked in decent order, albeit without a creative spark if we discount Charlie Henry. However, the day before this game saw us sign Matt Gray, another from Woking. Regular readers may remember me discussing a Matt Gray (here, here and here) who used to play for us (in theory) but followed Ian Baird to Eastleigh like a lost, and very bald, puppy. Thankfully, it’s not him. It’s another one. This one also has a high forehead, but is far from a total slaphead. This Matt Gray’s hair is arranged in such a way as to suggest he’s put it all round the back for safe-keeping, giving him a look somewhere between Bobby Charlton in the early 70’s and Lieutenant Gruber from ‘Allo ‘Allo.

Rocky, Matt Gray and another striker, Sam Gargan, loaned in the past week from Brighton found themselves on the bench, while we started with Luke Nightingale and Craig Watkins up front, a partnership that had not been exactly flourishing in pre-season. However that forward line, despite grumblings about the chosen pair’s goals-to-shots ratio, was not our main concern once we had kicked off.

For all the talk of having “the best defence in the league” (always with the elliptical caveat: ‘on paper’), we found ourselves one down within two minutes, our backline looking as creaky and wooden as a pantry door in a haunted house. Looking down at my watch, the time read 14:59. Thanks to an over-eager ref, one can only assume our defensive unit’s inner alarm-clock was yet to go off and they were still rolled up in their collective duvet. Whatever the cause of the lapse, we still found ourselves a goal behind before the season had started, strictly speaking. As portents of doom go for a set of bookie’s title favourites, this one was steaming over the hill waving a big flag and playing reveille on an amplified bugle.

In the following fifteen minutes we saw not much else to buoy us either, at least not until Gary Holloway’s corner was cleared off the line by Scott Cousins as it curled in the direction of the net. Not long after Jamie Collins went for an all-too-rare long-range shot that beat Paul Bastock in the St. Albans goal but pinged against the inside of the post at just too broad an angle causing it to spin across the face of goal and away from danger. Craig Watkins also spurned a great chance having been put through by the impressive Holloway. However Hassam Sulaiman and Paul Hakim continued to cause our defence to go a bit wobbly and Kevin Scriven had to be alert throughout the first half.

After half-time, we eschewed the protection offered by the cover on the side, and braved the elements in our more natural habitat behind the goal, possibly as an effort to suck the ball in, in lieu of strikers who can be relied upon to score. Indeed, it was only after Luke and Craig were replaced wholesale on the hour that we looked more on our mettle. Rocky, in particular, looked keen and hungry. Then again he always does when he’s playing for a contract. Note to the management: let’s keep him on the reefer-skins and sex-shack terms all season.

The equaliser, which we had come to deserve (but nothing more) came after 72 minutes. For the second time in the game we had upped the pressure with three successive corners, and the third one this time brought a mistake from Bastock. His punch only went as far as the collection of players on the far post and the ball trickled in after hitting one of them [see picture below]. Fortune favoured us today, clearly. It wasn’t entirely clear whether it had hit Ian Simpemba or City captain Ben Martin.

The PA announcer eventually gave it to Simpemba (after originally saying Guy Butters) but Bastock seemed to have his own thoughts, saying “I punched it into our fella’s arse.” I’d probably go with Ol’ Bald Paul, given that he had the, erm, ringside seat. However I imagine Ian will take it. After all, he’d scored in a friendly at Lewes the previous Saturday thanks to a keeper bitch-slapping a ball into his face. Clearly this is a gambit we’ve been working on during training.

Stalebuns man on the PA was clearly in playful mood, announcing not long after “today’s attendance. A season high: 522” and with parity restored we were in a much better place to enjoy the gag. Indeed, we arguably finished the stronger, with the anti-aging Bastock making a terrific flying save from Jay Smith not long after our goal, but certainly we’ll have to work on making better starts if we are to succeed in our ambition to win this league. Games come thick and fast at the start of the season so we’ll have plenty of opportunities, not least with two home games in the following week, to get some momentum going.

Previously, on Dub Steps
16apr05: St. Albans City 3 Havant & Waterlooville 1

Links
St. Albans City website
Havant & Waterlooville website

Stansted 2 Hullbridge Sports 0

17aug07
FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Hargrave Park, Stansted
att. 120

Hobo in my pocket #21

Not long now 'til the Road to Wembley begins once more. In anticipation of, hopefully, another good year for the ol' mug, here's a picture from the very first day of last years competition; a Friday night kick-off due to the lack of availability of the shared football/cricket pitch the following afternoon.

Previously, on Dub Steps
Stansted 2 Hullbridge Sports 0


from the Vanity Project archive (issue #21)

16 Bronsons.
Portsmouth Registry. 15feb07.

Jim: “Let’s fucking do this…you know who we are.” The subsequent heckles suggest that some people need their memories refreshed. That’s understandable. Although reunited for a while now, after a cessation of activity around 2001, the gigs have come as a trickle, rather than a flow. The publicity for this show paints them as Portsmouth legends and while that may be a little hard on the sell, let me tell you, around the turn of the millennium the Bronsons were on astonishing, and consistent, form. They had the respect and love of many, both within the Portsmouth punk community of the time, and those outside. Commitments outside of music made it so that taking it further was unviable, but for those of us who saw them at the time, they were a very special and powerful band. Seven years on, of course, after such a period away from the stage, it would be unrealistic to believe they could recapture that kind of white heat. That’s just the musical law, really. ‘Comeback’ law. Wanna fight the law? Law’ll win. With that in mind, 16 Bronsons deserve respect for the fact that tonight’s set is entirely brand new. The old stuff? Great songs like ‘Tempertrip’, ‘Outcast’ and ‘Regrets’? All swept into the bin. This is a band with the confidence in themselves (if we ignore “we’ll fuck this up” as one fairly typical example of the between song banter) and their ability to successfully move on. Some of the stage energy clearly remains, Jim high-kicking and barking his strained snarl up into the down-turned mic and Dan Harding launching with guitar at his mic like a pub doorman intervening sharply amidst a fist-fight in the public bar. Behind them it’s a union of opposites, Dan White with his relaxed, effortless poise contrasting with drummer Matt’s picture of nervy concentration. Some of the new stuff is really good, with excitingly swift turns of pace, and an often-athletic rhythm. It might be all new gear, but that flexing of their musical muscle is a powerful nostalgia hit. Amongst the rakish bounce of ‘Where Can It Be’, third song in, is the first appearance in tonight’s set of Jim and Dan Harding’s twin vocal harmonies. The significance of this coalition in the power of the Bronsons songs should not be underestimated, as when they come together, it brings out the best of the individual voices. It’s a whole-trumping-the-sum thing, and the fact they still have that in their arsenal means the Bronsons will continue to be a potent force, if now a more mature kind.