Havant & Waterlooville 2 Eastleigh 2

25apr09
Conference South
West Leigh Park, Havant
att. 1,239

Judging by our final league placing (15th), this has been the worst season we have experienced as a united club. Yet, I’ve not hated this campaign as much as I perhaps should have done and don’t feel as disgruntled as I imagined I might now that we have stumbled over the finishing line like a marathon runner who’d traded their shoes for a Lucozade and a dab of Vaseline around the 15-mile mark.

Thing is, I love turning up at West Leigh Park, whatever the circumstances. Although I will admit I had been slightly concerned in the week or so leading up to this game, that a home defeat to our local rivals would be the horrible final-day bullet to our weakened knees. After all this was the fixture which stood out when they were published last July, and given Eastleigh’s season has been as enthralling for them as ours has been disappointing for us, the prospect of them lording it around West Leigh Park like cocks–of-the-walk was not nice. Actually, scrub the ‘–of-the-walk’ bit.

Furthermore, for a team that Ian Baird claimed he could “take no further” when he cleared off a year and a half ago, a great many familiar faces were present across their starting XI and on their bench; Matt Gray, Gareth Howells, Tom Jordan, Neil Sharp, Tony Taggart and Luke Byles all in tow. In the last week they also announced the signing of our recently departed stalwart Brett Poate, an announcement timed in their usual Machiavellian manner to unsettle our pre-game equilibrium.

More fool them as while some of their previous steals have been of players we might like to have kept, Brett, for all his long-service medals and history of steam-engine-powering-through-the-countryside goals from outside the box, had become such a liability, serious consideration was given to us replacing him in the team with a cardboard cut-out of Dot Cotton. Not even life-size either.

So there were plenty of Judases (Judaii?) knocking about the place. One of our chants pejoratively referred to them as “Hawks Reunited”, but The Great Big Dick-licks & Knob-Stilton Travelling Jamboree would do just as well, albeit less easy to filter into song. Still, for all our anti-Eastleigh rhetoric, there is no doubt that they have achieved much this season and are deserving of their play-off place. That they got two extra points from Tom Jordan slam-dunking one in with his hairy palms against AFC Wimbledon made no difference to that nor, in the end, to AFC Dons’ eventual promotion.

Eastleigh’s ground isn’t really up to housing Conference National football, not comfortably. All the boxes are ticked so they can go up, but I mean in the sense that it is bloomin’ ‘orrible to watch a game there if the standing crowd is more than one-deep around the edges, where it is mostly flat-standing with no terracing whatsoever. Also, the modus operandi of their off-field staff still leaves a lot to be desired. However, for all our bluster and anti- ness, Ian Baird’s record over a 42 game league season remains pretty consistent. Having led us to 6th and 4th place finishes in his two full seasons with us. Eastleigh have benefited to the tune of a 6th and a 3rd. If lighting is striking twice, expect him to depart to Salisbury or somewhere late this September.

Still, that’s enough about Eastleigh, I said in the week I wouldn’t sing anti-Eastleigh chants, only pro-Hawk ones, as I didn’t want to waste my breath on such a horrid lot, but here I am wearing away my typing fingers. So let’s talk Hawk shall we?

The fourteen single goal defeats, an incredible amount of 2-2 draws, and just seven clean sheets suggest that with a little more testicular fortitude, this season might not have withered like a finger trapped for too long in a too tight signet ring, at least not quite so soon. However I’m not entirely convinced by Shaun Gale’s recent comment that our recent form suggests “we’re not a million miles away from being a title winning side.” We remain a bit too leaky for that.

Attacking has been a bit of an issue too, despite us finishing with a lightly positive goal difference. Neither Paul Booth nor Luke Nightingale were able to reproduce the form that has won them this division’s Golden Boot in previous seasons for other clubs, and arguably this was partly down to a lack of biting intent on the part of our midfield. However, the progress of Craig Watkins from everyone's last choice for the bench to probably the first name on the team-sheet since a mid-December FA Trophy hat-trick has been heartening.

Luke Nightingale has improved in stature since the start of the season too. He may only have scored four goals in open play in the league but he’s been pretty reliable from the penalty spot, for which he’s been called upon regularly; he and captain Jamie Collins have shared twelve successful penalties this year (and a dud one each). At the start of the season Luke cut a seemingly de-motivated figure, phrases like those involving barn doors and tractors or cows bums and banjos being used so often we had to invent new ones to stop getting bored, stuff like “couldn’t score an old exam desk with a freshly sharpened compass” or “couldn’t hit a hippo’s portly midriff with an oboe.” While no-one’s player of the season, some of his form issues have been the fact we haven’t played a style of football that fits his strengths, which it would be harsh to blame him for.

It is stuff like this that means the tactical and motivation skills of our management team have been correctly due for close scrutiny. However, they will not now be sacked, that seems certain. In a way, despite my grumbles when faced with demotion, I applaud the board’s loyalty in a world where the quick fix is favoured, especially to Shaun Gale, who appears to love our club almost as much as we do. I have spent most of the second half of the season hoping something would change, but now we’ve finished the season without being relegated, I feel a lot more sanguine. If our management duo’s community schemes do raise a lot of awareness and cash, perhaps it is better to play the long game than be like Veruca Salt and want the golden-egg-laying goose of promotion NOW! NOW! NOW! I say perhaps, as I can't really give a definitive answer to that. We will have to see.

Our club has seemingly used the Cup cash wisely, paying off debts and improving facilities. We’re as fiscally safe as any club can be and at the root of it we fans just want our clubs to exist. With the economic climate being what it is, some supporters around the country may not have that luxury for too much longer.

Also, while I’m in a fairly jovial mood, I should say it was a pretty decent game to see the season out, with a unexpectedly large Eastleigh contingent making for a decent atmosphere. We might have twice lost the lead but considering I thought a 1-0 defeat would be the best we could hope for, particularly with Eastleigh signing Nicky Morgan on emergency loan in goal (a keeper who has generally done very well against us for Braintree over the years), I’m not going to complain.

Craig Watkins broke through in the 21st minute. His first shot was blocked by Morgan’s drainpipe legs, although he showed lightning quick reactions to stick out a leg and crash home the rebound. Cue delirium [see top two pictures]. Sadly, but impressively, after 38 minutes Ashley Carew caught our keeper Nathan Ashmore in two minds to fire home a brilliant dipping shot from outside the box. “Mmm, that’s a goal”, I remarked to my London Branch colleague, displaying once again the penetrating analysis for which I’m renowned.

In the second half, the teams started playing it a bit more chess-like, until Luke Medley did what he does best (and sometimes worst) in taking fifteen touches where some would take one, threading the ball to sub Steven Walker who twisted, tweaked and then trickled the ball inside Morgan’s near post [see third picture]. The lead only lasted eight minutes though as five from the end, Matt Groves beat our Nath to rescue a point for the visitors. A fair result all told, and the Hawks largely rose to the occasion, despite the majority of them having no substantial connection to our bitch-slap back-and-forth with the Beastleigh types.

As such it was much more enjoyable than I’d feared; an opportunity for some final singing and dancing. Our man Ade, buoyed by fizzy liquid as final game tradition dictates, took the opportunity to lead from the front in every respect [see bottom picture], dancing like a chicken escaping from a straight jacket and demanding we get amongst the final choral effort.

So, we can still have a little fun here and there, despite it not being the season we thought it’d be. Certainly I’d been hoping to continue my overuse of the word ‘giddy’ on these pages, but it’s not exactly been the best fitting term for what’s gone on. At the end of last season’s final Hawk piece, I tried to repeat my gambit of the previous year by making the final line “next year will be another to remember” having been quite prophetic with it that first time. With my second attempt though, nothing could have been further from the truth. As such, we can do nothing but look forward. The stuff in the rear view mirror will only make us wince.

Previously, on Dub Steps
29nov08: Eastleigh 2 Havant & Waterlooville 0
01apr08: Eastleigh 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1
22dec07: Havant & Waterlooville 1 Eastleigh 0
09apr07: Havant & Waterlooville 1 Eastleigh 1

Links
Havant & Waterlooville website
Eastleigh website

Basingstoke Town 2 Havant & Waterlooville 2

13apr09
Conference South
The Camrose, Basingstoke
att. 507

As well as being a sunny bank holiday worthy of the name, today represented ten years to the day since I attended my first Havant & Waterlooville fixture. It’s been a story of ups and downs since then of course, as it is for all football fans but, in fairness, we’ve had far more ups than most, particular if you consider the sheer loftiness of those ups. This season, though, will represent a down simply for the fact we had got to April without being able to categorically say we wouldn’t be returning to a Southern League which has diminished in status since we were last there thanks to the formation of the Conference’s second tier. Much as it might be nice to visit some new places, y’know, I’m quite happy to leave that to the vagaries of the Cup draws, or by leaving the division in a more skywardly manner.

We came into this Easter weekend imagining that two wins (or two draws and at least one defeat for Thurrock) would mean safety was mathematically assured as opposed to just ‘most likely’. As it was we were pretty much able to hand around the cigars last Thursday with the announcement that university side Team Bath would be following the relegated Bognor and Fisher out of the league by resigning from the Conference South and, seemingly, from the football pyramid entirely.

Theoretically, the space created by Team Bath’s demise could be applied across the level (i.e. including Conference North, ‘saving’ whichever third bottom side finished with the most points) but to my mind that should only happen when teams drop two or more levels from the Conference Premier. If a team drops out of the Conference South then surely the gap is created in the division rather than equally at that level. Of course, the levels below will have to sort out their gap issues fairly and equally given that it appears Team Bath will be parachuting, whilst tied to an anvil, straight through.

One can never delight in teams collapsing but Team Bath’s rag week challenge did seem to have got a bit out of hand. Given their presence was about as welcome as the knock from a door-to-door seller of ironing board covers, they will not be greatly mourned. Ordinarily you’d empathise with their fans but they’ve kindly helped us out in this regard by not having any.

Cause for celebration you might assume given this assurance of safety but, in truth, any bonhomie is forced, like an office Christmas party preceded minutes earlier by an email announcing mass redundancy. Sure, it’s nice to know we’ll 100% definitely be retaining our status next year but our party-hat-on-elastic is at a tired, rather than jaunty, angle and our kazoo blowout is hanging limply from the corner of our mouth droning out a long, exasperated bwwrrrr—aarrrrrrrrrrrr…

So the season now has a weirdly anti-climactic feel to it. Not that I’m suggesting I would prefer a last minute equaliser on the final day of the season being the point where safety was assured but the drama has been sucked out of the remainder somewhat. Just as well then that there’s only a fortnight left to do the pride salvaging tour.

The first half of this game at our fellow thin-ice skaters Basingstoke certainly had that end-of-season ‘minds-eye-concentrated-on-the-window-display-at-Thomas Cook’ feel to it. Frankly I’ve seen withered cadavers with more vitality. Basingstoke scored with five minutes of the half courtesy of an exquisite dipping shot from Phil Ruggles which should have been disallowed simply for not being in keeping with the gaunt ennui of the forty minutes preceding it.

As m’chum Mr Ketchup and I formulated later, while the first half was all pre-season daises-in-the-centre circle stuff, the second was more your blood and thunder cup tie derby in tempo. Mr K has been getting increasingly paranoid recently that things that spill out of his talk-hole seem to have a pretty good chance of re-appearing on these pages. Clearly, he has a point.

Our hypothesis on this occasion was correct though, it genuinely was a game of two halves, and we did the rare thing of coming out for the second half with not a little determination in our stride. Within three minutes of the re-start young midfield dynamo Wes Fogden, looking increasingly the class act around which we can have another go at building a side, got tricksy in the box and found a way through the bodies [see picture below] by tilting his in such an unnatural shape he could have modelled for Picasso.

After his equaliser we dominated proceedings up until the point, and writing this feels oddly familiar, where the opposition scored again. Awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box, David Tarpey curled one around the wall and out of the reach of Kevin Scriven. However rather than disintegrate we piled on the pressure, which was eventually rewarded when Guy Butters, making a rare start in place of the injured Sir Gary Elphick, met a ball into the box at roughly the same time as Luke Nightingale.

There has been some debate as to who got the final touch but while official sources claim it was the BFG, the fact that after both raised their hands the big fella went over to Luke, to ruffle his hair like he might a puppy on its first retrieval of his slippers, suggests it should be accredited to Nightingale. Mind you, Guy certainly deserved it for putting in a good, solid performance after a season on the sidelines and for the fact he always looks like he’s pushing himself to the limit. This is made apparent by his head turning a deep, flamboyant shade of red whenever he has to run anywhere. Some might suggest this a fitness issue, the ‘F’ in BFG not standing for ‘Friendly’ in Big Guy’s case if you know what I mean, but considering he was playing, very successfully, in League One last season, it’s fair to say being a svelte whippet has never been part of his game.

So, two games to go with our ambitions now limited to 13th place at best, and the prospect of Eastleigh giving it large when they turn up at our gaff on the final day of the season. It’s enough to wipe away any ‘cheerful’ left in the tank. As it is though, our Easter weekend was a decent boost, three goals and three points at home to Fisher than an away draw which reminded us of the good old days when that wasn’t considered so bad a thing. Not that I wouldn’t appreciate a win at Bishop’s Stortford this weekend, of course.

Links
Basingstoke Town website
Havant & Waterlooville website

Havant & Waterlooville 3 Fisher Athletic 0

11apr09
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 616

Considering they have been long relegated and possibly have only eleven days before liquidation sees them reform much lower down the pyramid, or go dodo altogether, Fisher Athletic did not present the toughest of challenges in terms of the Hawks picking up a very late addition of pace in an otherwise sluggish season.

These Fish, you could say these days, come in a barrel of their own cooperage, and have been handing out the rifles ever since the bottom fell out of their recent rollercoaster existence. It was not long ago they were talking about 10,00 seater stadiums and full time football. Next year it may be about roped-off parks pitches and the Kent League, if that.

It has does nothing for the credibility of the Conference South that, since about October, any team facing Fisher are virtually guaranteed a win, with only four points coming their way since their mid November victory away at Bishop’s Stortford.

To be fair to them, Fisher’s young, inexperienced side lack nothing in effort and application in fighting for a cause they’ve no real connection to, having not been around in better times; an inferno fire-fight they’ve undertaken with only garden hose and a child’s beach bucket, with little or no reward either in the pocket or in terms of the collective morale. You can’t help but admire their strength of character and, certainly, the implausibly youthful-looking Alex Bentley (who would probably look less incongruous in a set of Spiderman pyjamas than a muddied Fisher strip) has impressed every time we’ve seen them.

However they are slight and callow and thus they struggle with the reading of the game, and the physicality of it and thus, had we been more ruthless, we might have had more than three. Mind you, aside from a 6-0 beating at the hands of Team Bath on the opening day of the season (when, let’s not forget, they still had a ‘proper’ squad), they’ve not taken any hammerings aside from the odd 4-0, not as many as you might expect in the circumstances anyway.

As such we shouldn’t feel disappointed – it was a job professionally done, with all three strikers chipping in with goals including a rare, and excellently finished, one in open play from Luke Nightingale. Paul Hinshelwood had a rare bad game but we’ll forgive him it in these less than high-octane circumstances, having been a reassuring presence since his arrival in terms of thinking, “well, where do we go from here?”

With safety now mathematically assured, the run-in feels weirdly anti-climactic and I think we’ll be glad to get the next fortnight out of the way so that we might retreat, regroup and properly consider our options for 2009/10. One thing we do know is that we’ll not have to face Fisher again next year which, for me in purely logistical terms, given the easy accessibility of their current Dulwich bivouac from my east London base, will be a shame.

For the boom-or-bust nature of their way of life, I imagine many others, even amongst the Fisher support, will be glad that closure on their story looks to be on its way.

Havant & Waterlooville 1 Welling United 0

06apr09
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 557

Just as our mood had dipped again, with disappointment and apathy brought about by the situation looking unlikely to change, another slice of home win was cut from a league programme pie mostly snaffled by our hungry Conference South rivals thus far this season.

The first half saw a committed and adroit performance and, unlike our previous few games, we managed to cling on through the nailed-on certainty of a second half lull. Welling came to West Leigh Park still in contention for the play-offs, and had beaten us at Park View Road almost exactly a month prior to. As such, I expected little or less.

However we started well and controlled the first half. That has been the case on several occasions though, where we haven’t capitalised with a goal and then fallen behind to a sucker punch. Tonight the punch came from us and what a blow it was. First Shaun Wilkinson delivered a roundhouse sighter that just missed the tip of the Welling schnoz (or in less pugilistic terms, his long range shot just curved off the outside of his boot and away from the far top corner).

A couple of minutes later we had a free kick outside the box, and we knocked it around to the sound of our chum Chris behind the goal letting out a vaguely panicked cry of “Give it to Wilko, give it to Wilko.” Jamie Collins gave it to Wilko and he unleashed a strike so fierce we had to sedate it with a tranquilizer dart then cage it.

Welling keeper Charlie Mitten (who, with that name, sounds like he supplements his football income by working as a cockney spiv in Trumpton) was stuck in a kind of shocked rigor mortis, eventually creaking his neck around to see the ball smouldering in the bottom corner inside his near post.

If only we had played all our games on Monday nights, this might have been the season we’d originally hoped for. As it is Saturdays unfortunately remained popular with our opposition and thus we found ourselves cast as April fools, the “big budget” boys still unsafe in relegation terms going into the final month.

Now, we have four games to play and Thurrock have five. We are eleven points ahead of them with the relegated, and possibly soon to be liquidated, Fisher Athletic turning up at West Leigh Park this coming Saturday, a game you’d hope would bring three of the five points we will need if we genuinely believe Thurrock can win all of their remaining games.

We then play Basingstoke away on Easter Monday, having hammered them 5-1 at home back in August. Not a place we’ve done that well at over the years but quite how that’s ever relevant I’m not sure. Besides it’s on a Monday so we’ll be fine. Assuming we get loads of 3pm cloud cover and can convince the Stoke-ites to turn on the floodlights anyway.

Chalfont St. Peter 3 Chalfont Wasps 3*

19mar09
Wycombe Senior Cup 1st Round
Meadow Mill, Chalfont St. Peter
att. 65

*a.e.t. - Chalfont St. Peter win 4-2 on penalties

The Wycombe Senior Cup, it’d be fair to say, is not the greatest of honours. Certainly I hadn’t come across it before, which is a shame because its fourteen entrants contain some quality names. As examples I put forward Downley Albion, Penn & Tylers Green; Bucks Student Union and, my favourite, Wycombe Judo. In terms of local competition, the Berks & Bucks Senior Trophy would be, you’d think, slightly more prestigious, yet last seasons final for the latter was held at Aylesbury Vale, while this competition reaches climax at a Football League ground. Guess which?

Yet any cup tie involving local rivals is usually worth a look, and only a mile or so separates Meadow Mill from the Wasps’ ‘Nest’ ground (honestly, it really is called that), which currently houses their reserve side. Ground grading issues following last season’s promotion mean that Wasps are currently sharing Meadow Mill and thus home advantage held no real sway for this game, save for the fact they’ll be in the ‘other’ dressing room for this game, the one where the hot taps ain’t working and the treatment table’s got a short leg.

Wasps, current Wycombe Senior Cup holders, represent the neighbouring parish of Chalfont St. Giles, but despite their close proximity and the fact that both sides currently play at step 5 of the non-League pyramid, they don’t play in the same league strand. St Peter have been in the Spartan South Midlands Premier Division since the disbanding of the Isthmian League’s third tier in 2006, while Wasps climbed to the peak of the Hellenic League by winning its Division One (East) feeder last season.

In this respect, Saints come out on top in terms of petrol money as the Spartan league’s stretch means their longest round trip during the season is the 106 to Biggleswade United and back. The Hellenic however, whilst clustered mostly in the gap between Oxford and Swindon, sprawls over several counties all the way over to Hereford, meaning Wasps at the eastern extremity can look forward to many a long trip, the longest to Pegasus Juniors meaning a 268 mile day out west.

However what they lose in the whoever’s-in-the-van-longest-is-a-flailing-ponce contest, they make up for by comparing famous current residents; St. Giles boast 70’s and 80’s kid’s TV hero Brian Cant, whilst St Peter pretend they’ve never heard of radio sidekick Comedy Dave. Chalfont St Giles also housed John Milton whilst he completed his epic poem Paradise Lost. St Peter, on the other hand, currently houses one of them out of Girls Aloud. Another win for Giles I’d have to say, fond as I secretly am of Something Kinda Ooh!

Perhaps the value in which the Wycombe Senior Cup is held is made clear by the fact that this first round game is only being played in March, over four months after it was supposed to be completed and seven after it was originally drawn out of the hat. The winners of this game would look forward to hosting Chinnor in a quarter final, although you could hardly blame either the Saints or the Stingers if they viewed this tie as not much more than an inconvenience. After all, both sides had played twenty-four hours prior to and were looking at playing Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, at least, for the remaining six weeks of the season.

The weather can be partly blamed for this backlog, but fingers will have pointed more at St Peter than St Giles, as the Saints’ progress in the FA Vase had meant disruption for both clubs. With the Vase being a national competition for clubs from Step 5 downwards, which will be lower scale semi-pro and flat amateur, the travel issues mean replays and re-arranged games take place on weekends, for however long it takes. Hence a replay, a postponement as well as three other Vase ties here had knocked the one-on, one-off do-si-do of the two Chalfont clubs for use of this grass well out of kilter.

Probably just as well then, for the frayed sanity of the groundsman if nothing else, that they were drawn together for the early stages of this cup. Furthermore, each club’s migraine-ridden fixture secretary could also have been excused in taking some clandestine delight in a defeat here. However, despite St Peter trying out a few of the youth side, the two teams certainly didn’t look to phone it in and stroll through, despite the games of the previous evening. It was exactly what you’d expect a local derby cup tie to be even with the freshest of legs; loadsa goals, both defences looking to kick people and occasionally, perhaps, the ball, a befuddled looking Mr Bean of a ref, a red card and some fighting.

It was hard tackling and aggressive from the get-go, legs flying around, and it was no surprise when a couple of penalties were awarded not long after each other. By the point of the first, Wasps had already taken the lead, only for Saints to equalise with a free-kick [see above] that was curled in via eyebrows then shins. That first penalty went to the home side after twenty minutes, the keeper being sent the wrong way, a state of affairs that was reversed four minutes after when a similarly clumsy challenge was punished [see below], and which had immediately followed an even stronger, but turned down, claim.

With players going down every five seconds, both halves stretched long beyond their natural lives, which was to prove critical. Saints took the lead again after an hour, not long after a Wasps player was tunnelled for a second yellow. If I’m judging the pictures in the programme correctly in the absence of a team-sheet anywhere, it would appear that the tunnelled defender was Steve Nott-Macaire, a recent Wasps acquisition after seven years with Saints. That’s the old football law of ‘returning’ players though; they’ll either be scoring the winner or running the bath.

A minute later Saints had the lead, and kept it (a fourth being ruled out for offside) until the fourth of almost nine injury time minutes, when a Wasps corner dropped for a shot from the edge of the box that missed the mass of bodies and hit the back of the net. However this meant another half hour of play that neither the player’s legs, nor I, needed. The combination of the amount of added time, the half hour walk to Gerrard’s Cross station and my overestimation of the insulating properties of my cardigan meant I took my leave, missing a scoreless half hour and a penalty shoot out which the Saints won, I’m told, 4-2.

However thoughts of the two-legged Vase semi-final against Glossop North End; the four hundred fans travelling down from Derbyshire for Chalfont’s home leg to stand alongside a horde of curious locals; and, potentially, a game at Wembley in May will have meant the Wycombe Senior Cup quarter-final against Chinnor would have been one of the furthest things from their minds.

ADDENDUM
Sadly it was not to be Wembley for Chalfont this year, losing 6-5 on penalties after, what sounded like, very exciting 3-3 and 2-2 draws in Chalfont and Glossop respectively.

Road to the Final^
F: Burnham 1 Chalfont St Peter 0 [a.e.t.] (att. 120)
SF: Chalfont St Peter 4 Bucks Students Union 1 (att. 45)
QF: Chalfont St Peter vs Chinnor - walkover^^
R1: Chalfont St Peter 3 Chalfont Wasps 3
^ - Final tie held at Burnham FC due to late unavailability of Adams Park.
^^ - Chinnor withdrew from competition.

Links
Chalfont St Peter website
Chalfont Wasps website