Edinburgh City 1 Edinburgh University 0

08aug09
East of Scotland League
Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh
att. 50 (approx.)

Probably just as well that I’ve focused my holiday football viewing on life outside the Scottish Football Leagues, given that during my trip open revolt abounded with them. Livingstone were demoted two levels at three days notice, and therefore both Airdrie United and Cowdenbeath had 72 hours to plan out life a division higher than they’d prepared through the summer for. Livingston then appealed the decision, an appeal that was ultimately unsuccessful, meaning their game against East Stirlingshire needed to be postponed, whilst the two eleventh-hour promotees would have to treat their results against Ross County and Arbroath respectively as ‘provisional’.

Many, including our chum Steeplejack at the great Gable End Graffiti, have been scathing about Livingstone, for their to-hell-with-consequence business practice, and also for the fact they are very much a Franchise FC for West Lothian. You can read more of his thoughts on his site. Like him, I’m certainly no fan of clubs expecting others to pick up the pieces of their profligacy, nor of those who buy another club’s higher status and transport it away from its heartland, its history and the on-field meritocracy that should be the only measure of bringing success to a club and the town it represents.

I’m not sure whether it’s appropriate, or inappropriate that on this calamitous weekend that I should be visiting the ground upon which Scottish league football was played until Livi carpet-bagged Meadowbank Thistle’s slot in the mid-90’s. Despite its history though, Meadowbank Stadium is a bit like a sci-fi nerd with tourettes and a penchant for goosing your parents, i.e. a bit hard to fall in love with (apologies to any sweary Battlestar Galactica enthusiasts with busy hands who happen to be reading).

Finding your way into it is the first battle, only one turnstile being required and hidden away in the vast expanse of the gigantic stand. Up to the main foyer stroll a number of folks in Judo costume awaiting a lesson, much fewer are aimed in the direction of that turnstile to hand over the £4 in. This may partly be because the club notice board outside is still advertising the fixture of a fortnight prior and even then only on a piece of A4.

Once inside, I appear to be one of only four people here to share a 7000 seat stand. The flip-up bit of the seats is larger than most you see which makes looking down at them rather like looming over a large brace of ducks staring at a crack in the roof.

Around the other sides of the ground are some terrace steps, sadly out of bounds, and the large leisure complex. The big screen at one end hints at the bigger days, the athletics meets and such, that draw in the bigger crowds. This place was, after all, built to host Commonwealth Games’. With no tannoy playing tunes, the sound of high-octane dance and a fitness instructor barking their “woo yeah…one more time” instructions to their almost certainly moist and apple-cheeked class can be clearly heard on the breeze.

There really isn’t much to catch the eye around the place. Hurdles litter the edge of the running track, the ‘dug-outs’ (i.e. a couple of benches and a plastic chair) sit at unkempt angles on the half-way line, whilst a sweet wrapper flickers listlessly in a foot hole in the long-jump pit.

As the game kicks off it becomes clear that atmosphere-wise, it’s not exactly going to be as Russ Abbot would favour it. The screaming incandescence of the managers is so far distant on the other side of the stadium that it feels like a family row happening two streets away intruding awkwardly on a minute’s silence.

Twelve minutes in, Edinburgh City score the only goal they will need to beat their studious neighbours, a beautifully judged cross into the six yard box where Ian McFarland steals into to knock a header past the stuck fast keeper Tait. McFarland misses an even easier chance just prior to half-time when another cross on the six yard line spoons of his ankle and flips wide of the post.

The second half began with a resurgent effort by University but nothing to overly worry the home side. In truth, it was poor advert for the East of Scotland League. The most intriguing aspect of the day, for me, was a message in biro written above the sinks in the gents toilet, which suggested that the ground’s previous tenants are gone, but not forgotten: “MTFC on the way back, ECFC on the way to bankruptcy”.

Ruislip Manor 1 Biggleswade Town 2

17mar08
Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division
Grosvenor Vale, Ruislip
att. 53

Hobo in my pocket #29


from the Vanity Project archive (issue #6 - May 2003)

The Kills.
Southampton Joiners Arms. 03mar03.

He faces out. She faces him. V.V. & Hotel, like some minimalist art installation version of ABBA's 'Take A Chance On Me' video. The stage is bare save for two persons and two guitars, the rhythm tracks housed on a DAT, yet still they close ranks towards the centre of the stage. Being a duo sans drumset, there is little to draw your attention away from their stage poise initially so opposite but yet so together in their stance. The shapes and angles created, the product of their postural tilt, ideally complement the jutting angularity of their earthy, transatlantic D.I.Y. rock n' roll. A detached red spotlight hits the rear wall of the venue, giving V.V. a devilish aura, from my perspective. It appears to be very deliberate mise en scene for their music's distinct 'redness', being dangerous, abrasive, sleazy, nasty - Fuck the People indeed. As the show goes on the more insular they become, drawing in to face each other, side on to the audience, aloof and intimate as hell, energies caught in the channel of their magnetism. When such remarkable grooves emanate from so basic an ensemble, I can't help but be caught in it too.

Broxbourne Borough V&E 1 Enfield 1893 4

16aug09
FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Goffs Lane, Cheshunt
att. 189

The ornate stone architecture of the Grace Chapel and, over the road, the Church of St Mary the Virgin, perhaps betrays the fact that the leafy suburbs of Cheshunt, indeed Broxbourne borough as a whole, isn’t exactly a traditionally ‘football’ kind of place. However, whilst it might not be it’s heartland, it remains Tottenham territory, at least if the number of Spurs shirts that I pass on the way to ground from Cheshunt station is anything to go by.

One shop does display Cheshunt FC’s Isthmian League Division One North game, but that appears to be the only concession to the plethora of senior non-league football being played in the area.

This game was being played on a Sunday at 1pm possibly to draw in the groundhopping crowd or possibly to tempt locals to combine this fixture with watching the Spurs v Liverpool game in the bar at four. Another intriguing aspect, of course, being that this was an FA Cup game between bedfellows, Enfield (1893) having recently moved in.

This recent arrival sees the Enfield side returning to an EN postcode, if not quite the correct borough, for the first time since leaving the iconic Southbury Road ground ten years ago. Strictly speaking, as the suffixed date would imply, it’s not exactly the same club, Enfield having been liquidated in 2007 by officials looking to wipe out the debts incurred under the stewardship of controversial former chairman Tony Lazarou. In the 1980’s Enfield were one of the biggest names in non-league winning the Conference in 1983 and 1986 both times missing out on election to the Football League.

After leaving Southbury Road, they groundshared with Boreham Wood and then Ware, during which time a Supporter’s Trust, unconvinced that Lazarou had any intention of taking the club back to the town, or indeed the Borough, set up their own club, Enfield Town, now competing in the Isthmian Division One North, a level above 1893, who were required to reform in the Essex Senior League.

Their hosts Broxbourne play in another different league, the Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division, but at the same level of the pyramid. So, despite not being totally au fait with each other, a pre-season friendly aside, this is by-and-large a level playing field. A level playing field surrounded with all manner of curious structures.

A small open stand of seating lies, baked in beating sunshine, along one side, the kind of stand you usually see at European non-league grounds. A further stand comprising seats, terrace steps and the turnstile block, curves round a corner at the clubhouse end, the directors box a triangle vanishing to the point of the corner flag. A relatively recent wood structure, it looks like a Garden Centre shed display or a row of be-decked beach hut verandas.

Despite the intense heat, the match was played, until they all got lost outside the ground, with orange balls seemingly to betray a very English pessimism that, however intense the heat, one must always scope for snow. The dandelion seeds floating across the pitch from the adjacent brambles and woodland seemed to hint though that we wouldn’t be required to break out the mukluks any time soon.

However, to start with, it looked like both sides were wearing heavy boots of some kind, as it took until the 32nd minute for the game to get going. Enfield’s Adilson Lopes sent a dipping shot just over the bar and the outstretched fingertips of Broxbourne keeper Obey Morefu to get the thing properly kick-started.

Four minutes later, Broxbourne’s Bradley Poole allows himself to be robbed of the ball just inside his half, a particular shame for him given that he was, Morefu aside, the last man. Jeremiah Nkrumah streaked forward, dummied the keeper and slotted the ball into the open net.

Within two minutes, Enfield had a second. Geoff Orcan barrelled down the right, beat full-back Rob Kemble, before slotting a handsome cross across the box allowing Nkrumah to simply flick over Morefu as the keeper lurched forward in the manner of someone, arms tied to their sides, being felled by a firing squad [see below].

However, just as the game looked dead and buried, with Enfield coasting in to half time, the home side pulled one back from nowhere, Danny Bradford’s floating cross from well outside the box sailing over keeper Steve Wright and in off the far post.

Perhaps buoyed by this good fortune, Broxbourne came out with confidence in the second half, Matt Watts’ header bringing a save from Wright in the opening moments. However the heat of the early afternoon sun, combined with a proper contest having broken out, appeared to be getting to both sides with a 21-man free-for-all kicking off in the 51st minute. Another ref might have tunnelled one or two, but instead three yellow cards were shown.

In the 74th minute, with Broxbourne still pressing, Nicky Marsh’s run down the right and sweeping cross fell perfectly for Danny Bradford but his volley skimmed the bar. A similar move from Marsh four minutes later required Lee Benmore to put in a vital tackle to clear the lines.

However, having bossed the half in search of an equaliser, Broxbourne eventually shot themselves in the foot with just two minutes remaining. Enfield sub Abul Hussain met a cross at the back post that Morefu should have dealt with comfortably but the keeper only succeeded in looking like a child trying to cradle a startled carp and bitch-slapped the ball into his own net.

In injury time, Geoff Orcan wrapped it up with a fine individual goal cutting inside and out of a bewildered defender before hammering his shot past the demoralised Morefu. Enfield move forward, and in the next round will be here, but in the home dressing room, as they face Crawley Green and, given that their opponents play at the level below, Enfield will fancy their chances of taking a handful of honk from the FA’s wallet.

Road to Wembley
F: Chelsea 1 Portsmouth 0 (att. 88,335)
SF: Aston Villa 0 Chelsea 3 (att. 85,472)
6R: Reading 2 Aston Villa 4 (att. 23,175)
5Rr: West Bromwich Albion 2 Reading 3 [a.e.t.] (att. 13.985)
5R: Reading 2 West Bromwich Albion 2 (att. 18,008)
4R: West Bromwich Albion 4 Newcastle United 2 (att. 16,102)
3R: Huddersfield Town 0 West Bromwich Albion 2 (att. 13,472)
2R: Port Vale 0 Huddersfield Town 1 (att. 5,311)
1Rr: Stevenage Borough 0 Port Vale 1 (att. 2,894)
1R: Port Vale 1 Stevenage Borough 1 (att. 3,999)
4QR: Chelmsford City 1 Stevenage Borough 2 (att. 1,762)
3QR: Dartford 1 Chelmsford City 4 (att. 1,830)
2QR: Enfield 1893 0 Chelmsford City 5 (att. 406)
1QRr: Halstead Town 1 Enfield 1893 1 [0-2 pens] (att. 171)
1QR: Enfield 1893 3 Halstead Town 3 (att. 98)
PR: Enfield 1893 7 Crawley Green 0 (att. 76)
EPR: Broxbourne Borough V&E 1 Enfield 1893

Havant & Waterlooville 2 Dover Athletic 1

05sep09
Conference South
West Leigh Park, Havant
att. 1,217

When the fixtures were published in the summer this one, four weeks in, felt like it was going to be important both as a challenge and as a marker of how far we’d come following last season’s disappointments.

Dover have been widely tipped as this season’s Conference South champions for three reasons. Firstly, they have the respected former Gillingham gaffer Andy Hessenthaler in the dug-out. Secondly, they won the Ryman League last year, virtually by Christmas. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, theys got sponds, and lots of ‘em.

A few quid in the tin goes a long way in the Conference South, as the likes of Weymouth, Lewes and Salisbury have shown. However, once the quids is gone, you’re f*cked. As Weymouth, Lewes and Salis…, oh well, you see what I’m getting at. I just hope we’re being as frugal with our well-gotten gains as it appears from the outside.

Keeping on a vaguely business-head theme, then I’d say over the 90 minutes of this game with Dover then we got the best from the resources at our disposal. We had to make our assets work for us, and they did, putting in a spirited attacking performance in the first half and putting heart and soul into the second half defensive effort.

For us it was a tale of two penalties. Two not very good penalties, both taken by Manny Williams, who can score astonishing goals but appears to struggle when removed from the cut and thrust of defensive attention. Perhaps it was the weight of the Conference South Player of the Month gong around his neck.

Now Manny might be a much more instinctive goal scorer than Luke Nightingale, yet Luke took astonishingly good penalties, slotting them into the top corner well out of reach. However Luke is being kept out of the side by the more prolific boots that we’ve bought in during the summer.

Still, for all the criticism, both penalty kicks, by hook or by crook, led to goal fun. The first pen, in the fourth minute, was saved easily by Dover keeper Lee Hook, but the ball spun invitingly into Manny’s follow-through and he managed to tuck the ball in before Hook made it back across. Then, with six minutes of half left, Wes Fogden was felled in the box and Manny took responsibility again.

Behind the goal, we had to hope that he had learnt from his first attempt. If he did, he hadn’t learned much. Yet whilst it might not have been great, it was good enough, the ball bending Hook’s fingers back like a thirsty beer-gut crashing through a saloon door.

Having already taken a talking to earlier in proceedings, the second penalty saw the departure of an incensed Hessenthaler from the dug out. At the best of times he looks like a man who’s just finished a tour of provincial theatres in a production of ‘Gremlins 2: The Musical’ and forgotten to take his make-up off, so this merely added a few more lines to his prematurely well-creased mush.

Despite all these deficits, the Dover support sang throughout and were a great credit to themselves and their club. They even made a drum sound good which, ordinarily, is never the case, particularly in non-league grounds. Perhaps it was merely the fact they thought to bring along someone who actually knows how to play it. Not many clubs with travelling percussion show the same courtesy. We can just about stomach them when they’re played more like early Adam & The Ants, and less like a bored kid repeatedly kicking a bin.

Like I say, in the second period, we didn’t have things our own way nearly as much as we did in the first, as a no-doubt apoplectic Hessenthaler sent his team back onto a field he himself was no longer allowed to step onto with a motivational rant worthy of Buddy Rich. Yet, we still played good stuff, and dug in when necessary.

There was one error punished, but largely our unfeasibly youthful central defensive partnership of Ryan Woodford and Sam Pearce were terrific, as they have been all season, despite being third and fourth choice on paper. Aaron Howe also made a couple of wonderful stops and vital punches when called upon, he also has grown quickly into being a very reliable custodian.

However it was another young player that should really take the man of t’match plaudits for us today, with Steven Walker rolling forward the years to put in a mature and vital shift in midfield, almost scoring an audacious lobbed shot late in the second half.

Yet, for all the enthusing for the young ‘uns, it was a whole team effort, particularly in a hairy last few minutes when Dover pressed for an equaliser and our team took to throwing themselves in front of the ball like bodyguards in front of bullets. Indeed, but for Wes Fogden trapping the ball in his belly button on the line, two minutes into injury time, only a point would have been ours.

So, a very good performance, and a big, big home win – at last something for this season’s inflated home attendances to feast on, after all the victories on the road in front of the already converted. The early pace-setters have been vanquished and yet, due to a quirk of goals being scored in other games, we have managed to do that rarest of things and win a game yet go down a place in the league.

Still, we remain with the chasing, heel-nibbling peloton. However at this exact same point last season, I determined that we were “ideally placed…as a stalking horse” in 7th after a big win over the favourites (Tickle Me Chelmo), so I’ll keep the eager pronouncements to a bare minimum, except maybe for this – let the good times continue to roll!

This posting also appears on ' Bin Man 87', one of the many blogs on the Conference South Guide site.

Weymouth 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1

31aug09
Conference South
Wessex Stadium, Weymouth
att. 717

Can you describe the relationship twist two clubs, one of which, in the most part, doesn’t really give two f*cks in the pound about the other, as a rivalry? This is something I’ve struggled with over the years, as I’ve never really had the antipathy that some of my Hawk colleagues have had for Weymouth. Yet, without doubt, before Eastleigh decided to foist themselves upon Conference South proceedings like a tramp urinating in the hydrangeas after gatecrashing a garden party, the focus of Hawk ire stretched into deepest Dorset.

For some of our lot, despite all the back-and-forth with the Eastleigh in the last two seasons, this remains the big game on the calendar. After all, Weymouth were tapping up our players long before Eastleigh thought to do it. Indeed, it’s not like we’ve been completely ignored by our terracotta-clad friends from the next county along, and we’ve clearly provided some degree of irritation over the years, like an itchy knee inside a full-leg plaster-cast.

Despite the fact they rate their rivalries with Yeovil and Dorchester much, much higher, our games against them in the first half of the decade produced some right humdingers and contentious moments. There was a 5-1 win at West Leigh Park on a pitch so swampy crocodiles could occasionally be seen bobbing up and down in the centre-circle. I would say it was a level-playing field, but only metaphorically. Frankly, tanks would have struggled to make it box-to-box.

Then, during Steve Claridge’s Muff managerial reign, the wheels of their promotion push came off spectacularly at WLP on a sunny Easter Saturday. Perhaps they had been distracted by the BBC documentary crew that had been following them around earlier that season but our 4-1 victory had an unanticipated splendour, especially given that we were battling against relegation at the time.

Down at their place, there have been a few wins and draws but whenever I think of going to the Wessex, I think of two things largely unrelated to the 4 points I have seen us nab there in my two prior visits. Firstly, during a heated period of one game, with the Weymouth bench rushing out from their dug out to remonstrate with a refereeing decision, we looked down to see one of our more well-lubricated fans striding onto the playing area to request, without discernable irony, that then Weymouth manager Geoff Butler might like to “get off the pitch”. Not that one should assume we have any dangerous mentalists amongst our number as this was done from a distance of about 60 yards and mostly via the medium of pointing gestures and slurred shouting before retiring back to the terraces behind the goal.

My other memory is of leaving the Wessex on our travel club coach. Just as we were about to turn out of the long driveway up to the ground, I suddenly piped up mid-conversation, “Hang on. Where’s Barry?” Looking out of the back window to see a gentleman in his early-50’s with steam coming off his face chasing us down the road waving enthusiastically and with some degree of panic, we could safely say that we’d found him.

Perhaps the best of the Weymouth memories is another West Leigh Park fixture in 2002. We found ourselves 2-0 down after 35 minutes and the Weymouth support were singing “can we play you every week?” Hawk legend James Taylor then took it upon himself to score a typically brilliant hat-trick to win us the game 3-2. My memory doesn’t recall whether or not we sang “You can play us every week!” but I’m sure at the very least we’d have sent their words back by return post.

Overall, we have returned from the Wessex with a more than respectable amount of wins and draws over those years as well. Then they got promoted and, to a certain extent, we forgot about them. Being in different leagues does dampen the embers of rivalry somewhat. Now, after a couple of years in the Conference, they are back amongst us plebs, and trail a number of debts behind them. Their club insignia is a ship, but this year it might equally be a sad-face clown (in this case, the clown represents previous profligate members of the board) with the lining of his pockets drooping out of his oversize trousers like lolling tongues. There is no delight to had in this of course, there but for the grace of God and all that.

Indeed, considering all the capers of previous years, today’s fixture was almost a love-in – no silliness on either side, just two sets of fans getting behind their side. Besides, Weymouth are on the cusp of administration and maybe even closure and for the good of football, we would hope they come through all that intact. Weymouth are, when all is said and done, a football club with a proud history and even prouder fans, deserving of our respect and best wishes.

However, despite our more sanguine approach to this fixture, as Weymouth had taken a couple of home pummellings this season (0-5 against Eastleigh and 2-6 against Bishop’s Stortford) there was a feeling amongst some of our supporters, particularly those who had made the most of the bank holiday sunshine to pub it on the seafront from the moment the key turned in the Wetherspoons lock, that we would hit them similarly hard.

However, better results for Weymouth since those two harsh beatings and no doubt considerable determination all round what with the off-field uncertainty, combined with our first defeat of the season two days prior at home to Basingstoke, meant this was a much tighter, scrappier game than overall form might have hinted at. To be honest, nobody has made this much heavy weather of anything since Noah was in the shipbuilding trade.

Honours were very much even after the first half, with Steve Hutchings skying a great opportunity for us and Jake Reid’s dipping shot requiring a fingertip save from Aaron Howe at the other end. In the second half, we had to watch Josh Klein-Davies skim a shot just wide of the post with Aaron’s goal gaping before we kicked in and bossed the remainder of the game.

Former Weymouth man Shaun Wilkinson would have scored direct from a corner for us had it not been for a late intervention from a defender on the line, whilst Weymouth keeper Ryan Harrison made several important saves, not least from Mustafa Tiryaki’s audacious chip. However, that save led to a succession of corners from which we eventually arrived at our 90th minute winner, Jay Gasson meeting the cross with a forehead thwack so meaty, you could have served it in a pie, with mash and peas on the side. Cue pandemonium and not a little relief.

We should probably have done better but Weymouth have clearly improved since the start of the season, David Obaze deserving his man of the match award for being solid as a tall, massive rock at the back. Last minute winners/equalisers always send you off home with a spring in your step, but Saturday’s home defeat was certainly a reality check that will stop us getting carried away.

However, one must delight in the good stuff when it does come around and the knowledge that we have won our first four away games of the season (only one fewer than last season in its entirety) papers over the cracks of the two draws and a defeat at home for the time being. Well, just.

Yet, let us put it in the context of history. This sequence on the road represents the first time Havant & Waterlooville have won more than three away league games on the spin for over ten years. Unless I’ve read the records incorrectly, the only other time was a sequence of six in a row during our first ever season (1998/99) when we won promotion from the Southern League Southern Division. To equal that record we need to take three points from Dorchester Town and St Albans City and that is certainly do-able.

Whether or not we’ll get anything at home to Dover Athletic and Hampton & Richmond Borough in the coming weeks however, I am much less sure, but we’ll see.