Rushall Olympic 4 Kidsgrove Athletic 2

10apr09
Northern Premier League Division One South
Dales Lane, Rushall
att. 152

The presence of a recent Premier League name in the echelons of semi-pro football does usually heighten a bit of interest. I remember clearly the point when I realised non-league football wasn’t just drunks bursting out of their faded strips was when Havant Town signed the former Charlton striker Andy Jones in the mid-90’s. I never did make it down to, a then very different looking, West Leigh Park to see him play although I have been told since that when he came back for pre-season after his first year, part of my ignorant stereotyping would have been pretty accurate, given that his shirt-buttons looked a lot less relaxed than they had prior to the summer.

As it was, Havant & Waterlooville signing former Republic of Ireland international Liam Daish that kick-started my regular H&Dub attendance, a ritual to which I was rapidly hooked. Dean Holdsworth’s year and a bit with us may also have flicked the switch with a few people. However I’m not entirely convinced it’s the same deal with ample-rumped Kidsgrove striker Trevor Benjamin, formerly of Leicester City, most famously, but who has made twenty-two debuts (including for Jamaica) since his first League appearance for Cambridge United in 1995, and yet is still only thirty years old.

It certainly doesn’t appear that Trev wishes to be in the Unibond Division One South for any considerable length of time, despite his claims on signing in February that “I wanted to get back to enjoying the game, and I feel I can do this here.” He may not, of course, have any choice in the matter. After all, Grove are his fifth non-league club of the season, having had unsuccessful trials at Gillingham, Bournemouth and Cheltenham last July. Flat-cap model and Cherries gaffer at the time, Jimmy Quinn, remarked that Trev was “probably past his sell-by date,” a claim Trev would have undoubtedly refuted had he not been busy brushing a hirsute blue fungus from his upper body, and picking an adhesively stubborn ‘79p – REDUCED TO CLEAR’ sticker off his thigh.

A further knock-back, from Hibernian boss Mixu Paatelainen, was delivered just a couple of weeks prior to this game. Considering the Edinburgh club had six strikers on their books already, Mixu’s decision to give a trial to a striker plying his trade in the eighth level of Sassenach football was probably met with the same kind of looks as those which greeted Hans Christian Anderson’s Emperor on strutting down the stairs and bellowing, “well, what do you reckon to my new clobber? Natty, huh?”

Rightly so on tonight’s evidence too, given that if it wasn’t for the fact he looks like the prematurely developed kid in the middle school class photo amongst this mob, he would have been pretty anonymous. Two goals in nine games (which was a brace away to Quorn) and one in eight shared between brief stints with Gainsborough Trinity, Northwich Victoria, Hednesford Town and Wellingborough Town this season is not an indicator to anyone that he’s ready to step back up.

You could forgive Grove for feeling they could turn up here at Rushall tonight and just carry Trev considering they’ve been the Pics bogey team for a good while and had beaten them 3-0, in the reverse league fixture at Kidsgrove, only three days prior to this. Yet, Rushall had spent the season hovering near the top, leading the division on a few occasions but falling away to sixth prior at this Easter weekend, whilst Kidsgrove languished in 17th, largely safe from relegation after spending much of the winter right amongst it.

Despite opting for a Good Friday evening kick-off, a decent number have turned out from Kidsgrove for the night, especially if the flags are anything to go by. I’d forgotten in the years since my trip there of Kidsgrove’s fondness for a flag, it’s like the last night of the Proms every night for them, only with fewer bow-ties and jingoistically decorated bowlers.

Rushall, a suburb of Walsall, appears to have pulled out the stops for their visit. The Labour Club at the end of Dales Lane promises on its chalk A-board “Live tonight, on the big screen, ENGLAND VS UKRANE” (sic). Which it might well have been. A week and a half ago. Next door to Rushall’s ground is a meandering canal, at the base of a hill which gives the pitch a pronounced side-to-side slope, and there are plenty of long boats stationed on the bank. It is soon clear that they’re not here for the game though; The Boathouse pub advertising, with some gusto, “the return of the basket meal.” To which they could have added, “…it’s not just for greyhound-racing and low-rent cabaret anymore!!”

Speaking of cheap entertainment, the linesmen seem well up for it, stationing themselves outside the dressing rooms either side of their own in such a symmetrical fashion, they appear highly likely to squeal “ready? OK!” and break into a cheerleaders’ flag dance. If not that then could at least clash their flags together like a couple of eager Morris men counting the hours ‘til St George’s Day. It’s a decent evening for it though, after the rains of the hours before; “red sky at night, shepherd’s pie innit” said one lady with a chuckle.

And so the game kicked off and the first half was extraordinary. Rushall took the lead in the eleventh minute, Kidsgrove’s Mitch Stenton and Tom Shwarz tackling each other in the box allowing Craig Fitzpatrick to dip between their limbs, pick their pocket and fire inside the near post. Within a minute though, Kidsgrove had equalised. A corner was floated in and the ball dropped by keeper, and 60’s beat-pop hero, Dave Clarke; a hasty clearance only went as far as Charlie Reeves who fired through the melee.

Rushall regained the lead with only sixteen minutes gone; Dave Hayward curled a free-kick over to the far post, Craig Marshall headed it back across and Niki Preston hammered it home. Only a further two minutes had passed when Rushall increased their margin. Marshall crossed into the box and Carl Palmer was on hand to turn his man and fire beneath the keeper.

There then followed a ten-minute lull, at least by the standards of this game, before Rushall got their fourth. Hayward crossed in a free-kick and Marshall rose at the back to crash the ball in off the post. The beefy steward with the Mohawk and more metal in his face than his record collection (which, one assumes by his leather and studs look, is saying something), started a solo Mexican wave by raising his two crutches aloft over and over again.

Not that Kidsgrove gave up as with ten minutes of the half remaining, Liam Shotton brought a sharp save from Clarke. Trevor Benjamin then sat on a defender’s back in trying to reach the subsequent corner, clearly believing this oppo flunky to be a sedan chair put at his disposal for the evening. On the stroke of half-time, Kidsgrove got a goal back; Tim Sanders’ free-kick, taken centrally, squeaked through the wall and the Clarke’s lettuce wrists.

Given the hectic pace of this six goal first half, there was a great deal of expectation for the second half, an expectation which, of course, it couldn’t live up to. This is not to say anyone could relax. As one Rushall fan stood near me remarked, with the kind of thinking you only from long-standing, weather-beaten non-league supporters, “you can’t see them scoring three, but you can see us conceding them.”

He needn’t have feared, as 4-2 it finished.

ADDENDUM

Rushall squeaked into the last play-off place with a 1-0 home win over Shepshed Dynamo on the final day of the season. This took them above Glapwell, who lost 3-1 away at Stamford. The sole factor in this late leap was a goal difference that was just one better than Glapwell. Not that it made much difference in terms of promotion as Rushall lost their semi-final 1-0 at Belper Town. Kidsgrove finished 15th come the end of their campaign.

Links
Rushall Olympic website
Kidsgrove Athletic website

Sussex vs Gloucestershire

05jul09
ECB Trophy semi-final
County Ground, Hove

Sussex 326-7 (50 overs)
[Joyce 146, Goodwin 60; Dawson 2-50]

Gloucestershire 292ao (47.4 overs)
[Gidman 116, Marshall 57; Yardy 4-54]

Sussex win by 34 runs

Up above the sightscreen, the perched Sky cameraman was going through his pre-match exercises, measuring his swoops, judging his angles. Below him Gloucestershire, dressed in training gear that made them appear to be an Australian Rules football side were getting into a similarly preparatory regime.

Closer by, Sussex, like many modern cricket teams, began their day by playing another sport entirely, kicking around a football between two goal nets that looked like slightly enlarged pyramid tea bags. After finishing with this, they got to work individually with elasticated bits of gear that appear to be a cross between a bull-worker and a featureless Stretch Armstrong doll. Whatever it was, it made them look like a conference of pizza chefs enthusiastically pulling the air pockets out of their dough.

One row ahead of my seat, a boisterous ménage of young people fond of their verbal volume speculated brashly on whether they could move their seats to the boundary edge and move the wheelie-bin in their current place. Slap bang in front of me. Fond as I am of watching wasps circling in the hope of a rogue chip, I was grateful when they suddenly realised that beneath the hat and newspaper to their immediate rear was an actual human being hoping not to have to compete with winged insects for the premium view.

Once settled they then asked me to “do the honours” in looking after their bags whilst they hunted down the day’s first beer. This currently being 09:45 on a Sunday morning. I should have had the foresight to say that this was fine, but on the understanding that they would not return with several of those inflatable clapper dealies. Sadly, such a caveat was not in place prior to their brief departure. Thus, I rued.

Thankfully, I rued not for long as they decided to deal with their, err, bindecision by moving somewhere else entirely, whilst a quiet and inflatable-clapper-less elderly couple took their seats. Sod this semi-final lark, today’s first result had been achieved.

Despite the day’s powerful heat, Sussex had managed to groom someone into taking on mascot duties. Thus, some fella in a shark costume was able to linger about at the toss like an ostentatiously dressed elevator fart. On the face of it Sid the Shark appears to be the most benign of killers, his mush having been stitched into a wide rictus toothy smile.

That said, as he passed along the boundary later, he attempted to get one old boy’s attention by repeatedly slamming down the lid on the very same wheelie-bin which has already taken a starring role in this write up. After being ignored by the elderly gent, Sid tapped his temple twice before slowly drawing his thumb across his throat. Clearly, in Sussex, they prefer their mascots to be more Texas Chainsaw than Mallett's Mallet.

Gloucestershire captain Alex Gidman won the toss and chose to field. However, Ed Joyce appeared in no mood to let Gidman delight in his coin-based good fortune, hitting boundaries early and often. However, it appeared to be far too early on a Sunday morning for the Sussex crowd to start flinging about the 4/6 signs the sponsors always hand out when the telly is in.

New Zealander James Franklin was having a particularly torrid time, going for five boundaries in his first eight deliveries, yet being removed from the attack after a much improved third over from which only two came. When he was brought back, from the other end, his next three overs were hit for 30. Fielding down at fine leg a little later, he could only smile wryly as a Sussex wag shouted out “C’mon Franklin. We want 400, get back on, old boy.” “Bowl ‘im from both ends” added another.

Mind you, whatever Gloucestershire tried, apart from some good early line and length stuff from Steve Kirby, nothing seemed to work, not even the puppy faced England international Jon Lewis, rolling in with his hair bobbing like the ears of a King Charles spaniel.

Sussex just had too much quality up top, whether it was Ed Joyce, looking like a landfill indie-band’s irregular touring keyboardist, hitter of the game’s three sixes and adept strike rotator; the squat Murray Goodwin, cutting adroitly and sticking out his rear in a stance that made him look like the kind of modern R n’ B rumpshaker Sir Mix-A-Lot would have approved of; or Luke Wright, his spiky hair and hospitable features meaning a career presenting links on CBeebies surely awaits, knocking 6 fours in an early cameo.

It was a Twenty20 performance sustained almost throughout and, initially, Gloucestershire looked like they could keep up, with Hamish Marshall and Gidman both scoring quickly. In the seats near me, a bright-pink-faced away supporter was imbibing his umpteenth cider of the day and repeatedly yelling “C’mon Glooooooooooooooucsssssssss” with an accent so warmly coarse, you could have shorn a sheep with it.

However with a long tail (well, if they’re sending out James Franklin at six, it suggests a new Don Bradman is unlikely to follow), once Chris Taylor had his middle stump torn out by the impressive Yasir Arafat during a brilliant spell of controlled bowling, all seemed lost for our be-lobstered Glooooooooooooooucsssssssss fan. Gidman hung around for a while longer, but after he was caught by the wicketkeeper Andrew Hodd from Michael Yardy’s nibbly left-armers, the game really was up despite, to be fair to him, a dogged 34 from Franklin.

Up until that catch, and his deft stumpings of Steve Adshead and Vikram Banerjee to finish the game, Hodd had been doing his best to help Gloucestershire along, allowing 11 byes past and turning the odd wide ball into a few extra runs. He’ll be grateful that the game wasn’t tighter than it was.

Sussex move on to Lords where they will meet Hampshire for a south coast derby that will be even more keenly fought than your average Trophy final. However, given Hampshire have only ever lost the one Lords final, and that was the one I attended, I shall be giving it a wide berth for the greater good. Yet it is clear the summer Hawks will have to be at their best to beat Sussex on this form.

Selsey 0 Havant & Waterlooville 2

11jul09
Pre-season friendly
High Street Ground, Selsey
att. 100 (approx.)

If anything gave away the nature of our last league campaign on this site, it was the overuse of one particular phrase. Not “disappointing performance”, “shambolic defending” or anything like that. The key phrase was “last season’s cup run” possibly followed by “that magical afternoon at Anfield.” Spending most of one's time looking back betrays the fact that one feels they might have nothing else to look forward to. However, that entire caper seems a lifetime ago now. Well, not a lifetime perhaps but certainly a footballing generation as, but 18 months later, only one player remains from the sixteen who pulled on that one off ‘Probably’ shirt, or even just sat in the stand in a tracksuit, that magica…, ahem. Either way, it’ll be increasingly difficult to cling to its straws.

Still at least ‘that thing which I shall try not to mention’ provides better memories for Shaun Gale than his last trip to Selsey. It was here six years ago, in this quaint ground tucked away at the back of a Budgens supermarket car park, that his playing career ended. No-one who was there, least of all Shaun, will forget the loud snap of his arm breaking in three places. It failed to heal sufficiently and he’s been working from the bench as assistant manager or head honcho ever since.

To a certain extent, the start of this pre-season should represent a chance for Galey to assert his managerial worth; an opportunity for him and those players who remain from last season’s uninspiring lumber to give the slate a good old scour with the Cillit Bang. It’s a new world order in the assistant manager role too, with coach Steve Johnson promoted following the departure of the less-than-PR-friendly Charlie Oatway. One would hope that Steve will be somewhat less inclined than his predecessor towards telling fans to f*** off.

I say about the players remaining treating this as a new Year Dot but, as it goes, hardly anyone does remain. Going into this first pre-season jog-out, our first team squad had been more depleted than we had imagined it would be. The talk was of tinkering, now it’s the kind of wholesale change you usually only expect from a team promoted the previous summer who had given a chance for their title winners to prove themselves at a higher level, but with almost disastrous results.

Supporters' player of the year Gary Elphick left to pursue football at the level above with Eastbourne Borough whilst the runner-up Craig Watkins’ contract negotiations also reach an impasse as he apparently required extra bunse to ‘match’ the elevation his reputation undertook last year. One would like to think that Craig appreciated that it was Shaun Gale’s faith, when virtually no Hawk supporter could see the value in keeping Craig last summer, that helped push him on, and factored that in as he chased the extra fold, particularly when there’s precious little of it about in lower league football. Indeed, we have reduced our playing budget and self-imposed a salary cap as we expect sponsorship monies this year will be rarer than free-jazz in the Top Ten. More’s the pity, on both counts.

Elsewhere Charlie Henry took time out from his summer job populating crowd scenes in Railway Modeller magazine to take his injury-prone body to Newport County. South London has been a popular destination with Matt Gray, as brittle as Charlie Henry but with a head that looks like a man’s thumb, ending up at Carshalton Athletic; keeper Kevin Scriven replacing another ex-Hawk, Paul Nicholls, between the sticks at Sutton; whilst club captain Jamie Collins has signed on the dotted line at Hampton & Richmond Borough. Jamie will be missed as he certainly took the responsibility of captaincy seriously, and I shall never forget him striding from his position as emergency goalkeeper, following Scrivs’ sudden departure from the field, to take a penalty against Bognor last Christmas. Courageous and theatrical, the best combination in this entertainment business we so love.

JC is not the only long-serving Hawk to depart either, with Brett Poate realising his bizarre ambition to be mentally destroyed by Ian Baird again, this time at Eastleigh. Anyway all this activity meant that our cupboard looked so bare, it appeared to have been bought up and aggressively asset-stripped by a company registering their name as ‘Small Doors, Hinges & Tiny Screws Inc.’ However the draft caused by the revolving door spinning so quickly has swept in a few names to plug a gap or two, mostly up top. The new striking partnership of Manny Williams and Mustafa Tiryaki has even caused fans of opposition clubs to lose a little dribble, but we won’t be fooled again by outsiders telling us how great we’ve got it. That got us all excited last year, and look what happened then.

Meanwhile the other new acquisitions are just a poorly attended reunion party away from having been brought together for a programme called Justin Lee Collins Brings Back...Havant & Waterlooville. Firstly, we’ve re-signed Sam Pearce (seen at the back of this old reserve team photo), who was playing for Salisbury City in the Conference National at the end of last season, but started his football life in our youth team in 2002. Despite their success, Dave Leworthy and Bobby De St Croix’s unit of young ‘un’s (disbanded in 2005, the current Academy being a seperate entity) only seemed to be able to produce decent quality Wessex League players, but Sam has developed at his own pace and it’s good to see him back with us.

Gary MacDonald’s re-signing is a proper nostalgia hit, having played for us prior to decimalisation. Well, to be a little more accurate, he played in defence alongside Liam Daish between 1999 and 2001 before being snapped up by Barry Fry for Peterborough United. Good old Barry. I used to have a boss who would seemingly spend all their time away from work glued to QVC and every day a new box with those big three letters on the side would arrive for them. Barry Fry used to have a similar approach to signing young non-league players. I think he used to send a van with some heavies around the country to bag ‘em up after training and transport them to London Road. This is what is meant, I believe, by ‘undisclosed fee’.

So, despite a few new bodies, the mass exodus meant that we turned up at Selsey expecting to find the away dressing room less populated than a windowless bar promising, on a ragged and stained piece of A4, “Tonight! Tramps with matted beards strip for YOU!” As it turned out though, we had enough bodies in tow to play an entirely different XI in both halves. In the first half, what might generally be termed the first team turned out, with Manny Williams bundling in a goal after only five minutes, whilst in the second half it was virtually all unknown faces. The exceptions to this were Paul Hinshelwood and Guy Butters, the latter jogging about to make rumours of his retirement seem more than a little premature. It appears he’s not ready just yet for a knee blanket and corduroy cap.

Aside from them, it was a big day out for the Trialist family. Alan and Brian are often seen scoring goals in the lower Scottish divisions, but today we were also able to field their brothers Chris, Dave, Edgar, Frank, Graham, Harold and Ian. Probed for their real identities, our club secretary, in his traditional July slight of hand, was acting so cagey if he’d have opened up his blazer you’d have half expected a parrot to fly out. Eventually, we got a glimpse of the sacred text (well, a notepad that may well have been part of a 99p double pack in Wilkinsons) but as we don’t wish to alert other clubs to the availability of some of these fellas, it requires a clandestine closing of ranks, and so I cannot possibly reveal those who turned out. Generally it’s all about ‘lobby terms’ at this time of year, about being in the loop and not a blabbermouth, and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact I can’t remember any of their names anyway.

One of them scored a penalty though, I can tell you that, and another beefy striker looked a lot like Busta Rhymes*. That aside it was your typical early July stroller to remind us all what a football looks like. Mind you, the balminess that usually makes these early bucket-and-spade days out to the Sussex County League in any way attractive was in absentia; a heavy cloud hung over the place throughout with a belligerent drizzle falling upon us at the end of the first period. Mind you, as the cricketers in the adjacent field were happy to crack on with their game regardless, it would seem a bit churlish to moan too much. After all, we supporters need to ramp up too, and get our sea legs for the long winter months.

Well, hopefully they won’t feel too long this year.

*As it turns out a number of names have leaked onto our semi-official website, so be blown away by the information that the penalty scorer was, in fact, Gary Norgate whilst the Busta-a-gram was former Sutton chunk of meat Craig Dundas.

West Indies vs. Ireland / Australia vs. New Zealand

02jun09
ICC World Twenty20 warm-up
The Oval, Kennington

I believe Test matches to be the highest form of cricket. Maybe because I’ve never played it. Twenty20 though? I was playing that at school, son. Twenty over games were the ideal length for school leagues so you could get straight to it after the final bell and still be home in time to claim your dinner before the dog.

The thing about Comprehensive school cricket is that your team is unlikely to be totally in thrall to the sport. Tends to be three of four will take it seriously (i.e. have a pair of white trousers), whereas the others are just keen to fling a bat around. As such, despite being an opening fast bowler, I was also a de facto opening batsman, mainly because, as captain, I felt a duty to take the first ball when no-one else would. However, just cos I knew the theory to playing proper shots didn’t mean that I was able to execute them.

Similarly, my being given the captaincy in our first year simply because I knew my fly-slip from my deep extra cover was equally misguided. One resignation later and we were league winners. Quitting! You know it makes sense.

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Ireland 130 for 7 (20 overs)
[Bray 30; Benn 4-0-24-2]

West Indies 134 for 1 (16.0 overs)
[Gayle 88 no; McCallan 3-0-30-1]

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Problem was, my batting was affected by the manner in which I often practised. Being siblingless (and apparently friendless), I would spend hours (when not bowling into the garage) throwing a ball against the wall of our house and playing the rebound. Not ideal for an aggressive poise or for playing anything other than a backward defensive stroke. On three occasions that I did hit out, I took out three of the four panes of glass in the shed. As such, I played twenty-over cricket like Geoff Boycott up to his nipples whilst wading through porridge.

For the purposes of research, I’ve been looking over the scorecards from our league-winning campaign. My highest score of 41 not out came off 45 balls, which isn’t the worst, but 23 of those were dots. However the nadir had to be my final ever innings for Warblington. A huge 6 from 3 scoring shots and 18 dots. That’s 3 overs of the 20 I wasted there. As it goes I was run out that day which, sixteen years on, I now believe may not have solely been down to the guile of the fielding side. Luckily I had a good summer with the ball in hand, so I usually try to remember the displaced stumps and the chin music rather than the playing-and missing and the endless forward defensive shots.

As a result of all this, it is perhaps no surprise that I view Twenty20 with both a lack of awe, and also grumpiness at people smacking balls out of the ground with such ease it looks more like a kindly old gent with a pocket-watch flipping a 50p into a busker’s hat whilst doffing his own for a jaunty ‘good morning’.

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New Zealand 147 all out (19.5 overs)
[McGlashan 49, Stryis 42; Johnson 4-0-20-4, Lee 3.5-0-9-1]

Australia 151 for 3 (19.2 overs)
[Ponting 56, Clarke 49no; Franklin 4-1-27-2]

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Yet, Twenty20 is a popular form of the game, and can certainly provide some thrilling finishes, so who am I to complain? Yet, as exciting as England’s games against the Netherlands and India were in the tournament that followed these warm-ups, the most thrilling sport I have ever personally witnessed remains the fifth day of a game that ended in a draw (England vs Australia, Old Trafford, 2005) and how can you compare beating India by three runs in just over three hours to beating Oz by two runs over the best part of a week?

Certainly, these warm up fixtures saw two fine displays from two of the world’s finest batsmen, Chris Gayle and Ricky Ponting. Now I’ve seen terrific centuries by Graeme Smith, Younis Khan and Mohammed Yousuf against England in Tests, not to mention Ponting’s 156 in saving the game at Old Trafford, and have stood long to applaud each one. Yet, however good a performance is in a game like this; one can’t help but feel that the barrel has been freshly filled up with about ten times the usual number of fish, and their blunderbusses are overloaded with shot.

Perhaps it’s the warm-up nature of it, with the ground less than a quarter full. Or perhaps it’s because centuries are rare in this game, and fifties have traditionally been met in the longer forms with the kind of half-out-the-door rap-tap applause one gives the facilitator at a team-building event purely for remembering to bring the copies of OK! and Bella to make a collage out of. Runs lose their value if they appear to be coming too easy.

Gayle’s innings was a pulverising one, containing 7 sixes and 6 fours, and was worthy of the competition proper, yet whilst he was met with a good reception, it was nowhere near euphoric. It perhaps also didn’t help that neither game could really be described as a tense contest. Australia left it ‘til the second ball of the last over to beat New Zealand but, in truth, the result was never in doubt. New Zealand, were perhaps given an inferiority complex by all having to walk out to bat accompanied by a tune by an Australian band (AC/DC’s Back In Black), were 21-5 inside six overs thanks to terrific opening spells by Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson, but recovered well, all told, to reach 147-5. Australia though were able to take their time, and despite wobbling like a watery plated jelly at 26-2, Ponting and Clarke were in imperious form, and Andrew Symonds was able to make possibly his last contribution to Australian cricket with a quick 17 to see them home without any panic.

Ireland are a side that need the vim of proper competition, one imagines, if they are to score their minor miracles such as beating Pakistan in the last World Cup, and they never really got going with the bat for their game, and 130 was never going to be a match for Gayle with his ‘I’m actually quite glad to be here’ head on.

Yet for all the complaints, it’s a day out in the sun at the Oval watching cricket, and how bad can that ever be?