Aylesbury 2 Wealdstone 4

24oct09
FA Cup 4th Qualifying Round
Haywood Way, Aylesbury
att. 683

The higher stakes than usual FA Cup 4th Qualifying Round tie will bring out many a curious local as an attendance of 683 at a ground used to an average of roughly 80 for league games indicates. However it should be noted that a significant percentage, almost certainly more than 50%, had turned up following Wealdstone.

It probably doesn’t help that Aylesbury are the junior of the two semi-professional clubs in town and while the other, Aylesbury United, have been living a nomadic existence at Chesham and Leighton Town since the lease on their old Buckingham Road ground expired (a ground which hosted an Aylesbury United vs England friendly in 1988, prior to the Euro Championships), have historically been the team that the town looks to as ‘theirs’ after several decent FA Cup runs over the years.

Aylesbury FC have recently been touting themselves as the newly formed semi-professional club for the town, despite having merely shorted their name from Aylesbury Vale. The club had also been known previously as Haywood United, Belgrave, Stocklake and Negretti & Zambra FC. Fans of United have regarded this latest change as further evidence that the newer club is trying to muscle into their territory, with a number of United players having departed for Aylesbury FC in the last year.



Rumour has it that the wages of the United players are inferior despite them being a league above Aylesbury FC, and while United battle relegation to the Spartan South Midlands League, FC are looking well set for a challenge to be promoted in their place.

It had once been the plan for United to share with Vale but with Haywood Lane unfit for Southern League football, they had to look elsewhere, although Aylesbury FC are now making big noises about getting the ground up to that standard for their own purposes, and even aiming for the Conference.

Talks of a merger have been met with resistance in the past and certainly there appears to be no kinship whatsoever between fans if the message fora are anything to judge by. One message from an Aylesbury FC fan reads “[The players that came to Aylesbury FC] had the right idea and left the sinking ship that is Aylesbury United”, while on the United forum there was a call to arms to “swallow your pride and join the Chesh[am] fans at ‘Vale…surely the last thing [we] want is for [them] to win a sackful of money” for the 3rd Qualifying round game between FC and United’s erstwhile landlords. A case of ‘better the devil who doesn’t want to usurp us’, not that it helped, Aylesbury FC winning that game 4-3 to set up this encounter.



If Wealdstone were to side with anyone in this quarrel, it would likely be the fans of United, given they themselves are all too familiar with homelessness, having not had a ground to call their own between 1991 and 2008. However, their arrival en masse today will have been solely motivated by self-interest. After all, this year’s League One intake has meant even more big names attached to the numbers in the First Round Proper’s velvet ball bag, and thus plenty to excite fans desiring a beano, as well as directors fancying a big pay-day.

Indeed, my mate Father Christmas told me he’s been getting wish-lists well before time this year and all of them asking for an early present. Confused by this, he asked me to take a look at a typical example. It read thus:

*Leeds United
*Norwich City
*Southampton
*Shirts, trousers (not fussy)
*Michael McIntyre DVD (the new one, forget the name, yellow cover I think)
*DON’T FORGET MY CHOCCY COINS THIS YEAR!!!
*Charlton Athletic

I let Santa know what it was all about but he didn’t appear too happy. Whether this was because of the extra workload or the fact that this reminded him that Lapland Wanderers had gone out in the Preliminary Round on penalties to Horden Colliery Welfare, I’m not sure.



After twelve minutes of the Aylesbury v Wealdstone game, it wasn’t Santa that the away throng were appealing to so much as God, their side having been caught so cold they were causing the spirits in the clubhouse optics to set.

The game was barely into its second minute, the Wealdstone fans having yet to take up their position at the far end when the home side took the lead, Gareth Price bombing down the right before skidding a shot off the surface, which the heavy drizzle of the previous hour was still clinging to, and through the wet gloves of keeper Sean Thomas.

Ten minutes later, with the Stones still trying to find their feet on the drying, but still dewey, surface and their eye for a decent pass in the swirling wind, Aylesbury scored their second from the penalty spot [see below]. Dean Brennan had been felled in the box by Alan Massey, going over his leg as though having been shot out of a cannon, allowing Craig Henney to step up and double the advantage. “Well, I never saw that coming” said one day-tripper as though having just watched an episode of Midsomer Murders which had essentially been an hour of John Nettles firing indiscriminately into a crowded pub whilst laughing maniacally.



In the 25th minute, it almost got even worse for Wealdstone as Thomas fumbled a fairly simple catch into his chest which then bobbled just wide of the post. However, whilst the Stones support were still exhaling that panicked intake of breath, their side steamed up their end with Greg Ngoyi crashing home past keeper Steve Smith from close range. The local urchins behind Thomas’ goal try to rally themselves by telling the Wealdstone gloveman that, despite his side scoring he was, nevertheless, “shit”.

Wealdstone had the best of the remaining first half action and were able to go into half-time with confidence despite still trailing. Indeed, it only took four second half minutes for Wealdstone to find their equaliser. Ryan Ashe steamed through the middle to latch onto a through-ball from Kieron Forbes. He then managed to stub the floor with his toe but scuffed enough of the ball in his follow-through to send it trickling past Smith. A couple of royal dynasties later, the ball tapped the post, trundled along the line like a tortoise impersonating Robbie Fowler’s ‘cocaine’ celebration, and eventually over the line to much celebration from supporters who had followed the ball’s progress with the non-breathing, slo-mo intensity of someone watching a £2 coin they’ve just dropped roll towards a drain.

Five minutes later and Wealdstone took the lead with a goal as wondrous and confident as the previous one had been shy, clumsy and awkward. Forbes got the ball in the centre-circle and then embarked on a Maradona-esque run through challenge after challenge before flicking over Smith and in. Forbes then proceeded to run behind the goal and towards the corner flag, slapping all the outstretched and elated Wealdstone hands like an excitable child running a stick athwart a long fence. At this point a number of songs appraising the merits of Harrow Borough FC were heard from the Wealdstone mob.



Not that they could relax as with twenty five minutes remaining Greg Ngoyi was sent-off after reacting badly to a stiff challenge. However, Aylesbury did little with their man advantage, their best strike of the remaining quarter being Ben Stevens’ despatch of a spare ball that had bobbled onto the pitch. Rather than side-footing it to the nearby home dug-out, he instead managed to heave it squarely into a spectating face.

Wealdstone however kept up their momentum, with Steve Smith required to make an excellent save from forward, and online auction enthusiast, Mark E’Beyer. Proving that it was no fluke, and actually a specialism whereby a goalscorer must look like an obese man trying to clamber through netting on an Army assault course, it was Ashe who made the game safe, bobbling in another off his shins. Wealdstone were now “going to Wem-ber-lee” (or thereabouts, their new home at Ruislip which will host their first round tie against Rotherham not being a million miles away from Wembley), telling the home side “2-0, but you f***ed it up.” Graceless perhaps, but I imagine any Aylesbury United fans in attendance and incognito would have betrayed themselves with a sly grin.

Road to Wembley
F: Chelsea 1 Portsmouth 0 (att. 88,335)
SF: Tottenham Hotspur 0 Portsmouth 2 (att. 84,602)
6R: Portsmouth 2 Birmingham City 0 (att. 20,456)
5R: Southampton 1 Portsmouth 4 (att. 31,385)
4R: Southampton 2 Ipswich Town 1 (att. 20,446)
3R: Southampton 1 Luton Town 0 (att. 18,786)
2Rr: Luton Town 3 Rotherham United 0 (att. 2,518)
2R: Rotherham United 2 Luton Town 2 (att. 3,210)
1R: Wealdstone 2 Rotherham United 3 (att. 1,638)
4QR: Aylesbury 2 Wealdstone 4
3QRr: Aylesbury 4 Chesham United 3 (att. 448)
3QR: Wealdstone 3 Lewes 0 (att. 530)
2QRr: Aylesbury 2 Wingate & Finchley 1 (att. 87)
2QR: Wingate & Finchley 2 Aylesbury 2 (att. 119)
2QR: Boreham Wood 2 Wealdstone 4 (att. 249)
1QRr: Aylesbury 2 Erith Town 1 (att. 84)
1QR: Erith Town 3 Aylesbury 3 (att. 72)
1QR: Arlesey Town 1 Wealdstone 2 (att. 236)
PRr: Aylesbury 1 Leighton Town 0 (att. 121)
PR: Leighton Town 0 Aylesbury 0 (att. 156)
EPR: Langford 0 Aylesbury 6 (att. 80)

Bishop's Stortford 1 Havant & Waterlooville 0

17oct09
Conference South
Woodside Park, Bishop’s Stortford
att. 449

At the start of the season, I guess the base rate of our hopes was merely that we wouldn’t have to contemplate the ‘r’ word with any seriousness, particularly not in the second half of the campaign.

After an unexpectedly excellent start, we now decided ourselves capable of ‘flirting with the play-offs’. Four away wins on the trot and a home win against title favourites Dover, and we could see a bright future ahead. Possibly even beyond flirtation to (allow me to borrow a line from an old Tommy Cooper sketch here) dragging ‘er into a shop doorway, and with a bit of luck… Ahem.

However, the ways it’s been going the last few weeks, our luck appears to be out and our flirtation technique needs a little oil applied to its hinges. Increasingly, our attempts to make furtive, coquettish eye-contact with the play-off places have been met with a thousand-yard stare and a frown you could stir concrete with.

After an early exit from the FA Cup, there was a not altogether unrelated burst of enthusiasm on our forum for us properly bothering with the Hampshire Senior Cup this year. A largely full strength XI turning out at Hythe & Dibden last Tuesday for a 6-1 win suggested Shaun Gale might well be up for it, for a change, in the circumstances.



However, there seemed to be more keenness for this, than there was for us giving the league campaign a bloody good go. If we were to do this and build on the groundwork laid by those first four away games, I couldn’t help but feel that this game against the Bish was important, particularly after the lacklustre nature of the second half performances against Eastleigh two weeks ago, and Chippenham in the FA Cup last Saturday.

In fairness, the team didn’t give us one shockingly poor half this weekend. They gave us two. However Bishop’s Stortford were hardly in great order either and 1-0 was exactly the right result. Both sides were poor, but we were poorerer than thems.

It’s not like they weren’t there for the taking, with all sorts of oddness happening at their club in the past week, with their long-serving captain departing, amongst others. The confusion was such that a white sheet had been tied up opposite the directors’ box adorned with the words “What’s going on?”

At least I think that’s what it was there for. I suppose I shouldn’t guess at these things. After all it might have been something left behind at a ‘Paint Marvin Gaye Song Titles On Your Laundry’ community fundraiser held during the week for all I know. Perhaps, if I'd rifled through the tea-cups and chip trays in the nearby refuse bin, I'd have discovered a pillowcase reading "Let's Get It On". Who can say?



During the first half, when our team seemed to collectively forget how to pass a football to someone in the same colour shirt as them, I’m surprised our support didn’t all troop round, stand underneath the 'What's Going On?' banner and claim it as our own. The optimism still remains in the most part, but it is draining away slowly.

One could potentially argue that the penalty kick that won the Bish the game was soft, particularly when their friendly and talkative keeper, Nicky Eyre, remarked straight afterwards, “Mmm, went for a bit of a Jürgen there, didn’t he?” but we can have no complaints about the result. Our efforts warranted no better.

Eyre was rarely troubled at all during the game, and although we managed to bundle the ball into the net in injury time at the end of the second half, it was too rough a bundle for the ref’s liking and the big point steal was thwarted.

It’d be nice to think that with no FA Cup distractions (and as a result no game next Saturday due to scheduled visitors Bromley’s continued involvement) we could have some breathing space to work on getting back the spirit and finesse we showed early in the season. More weekends like this and the confidence will erode quickly, what with the memory of last years winter collapse. It remains early days in the wider scheme, of course, so let’s hope a little bit of time off will help clear the cobwebs and dust, and that I will have no reason in the coming weeks to daub the words 'Mercy Mercy Me' in big letters on my bed linen.

Previously, on dubSteps
18apr09: Bishop's Stortford 1 Havant & Waterlooville 0
19nov05: Bishop's Stortford 1 Havant & Waterlooville 3

The brick wall behind the magicians' cloth

The thing with the ‘magic of the FA Cup’ is that, if you subscribe to it, you can’t really complain when fate crams a dusty dog-log through your letterbox rather than streamers and glitter.

To put it in abrupt terms, there will be no cup run for Havant & Waterlooville this year.

For the first season in four, we will not be lining up in the rounds proper. The rounds proper were being consoled by relatives last night.

Southern League types Chippenham Town might well be however, having beaten us 2-1 at West Leigh Park, and the very best of luck to them in the 4th qualifying round.

They are now just 90 minutes from them potentially lucrative propers. The Chips n’ Ham have been there twice before but four years ago their reward was a home game (and then losing replay) against Worcester City and in 1951/52 they made a trip to Leyton. Not even for a game against Orient either, only the east London town’s non-League reps.

In circumstances like these, one might say, well, we’ve had our fun for three years, we’ve been greedy really, perhaps Chippenham are due some funtime boppery.

However, missing out will always tweak the old regret, and being the scalped rather than the scalper can do nothing but hurt.

We will now clutch hold of that famous straw (y’know, the “opportunity to focus on the league campaign” straw) like a child clinging onto their mother’s leg as their first day of school is about to begin.

Yet, the nature of our second half collapses at home in the last two weeks is starting to chip away at the confidence a little bit.

Still, at least we can now distract ourselves by taking a keener interest than usual in the Hampshire Senior Cup which, for us, begins on Tuesday away at Hythe & Dibden.

A mug’s a mug, I guess.

Havant & Waterlooville 2 Eastleigh 2

03oct09
Conference South
West Leigh Park, Havant
att. 1,451

I have a scientist friend and he told me recently that laboratory testing has finally allowed his contemporaries to split Eastleigh down into its constituent parts. It turns out they are 67% evil, 33% malevolent and 5% Cherokee (with a 5% margin of error). Now, that’s the kind of science I can get on board with.

I believe there was also a literature review of the evidence done to back this up further. Admittedly this was done by me, the literature being pages of this site printed off at work for reading on the can, but still the proof was irrefutable, especially when you consider the anecdotal evidence my terrace colleagues were all too willing to put forward. Some have claimed that to be a ‘conflict of interest’, others an ‘interest in conflict’, but there’s no smoke without fire, as over-eager door-to-door salesmen of smoke alarms are oft heard to say, when explaining their methods of demonstrating their merchandise. In court.



So, there you have it, cast in iron so thick it could be Eastleigh’s goalkeeping coach; them Beasts are a bad lot. However, despite this evidence, I am finding that as time goes on, I am caring less and less about all the funny business from a couple of years back. Mind you, it only takes a fiery derby, or something contentious happening off the field, to rake it all back up again and considering the still-managed-by-Ian-Baird Eastleigh are currently fielding Tom Jordan, Tony Taggart and Brett Poate, who could tell what might go off, even if Jordan was absent for this game.

Then again, the funny business of Jordan’s transfer aside, should we not remember that all three made important contributions to our famously successful season of two years back? Tony Taggart, of course, scored the winner at Notts County giving us our first Football League scalp. Then there was Brett Poate’s horror tackle and sending off at Swansea which whilst, if any kids are reading, absolutely dreadful, was also absolutely great, as it destabilised a Swansea side coasting to a 1-0 win, and after one of their chaps had been tunnelled for getting a bit punchy about it, we took our equaliser. He also then made important contributions to three of the goals in our replay win. Tom Jordan scored the game-clinching fourth that night and also put in an immense performance at Anfield, despite wanting to leave.

Does this mean we love them like veteran heroes now? Of course not, they now plays for Eastleigh and thems the rules. Mind you when someone did shout, after a crunching Poate tackle on Jake Newton, “Oi, you’re not at Swansea now” I did make sure to follow it up with big thumbs and “thanks again for that, by the way.” However, the ‘Judas clause’ does not always apply.

For example, Eastleigh have also recently signed bona fide Hawk legend James Taylor, and not for the first time. That initial time, our rivalry hadn’t had the Castrol GTX and dry newspaper thrown on it, so we didn’t think anything of it. And to be frank, nor do we this time, as Jim could turn up at West Leigh Park with two magazines of bullets criss-crossing his chest and war-paint haphazardly applied to his face, before taking out the inhabitants of the ‘Popular Bank’ in a homicidal frenzy, screaming “I always hated this bastard club” and we’d still be looking on wistfully remembering that hat-trick against Weymouth. 138 goals in 295 appearances (41 as sub) pretty much buys you diplomatic immunity within the four walls of the stadium that played host to your legendary years.

However, the widely held opinion was that Super Jim was now well past being at Conference South standard, and his loan signing from AFC Totton, currently working out of the Southern League’s Scarf & Vest Division (two levels below the Conference South), was bewildering. Mind you, Jim was a pretty old fashioned centre-forward so I imagine he still knows full well that the net is where he’s aiming at, even at the grand old age of, err, 35. Thankfully though, his contributions were minimal prior to his substitution here, indeed the contributions of his colleagues in the first half left a lot to be desired. Well, not desired by us, as once we hit our stride we supplied a quarter hour tour-de-force that left Eastleigh looking shell-shocked. Just the way we likes it.

After some early terrace sledging that he was bound to make yet another mistake against us, Eastleigh’s keeper Jason Matthews responded manfully by making yet another mistake against us. On the half hour, Luke Nightingale crossed a niggling ball to the edge of the six yard box where Matthews proceeded to experiment with a basketball technique, however his pat-down bounced back up to the space right in front of Mustafa Tiryaki’s forehead. He didn’t need telling what to do.

Nine minutes later, Luke Nightingale got the ball just inside the box and, most unlike him, larruped an angry shot that letterboxed Matthews’s fingers and delivered a sweet, sweet goal to send those of us behind the goal into rapture. Moments later, Wes Fogden should have made it three when going one-on-one with Matthews but he left it too late to unload and the keeper was able to smother it.

Despite that, these were good times, especially give the fact that Manny Williams was forced into absence having been kicked all over the shop in the last few weeks, his reputation preceding him. We got a clue that we might have to do without him when, during the pre-match warm-up, he was seen standing by the gate in a suit so sharp, he almost had my eye out with it.

So with striker Luke Nightingale surprising us with a goal that wasn’t either from the penalty spot or off his arse from two yards out, we looked, at half-time, on the cusp of handing out a leathering that would pass into legend and also provide a quick retort for any banter Eastleigh fans could hope to throw our way for years to come.

It couldn’t last. However good a start to a season you’ve had, a first home defeat to your arch local rivals will always be a heavy kick to both your tubular and your bells and, frankly, this 2-2 draw felt as much like a defeat as the same result against Bath earlier this season felt like a win. The first couple of paragraphs above betray the fact that we like, down at West Leigh Park, to cast Eastleigh as villainous and wicked. Yet, our second half performance meant that it is now all Hawk faces that adorn our “WANTED. For crimes against football” posters.

We have spent too much time in the past couple of years comparing ourselves to Eastleigh, and it appears our players are still doing it, as we came out for the second half as if trying to prove that whatever they could do (i.e. being a bit lacklustre, toothless and rubbish), we could do better. It’s not so much that they wanted it more than we didn’t actually appear to want it at all; that a dulcet derby win was a dog-drop we wanted off our shoes as quickly as we could scrape it.

It was getting so desperate, we might well have considered sending on Manny Williams to curl one in with his spatz. Not that he’d have been able to achieve much on his own as we were so awful, opportunist merchants could have made a killing on selling 2009 calendars as it felt like roughly this time last year all over again; sluggish, spatially clueless, panicky and clearly not wearing studs, given the amount of slips happening at unfortunate moments at the back.

Eastleigh did not need any more encouragement, Ian Baird having clearly done what he does best; shredding his charges at the interval as though they were incriminating receipts. They came out looking alive and ready to capitalise on any chinks in our armour only to find that we’d taken off that armour, melting it down to make rudimentary cutlery for a camping trip.

To start with, it looked as though we’d be alright but that all changed once Luke Nightingale was replaced on the hour by Shaun Wilkinson. After this it looked like our XI had only just met, with only Ryan Woodford emerging with any credit, as wave after wave of Eastleigh pressure heaved itself upon on our defence and deeply sat midfield (such as it was). Lets not brush this under the carpet; Eastleigh were far, far better than us in the second half.

Both of their goals came from Richard Gillespie, the first, after 61 minutes, an astonishingly cute finish from the by-line, his scooped shot going over Aaron Howe’s head and bouncing just inside the far post. We held them off for a further twenty three minutes but then Tony Taggart’s cross was guided in by Gillespie’s head, bringing more than a little joy to the travelling Eastleigh contingent.

After their equaliser, we felt that if there was going to be a winner, it would only come at the other end. This would have been difficult to take, especially when we made a lot of the fact that last season at their place in the Setanta Shield we had turned an 89th minute 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 win. Especially if Taggs or Brett had scored their winner.

Thankfully it didn’t come, even though Aaron Howe in our goal was required to make a few saves, whilst a goal-line clearance was also needed. However, against the run of play we could have won it ourselves, substitute Robbie Martin, similar to Wes in the first half, missing a relatively simple chance when running in on the keeper.

Had we won, we would have, of course, loved it, but it really would have been daylight robbery and not even close to a fair reflection of the game. We won the first half, they won the second, so fair enough. Still, we remain 7th, and performances have largely not been like this. Clearly there’s plenty still to work on if we are to turn our useful bedrock of 20 points in 12 games into a sustained play-off challenge. Normal service will hopefully be resumed next weekend as we host Chippenham Town in the FA Cup.

Previously, on Dub Steps
25apr09: Havant & Waterlooville 2 Eastleigh 2
29nov08: Eastleigh 2 Havant & Waterlooville 0
01apr08: Eastleigh 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1
22dec07: Havant & Waterlooville 1 Eastleigh 0
09apr07: Havant & Waterlooville 1 Eastleigh 1