Weston-super-Mare 1 Havant & Waterlooville 2

27mar10
Conference South
Woodspring Stadium, Weston-super-Mare
Att. 215

Of course, some years ago it seemed like every other week, we were preparing to saddle up the horses for another gallop out to beano country. Those were, if you will, the good ol’ days. All the cast iron, concrete, top rung ‘legends’ of our young club (James Taylor, Paul Wood, Tim Hambley) were playing together and the football served up under then joint gaffers, the bizarre coupling of Mick Jenkins (a Cuprinol-tinted wide-boy with years of non-league know-who) and Liam Daish (a classy-centre-half-cum-steel-eyed-tough that turned out in the Premiership and won Irish international caps only a couple of years prior to turning up in defence at our dump) was pretty pleasing on the eye by-and-large.

Whilst our cup runs ranks as some of our finest ‘moments’, in terms of an extended period where joy was rarely confined, my mind immediately races back to just under a decade ago. We won a lot of games and went on a load of big trips to relatively exotic parts of the country in watching us do so, the train trips leaving home at six in the morning being particularly good fun. I may not drink anymore but the sense of satisfaction of turning up at your destination before the pubs open still remains.

Beanos are fewer these days largely because in terms of ridiculous trips, the Conference South is much more sedate than the old Southern League, seemingly endless trips to the London orbital replacing the big days out to places like Burton Albion, Kings Lynn, Merthyr Tydfil, Tamworth and Moor Green. It is perhaps poignant to note that two of those clubs no longer exist, one is apparently about to go bust whilst one is in a shiny new stadium in the Football League.

You might think all the metropolitan action would be ideal for me as a London dweller but, well, I like an excursion, to get the feet out from under the coffee table and sod off somewhere, even if that’s to potentially be disappointed at the hands (well, mainly the feet) of my football club.

Thankfully today, it was all good. First of all, my solo excursion on an advance cheeky cheapie ticket from London happened to bump into a gaggle of beano-ing chums up from the South at Temple Meads, leading to a big Bristol breakfast then a collective tour of Weston’s seafront bars, chain boozers and on-platform train station juicers. The latter, popped into whilst waiting for our train back, contained the most odd-looking, bug-eyed, tooth-jutting collection of bridge dwellers this side of a Lonely Planet travel guide written by the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Needless to say, this was our favourite of the lot. Who wants the anodyne nature of a Yates’ Wine Bar when you can be stared at by a bloke with a lopsided gumline and tattoos peeping out from the collar of his sweatshirt?

In addition, an away win, albeit nervier than it probably needed to be. Possibly because the collective feeling amongst our support was that we really should just have to turn up to collect three points from a Weston side without a win in 19 league games. This may have transmitted itself to the team, particularly after they saw first hand during the opening 45 minutes just how poor the home side were.

However despite this, whilst we should have been pounded them so thoroughly in the first half that you should have only been able to see their foreheads and hair-do’s peeking out of the turf, we only went in at half-time one goal to the good. That goal came from Wes Fogden, poking home [see below] following an extended bout of head tennis keepie-uppie dinks inside the box that began to resemble the constantly interrupted skyline at a beach volleyball tournament.

The goal aside we had the ball in the net on three other occasions but all were disallowed and, in fairness, were uncontentious decisions. We also gave the goal-frame a good solid ping thanks to a gorgeous shot from Bobby Hopkinson that just kinked away from being a goal-of-the-season contender just at the last second.

In his three games for us in the last week, Bobby has been excellent. He is squat barrel of a boy, but plays with the mature head of a veteran, albeit a mature head that has the face of a 14-year-old stapled to the front of it. He’s not really our player though, AFC Wimbledon have claim to him but allowed him to play for us for a bit. They had intended to recall him for this weekend but a loaning technicality means we have to keep him for the rest of the campaign which, along with Ian Selley’s return from suspension, is excellent news.

Less good news was that Manny Williams limped off during the previous Saturday’s home game with Staines. However, our bit-part strikers have stepped up in his absence. Last Monday night, George Lopes, a non-contract Portuguese who has hung around in the background like a session bassoonist, came off the bench with nine minutes to go to score an equaliser against an always awkward Braintree within three minutes of jogging on.

Last Saturday, it was Albanian-born Swede Alban Jusufi who announced his scoring arrival in thrilling fashion. Having been doled out sparingly since turning up, he had become known behind the goal as ‘Dr.’ or ‘the mysterious Kosovan’. Not so mysterious that a medley of his goals in the Albanian and Swedish leagues aren’t available on YouTube though.

Having come off the bench he fired home a fierce shot off the inside of the post in injury time to sort us out with the 1-0 win against a stubborn Staines side that the gutsy performance from our depleted, exceedingly young side had deserved.

In addition to these cameos, Mustafa Tiryaki stepped up to the plate here at Weston to lead the line on his own in the first half and to put in a committed shift in the second that was eventually rewarded with a goal. However for that we were also indebted to Weston keeper Kevin Sawyer, whose considerable midriff bulk is topped off with an incongruously tiny head, giving him the look a salted caper sat on top of a soggy sandbag.

His quick free-kick got caught up in the downfield retreat so that Muz and Academy striker Liam Sewell were able to break away, exchange passes and allow Muzzy to round Sawyer and slot home. Sewell has also been great when called upon, he came on today for Luke Medley, a young professional footballer on loan to us from Barnet.

As my terrace colleague Barry pointed out, give someone unfamiliar with our mob the choice between picking the young full-timer and the green Academy lad, the majority would probably pick Sewell as the loanee. He shows 100% commitment and not a little skill (one sliding trap to stop the ball disappearing for a goal-kick was particularly impressive), where Medley can be good but more often than not appears to have all the get-up-and-go of a golf-buggy upturned and half-submerged in a water hazard.

If we are serious about making up the five point gap between us and the play-off pack in the remaining six games then we would be wise to learn from the sticky patch that occurred following our second goal, as we allowed Weston to get back in it with ten minutes remaining, through a goal by Josh Klein-Davies. Klein-Davies then had to be stretchered off having injured himself in the scoring, and this probably took enough wind out of Weston’s sales to nullify their threat.

So, thankfully, we held on. Beating the forlorn clubs is vital when we still have the top two still to play at home.

Welling United 1 Havant & Waterlooville 0

06mar10
Conference South
Park View Road, Welling
att. 443

Today’s game was one of perspective coloured by bias. Our view would be that that the referee’s outlook was as clouded as our own, which is not want you want in a neutral official, particularly when he is prepared to strike an draconian tone with your club, but not the opposition in similar circumstances. Welling will no doubt feel that we were a bunch of thugs that needed taking down a player or two (in lieu of pegs).

By half-time, we found ourselves a goal down through a seventh minute penalty converted by Lee Clarke, and also two men light with Mustafa Tiryaki and Ian Selley both receiving two yellows each. In fairness, Selley’s tackle that prompted our second tunnelling a couple of minutes after the first, given that he knew was on a yellow, was reckless, but his first caution was softer than a chamois bum cheek.

It felt much the same for Muzzy Tiryaki in that he didn't heed the warnings and was thus worked over pretty effectively by the Welling side who knew how to convince the official that Muzzy’s intent was brutish. First of all Welling keeper Charlie Mitten (taking time out from his day job as a glove-maker in Trumpton) made the most of Muzzy trying to untangle himself from the grip of the prostrate keeper’s legs, leading to the first yellow card.

Our supporters let Mitten know in no uncertain terms that we weren’t impressed. Some of the remarks that flew his way from then until the end of the game I think were, well, a little disappointing, let’s put it that way, but funnily enough it was actually his being told by one of our fans in a relatively calm voice, “I really thought you were better than that Charlie” as though by a kindly but wearied schoolteacher, that lit the touch paper that eventually caused him to lose it and eventually start barking “f*** off you fat c***” with spittle catching on his lips as he did so.

However despite our occasional propensity to be a bit OTT behind the goal, there was also plenty to be proud of. What would have killed the game even more than a one-eyed official was us getting on the backs of a side already handicapped to the tune of four legs. Instead we sang and encouraged and were rewarded with a display that makes the chest swell with pride as though our hearts were a balloon and the performance a hand pump.

It is an odd feeling to walk away from a ground buoyed by a 1-0 defeat but the talk in the burger queue at half-time was of hands being ripped off for keeping it below four. However, even with nine men, we often made their defence look like the one that was stretched, and almost pinched something. During the ninety minutes we hit the post twice and had a shot cleared off the line and created more chances with nine men than we did with a full complement at Hampton & Richmond the previous Tuesday.

The recent John Terry furore made it sound like the position of captain is vitally important. It’s not really, not like it is in cricket anyway, but what you want from your captain in the sport we are discussing here is to lead by example and perform with strength, dignity and a never-say-die attitude. Ian Simpemba ticked every box today, and we should also enthusiastically applaud our young reserve goalkeeper Nathan Ashmore for coming in following Aaron Howe’s illness despite playing virtually no serious football this season, and turning in solid, nerveless performances. He made a superb and virtually improbable full-length save late in the second half here and did just the same at Hampton in midweek. However it seems wrong to single anybody out today.

Well, except the ref, of course.

Our unlikely late charge in the direction of the play-offs has been stymied by this and another recent defeat at home to St Albans. These followed an unbeaten run of seven games that, although largely not classic displays, got us believing and enjoying again.

A particularly bright aspect of the post-snow resurgence has been the efforts of midfielder Wesley Fogden. Despite apparently being named after a minor character in Last of the Summer Wine and having such an enthusiastic proboscis you could spear a bison with it; he has fast become a terrace favourite. He has a Willo-the-Wisp-ish gait with the ball at his feet which means he draws the brutish kicks of brick-faced opposition doggers like a magnet drags iron-filings round a bit of paper. However he just keeps getting up like a bionic man, ignoring the bruises to be involved in a great many of the chances we create.

Despite Wes’s efforts, if we are to sneak in the play-off back door like an opportunist thief with designs on your kitchen radio, we need to be creating a great many more chances and being less reliant on Manny Williams to finish ‘em, particularly as Manny has often looked like a player burdened by over-responsibility since the tremendous chaos of his early season goal-fest.

As it stands we are seven points away from the promised play-off land, with a couple of games in hand on some of those above us but, with the amount of sides above us in the mix, one would image that we are still left requiring snookers, especially when you consider we still have to face champions elect Newport County twice.

Then again, given they have only lost once this season, perhaps the traditional runaway-leaders-wobble is a little overdue.

Watch this space, the next report will come from Weston Super Mare in three weeks time.

Previously, from Park View Road

31aug07: Erith & Belvedere 2 Ashford Town 0
17mar07: Welling United 1 Havant & Waterlooville 1