Salisbury City 4 Havant & Waterlooville 1

29aug11
Conference South
Raymond McEnhill Stadium, Salisbury
att. 845

When writing the words “already I get the impression we will prove to be tougher to beat this year than last” in your first reportage of the season, you know there is the danger that your chosen phrasing may well come back to bite you in the arse. Given we have now lost four of the subsequent five games I must tell you it’s like a hungry tiger has had at it on my left buttock.

In the middle of those four defeats was a bosomy 4-1 home win over high flying Conference South newcomers Truro City, currently steaming through the leagues in the attempt to bring increasingly high standards of football to the people of Cornwall. To us hardened to disappointment this was as surprising a result as they come; a surprising turn of events that came out of nowhere, like being knife mugged in a dark alley by a retired librarian who forces you to accept their wallet.

However, as I wasn’t there and thus didn’t bear personal witness to it, I’m starting to think it didn’t actually happen and was a collective hallucination on the part of my terrace colleague Shaun, who was on text alert duties, the Press Association and all other purveyors of supposed result FACT!

Given that the Truro result followed a week of tumult on the H&’Dub message boards, particularly with regards our manager’s abilities in that role, some were given to suggest that ‘perhaps we can leave the doom and gloom behind now...clearly we’ve got the problems sorted’. Making a swift judgment on the basis of one result. You wouldn’t find me doing that, oh no.

However by bookending the bank holiday weekend with a duet of politically correct results so balanced as to seem to be the work of an Olympic gymnast, I guess we can assume Saturday’s result was the anomaly, get back to the curmudgeonliness we do so well and return to the matter of having Shaun Gale tarred and feathered.

A week ago we lost 3-2 at home to Chelmsford City, a result that flattered us if anything, two penalties giving the impression that we might have a clue as to where the goal was. It was a performance so limp as to require a fitting for an orthopaedic shoe. Surrounding that were midweek surrenders almost equally meek at home to Welling and away to Weston-super-Mare.

Yet it was with that Truro-fuelled glimmer of ‘well, maybe, big maybe, this is a corner turned’ that I headed down to Salisbury, although the main allure was simply that I’d not been there in years. My exile in the grim north, their promotion to the Conference National and subsequent demotion to the Southern League for financial irregularities had meant I’d not visited the Ray Mac since 2002.

I remember seeing a particularly horrendous defeat in Tuesday evening rain, possibly the pivotal game which earned former Chelsea defender David Lee his place in the all-time Worst Hawks XI, the drawing up of which has whiled away many an online forum summer silly season or beano train trip.

Time was that two sides of this ground were merely sunken walkways, the kind of trench you’d usually expect to see a German sentry poking out of. However, inspired by some time spent in the upper echelons, there has been a considerable upgrade with some shallow terracing, a pre-fabricated stand and a massive scoreboard with a picture of a cartoon snail advertising something-or-other on it taking up the far side.

In the old days, there was so little on that side, opposite the main stand, its defining feature was an old wooden stile, an adornment rather ideal if the football was making you feel like fleeing over the neighbouring field. Frankly, I could have done with access to that stile during the second half of this game. At one point I even considered clambering up the face of the gigantic snail in an attempt to escape.

The sense of foreboding arrived as early as the third minute, Daniel Fitchett put through behind the leaden-hooved Hawk defence with time to slot easily past Nathan Ashmore. For the next 35 minutes, the game ambled along with Salisbury looking relaxed and collected, however we managed to fashion an equaliser. A Sammy Igoe free-kick position like a hockey short-corner was threaded to Steve Ramsay who fired in a shot that was firmly cleared off the line but only in the direction of Wes Fogden and the rebound off his leg bobbled over the line.

For all of two minutes we looked lively, but nothing kills the spirit like the conceding of a penalty for a ball-hits-arm-at-speed infringement, which is then scored, Jake Reid slotting home calmly to round out the first half.

In the second period, we never really looked at the races, Salisbury adding to their tally twice with headed goals that beat our keeper’s attempts to punch out. They say the essence of comedy is timing and in that respect I’d suggest it shares something with goalkeeping; Nathan’s keeping being so prone to poor judgment as to not be in any way funny. Ryan Woodford’s two-yellow tunneling also dampened our good humour but that’s not to say the afternoon was without entertainment for us travelling Hawks.

However if the best we get from a game is our terrace stalwart Malcolm getting his picture taken with a Salisbury steward who happens to look like Gunsmoke and Gentle Ben actor Dennis Weaver then it becomes clear that requiring distraction from the action may become the standard in the coming months. Mmm, that sounds pretty definitive, and negative this time, so hopefully that’ll guarantee we win the next three games at a canter.

Haringey & Waltham Development 4 Bowers & Pitsea 1

19aug11
FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Coles Park, Haringey
att. 73

The 2011/12 FA Cup will end in North London next May. The team that plays twelve miles to the east of Wembley, at White Hart Lane stadium, might consider themselves a fair bet to win it. The two clubs that play on White Hart Lane itself, at Coles Park, might not have such lofty ambitions yet both began their potentially mountainous ascent on the competition in mid-August.

Coles Park is the home of Spartan South Midlands League side Haringey Borough and this summer they have taken on a set of tenants, Haringey & Waltham Development FC, who compete at the same level of the pyramid, albeit in the Essex Senior League.

H&WD have recently renamed themselves having been known as Mauritius Sports, a club that was set up with the aim of providing a good standard of footballing opportunity for the Mauritian community in London, as well as providing a feeder for British-born Mauritians to represent their country at international level.

Along the way, in the attempt to achieve senior status, Mauritius Sports merged with the already amalgamated Walthamstow Avenue & Pennant, before reverting to their original name, and are now widening their scope a little with this latest restructure.

Coles Park nestles amongst a number of allotments half down White Hart Lane, many of the plots disappearing beneath unscripted vegetation. The football ground fits this environment well with weeds allowed to grow arrogant in vast clumps at the car park end. They are the main feature of the three open sides of the ground (aside from a discarded shopping trolley) with a raised stand towering over everything else; the plastic seats on its back row flecked with yellow and green streaks suggesting a rather slapdash paint job,

The officials led the players from the portakabin housing the dressing rooms and the bar across a section of car park, underneath the stand, through the lawnmower shed and out onto the pitch, and the year’s premier FA knockout competitions began in this neck of the woods with the ref’s sharp parp.

For the first quarter of an hour, and despite losing all four of their league fixtures thus far, Bowers & Pitsea appeared to be the better equipped for the task, and yet the first chance fell to Haringey & Waltham; Harry Honesty zipping behind the defence but curling his shot wide of the far post.

Now some readers will now be re-scanning that last paragraph to make sure they read that players name correctly. I can assure you that you have, although I grant you it’s the sort of name you might normally expect to find in a wartime ‘educational’ comic produced by the Ministry of Information.

Indeed, when Haringey & Waltham manager Tony Levoli then shouted “stay with him, Arthur” into the summer night, I couldn’t help but feel I’d gone back in time. All it needed was a Ted and a Cecil to be turned out as well and I’d have been fingering my pocket to check if a ration book was in there.
Then again, the stated Arthur’s surname of Goncalves is an indicator that drags a more modern picture of Britain into view, as does that of the evening’s first scorer, Theo Bassi-Mensah.

However we had to wait until seven minutes into the second half to witness that first goal, with both sides squandering countless opportunities to light up the first half with a strike. When the goal did come, it was largely as a result of a defensive calamity, a poor backpass latched onto by a Haringey striker who then barrelled into the keeper, the rebound falling nicely for Bassi-Mensah to sidefoot into the empty net.

Quarter of an hour later the visitors conjured up an unexpected equaliser; Alfie Hinton scooping a superb shot into the top corner. Parity, however, was only to last eight minutes, as Joe Staunton ran onto a long ball over the top and lobbed the keeper, the ball making a satisfying ping as it collided with the side of the far post on the way in.

A minute later Bowers & Pitsea were reduced to ten men as one of their number showed enough dissent to warrant a straight red. With their defence looking as alert as the Trojan sentries happy to sign for the massive gift the chap from the firm of Greek couriers had left on the driveway, a subtraction from their full complement was the last thing they needed.

The home side were quick to exploit the extra space, Harry Honesty’s pace causing them all sorts of trouble, the Honest lad adding a couple of extra goals in the final five minutes. In the 85th minute a superb ball across the defence reached Honesty, who cut in with all the time in the world to slot home, before then going about an elaborate dance routine that clearly indicated he believed himself to be playing in front of thousands rather than 73 losers with nothing better to do on a Friday night.

Possibly told by his manager to calm down his theatrics, Honesty proceeded to perform the same routine from inside the technical area, facing down the dugout, five minutes later inspired by having scored the evening’s final goal, turning in the box and firing a snap first-time shot into the corner with a minute to go.

As the final whistle blew, Bowers & Pitsea could only contemplate how they had let themselves collapse so quickly. Such a scene of devastated brittleness was it, it had been like watching a hefty flood ripping through the bean poles and bamboo canes in Coles Park’s neighbouring allotments. Haringey & Waltham could consider the fact that they were a step closer to Wembley, albeit still five further, and unlikely, wins away from the rounds proper.

The following afternoon, on the same ground, their landlords Haringey Borough also moved forward in the competition, beating AFC Kempston Rovers 2-0.

Road To Wembley
F: Chelsea 2 Liverpool 1 (att. 89,102)
SF: Tottenham Hotspur 1 Chelsea 5 (att. 85,731)
6R: Tottenham Hotspur 3 Bolton Wanderers 1 (att. 30,718)
6R: Tottenham Hotspur A Bolton Wanderers A (att. 29,130)
5Rr: Tottenham Hotspur 3 Stevenage 1 (att. 35,757)
5R: Stevenage 0 Tottenham Hotspur 0 (att. 6,625)
4R: Stevenage 1 Notts County 0 (att. 4,439)
3R: Doncaster Rovers 0 Notts County 2 (att. 9,535)
2R: Sutton United 0 Notts County 1 (att. 3,704)
1R: Sutton United 1 Kettering Town 0 (att. 1,532)
4QRr: Leatherhead 2 Sutton United 3 (att. 940)
4QR: Sutton United 3 Leatherhead 3 (att. 882)
3QR: Billericay Town 0 Leatherhead 3 (att. 384)
2QR: Leatherhead 2 Biggleswade Town 1 (att. 240)
2QR: Biggleswade Town 1 Leatherhead 1 (att. 242)
1QR: Biggleswade Town 3 Waltham Abbey 1 (att. 140)
PRr: Haringey & Waltham Development 1 Biggleswade Town 2 (att. 50)
PR: Biggleswade Town 5 Haringey & Waltham Development 5 (att. 107)
EPR: Haringey & Waltham Development 4 Bowers & Pitsea 1

Ayr United 1 Hamilton Academical 2

06aug11
Scottish League Division One
Somerset Park, Ayr
att. 1,750

In Ayr manager Brian Reid’s programme notes for this first league game of the season, the prior fixtures in the League and Challenge Cups are discussed and he takes time to remark on the “depth of the support on the terraces at East Stirling” which suggests to me that it must have been really wet there.

I can well believe that supporters could be easily submerged given the conditions one associates with a Scottish summer, the kind of which greeted my arrival in Ayr by spitefully opening the heavens for as long as it took for me to walk between the station and the ground, its only intention seemingly to turn my map to mâché. If this was indeed the case, Mother Nature could colour herself successful.

It wasn’t only the rain dropping from the skies that one had to be watchful for either, especially those of us taking residence on the uncovered terrace between showers. Literally three seconds after I had written the phrase “marauding seagulls” in my damp notebook, one of their number unleashed its loathing across my forearm. It may not have then used its wing to point at its eyes and then point back at me, “I’m watching you, fella” style, but the message was pretty clear nonetheless.

Thankfully though I had yet to remove my raincoat and so it took the force of the blast, throwing itself upon this interspecific hate-crime, deadening the discharge, a selfless act for which the hair and skin on my left arm will be forever grateful.

It is difficult for me to paint a fair picture of Ayr given these circumstances as no town looks at its best when clattered by precipitation, let alone seagull shite. I can tell you though that Ayr has a decent record of producing singers for successful bands with Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian, Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro and Mike Scott of the Waterboys all being Ayrshire men.

Of course Ayr’s most famous son is Robert Burns, once voted as the greatest ever Scot (bitch-slapping a clearly miffed William Wallace into a poor second place) and The Bard once wrote in his poem Tam O’Shanter, “Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, For honest men and bonie (sic) lasses” and it is from this which Ayr take their nickname. The Bonnie Lasses.

Nah, not really. If only. Ayr are the Honest Men. However, if a bloke has to tell you he’s honest, “honest as the day is long me, mate”, chances are you’ll back slowly out of his car lot and hot foot it to the scared looking young trainee down at the Hyundai dealership, although I’m fairly certain old Rabbie wasn’t picturing this scene when penning his verse.

All this said, Ayr did come out of the seasonal traps unleashing the kind of honest endeavour one associates with a team newly arrived in the division from below. Hamilton Academical, newly arrived in the division from above, were also playing to type, in that they started with a sluggish complacency, and were punished in the 8th minute, as triangle passing between Michael McGowan and Mark Roberts made the Accies defence look like hibernating hedgehogs woken prematurely by a rabid car alarm. McGowan, receiving the ball inside the box, curled the ball neatly past Tomas Cerny to send the Somerset Ragazzi into rapture [see below].

Whilst Ayr attacked the end containing the Hamilton fans, only their younger supporters seemed to stay in position underneath the covered terrace to have their chants amplified while watching their team defend. These fellas, as the massive banner in front of them lays out in plain white n' black, are 'The Somerset Ragazzi' [see above], the latest Italian-style 'ultra' group to take their place in British football grounds.

In the second half, those who had edged up the seagulls’ shooting gallery to be nearer their strike force returned to join them with veteran voices joining the teenage trill under the roof to create a bigger, beefier noise.

By this time, Ayr needed a little more to buoy them as their lead had been cancelled out around the half hour mark. A fairly innocuous looking long range shot from Hamilton’s Jordan Kirkpatrick had to be finger-tipped over the bar by Kevin Cuthbert. From the resulting corner, Dougie Imrie’s cross was met by heavy duty centre half Mark McLaughlin who crashed a meaty header off the underside of the bar.

It was much the same scenario that proved Ayr’s undoing in the second half also. After 57 minutes another McLaughlin header was saved by Cuthbert. From the resulting corner, Grant Anderson pushed the ball goal-wards which Cuthbert was able to palm away but only as far as McLaughlin who bustled through the six-yard box melee and notched up his brace with another firm header.

As Hamilton had been awoken from their close-season sleeps by Ayr’s opener, going a goal behind themselves brought Ayr back to the table, the game operating at a far greater pace thereafter. However, despite at one point forcing six corners in succession there was to be no equaliser for Ayr, although Cerny in the Hamilton goal needed to be at his best to prevent John Robertson and Alan Trouten claiming a little personal glory.

Despite a poor start and a pressurised finish, Hamilton’s resolve will almost certainly stand them in good stead as they attempt to return to the Scottish Premier League at the first attempt, whilst Ayr would seem to have enough in their locker to ensure they don’t make a similarly swift return to the enveloping tentacles of Division Two.

Boreham Wood 0 Havant & Waterlooville 1

13aug11
Conference South
Meadow Park, Boreham Wood
att. 201

As I left work on Friday my line manager said to me, “hope your team wins”. My reply was simply, “cheers, but that’s not really the way we operate” and it really hasn’t been over the years. Opening day wins are as rare as stamp collecting Satanists in this world of Hawk, only two coming in our thirteen seasons post merger and neither of those was I personally witness to.

So, at the start of our fourteenth season as a combined unit, I will savour this rarity, this Fabergé egg of an away win, as prior to this weekend, my only experiences of season starts are those where expectations are quickly dampened; heavy home defeats to Tamworth, disappointing draws at St Albans and tense nil-alls with Braintree acting as the soggy tea-towel over my chip-pan fire over the years.

The trick it thus appears is to come in with low expectations. Given we had such a drab campaign last year where we never bettered the 8th place we hit in mid-November, and are continuing to operate on a frugal lets-not-blow-it-all-on-champagne-and-court-cases budget, the excited face of our ambition needs to be cold-flannelled with a tough realism. This, at least, should ensure we don’t end up weaving the same wicker as previous basket cases that have blown through our league only now to languish in much humbler environs.



It certainly appeared, as we ramped up to this point with friendlies that we were right to keep our excitement on a low burn, as goals took a long time to come by. However, our heaviest defeat of pre-season was nonetheless the highlight as we stepped in to fill Portsmouth’s shoes on 24 hours notice (when they were stranded in the US whilst on tour) to play Real Betis, a side from the top level of Spanish football. Naturally we were given a seven goal spanking without reply but, given that we had failed to score in five of our seven friendlies up to that point, one would suggest that Betis, when considering how their La Liga campaign is going to turn out, shouldn’t read too much into the result.

Another major part of our summer was a partial re-build, not massively so in totality but we’ve required more re-tooling up front than John Wayne Bobbitt. Mustafa Tiryaki, despite being a disinterested, sluggish presence for long periods last year, has managed to earn himself a chance in the pro game, taking up a one year contract at Tranmere. Meanwhile, Manny Williams and Guiseppe Sole have returned to former clubs, Maidenhead and Woking respectively.

In addition, we have lost first choice keeper Aaron Howe, also to Woking, whilst our skipper Ian Simpemba took a day job managing a golf course in east Kent and could no longer commit to the travelling involved, although how this ties in with his accepting a contract at a Conference National club (Ebbsfleet) that will be required to bus it to Gateshead, Barrow, Fleetwood and Darlington over the course of the season, we’re not entirely sure.

To replace Aaron Howe, Hawk Academy product Nathan Ashmore has been promoted to first choice with Lyall Beazley signed up to cover the gloves. In defence Chris ‘Dutchy’ Holland has moved along the M27 from Eastleigh, whilst our attacking options have been boosted by the signing of Craig Braham-Barrett from Farnborough and Mark Nwokeji from AFC Wimbledon whilst prolific Conference South onion-bag-abuser Warren McBean was signed at such a late hour as to prevent his participation here at Boreham Wood.

However in terms of making an instant impact, one has to look no further than our other new-boy, Lee Peacock, a granite-faced journeyman with over 500 Football League appearances to his name (including spells at Manchester City, Sheffield Wednesday and Swindon) and that impact has come in number of ways. Firstly in terms of his appearance; one cannot help but notice him for the mohawk standing erect upon his swede, the tattoo gallery that is his skin and his general hod-carrier’s physique, all of which suggest a man who winds down by playing drums in a Slayer tribute band.

Secondly he has walked into the club and instantly assumed the role of captain, although given his appearance this may have been largely because Shaun Gale was too scared to tell him otherwise.

Thirdly, well, how does a debut goal within two minutes sound? Needless to say it sounded pretty sweet to us, and looked pretty nifty too, Craig Braham-Barrett’s run down the left finished with a skiddy cross that zipped past Wes Fogden but arrived at Peacock’s probably well-inked feet allowing him to hammer a sublime finish into the far corner.



After that, Boreham Wood hitting the post aside, we dominated the first half and spent the interval coo-ing over our new 4-3-3 formation with Braham-Barrett and Wes Fogden playing just behind Peacock. In other trying-new-things news it appears that Shaun Gale has ditched the tracksuit in favour of a shirt and tie for pitchside wear and has also taken to setting up as an illicit market trader on the pitch at half-time [see above]. This may have been less ‘Trevor Francis tracksuits from a mush in Shepherd’s Bush’ and more open-air team-talk though, I grant you.

What was more familiar was the scratchiness of the second half performance, which required Nathan Ashmore to show he has what it takes to warrant the manager’s confidence in his ability as a #1, with a couple of excellent stops.

That said several players impressed and certainly all the new signings did themselves proud, Craig Braham-Barrett being a pacey threat and Chris Holland being just the strong, committed presence we need to fill the gap left by Ian Simpemba. Indeed, he spent more than half the game with a large bandage wrapped around his head to cover a stubborn cut on his chin that made his bonce reminiscent of the Jack Nicholson ‘Here’s Johnny’ scene in The Shining if, instead of the old wooden door, they had used a large sheet of four-ply toilet paper.

As much as the second half performance suggested there is still plenty to do, we nonetheless achieved an away win on opening day without conceding any goals. Given how rare all of those can prove to be over a league campaign, it would be rather churlish to be anything other than ‘encouraged’.

After all, one game in and we lie 7th, higher than we managed in the whole of last season. It might be an early peak but already I get the impression we will prove to be tougher to beat this year than last*.

ADDENDUM [24th August 2011]
*I am minded to revise this opinion given that we then lost the next three games. And counting.