Havant & Waterlooville 1 Boreham Wood 1

16apr14
Conference South
Westleigh Park, Havant
att. 562

As you’ll know, this site does not really specialise in sober reportage more a haphazard sketch, sometimes even a caricature, of the matchday experience. Thus one craves the ‘unusual’ to spark the synapses into writing something hopefully a little bit different. Frankly there’s only so many times one can find different ways of saying “coo, we’re still in with a chance of the play offs still, haven’t the boys done well.” This is, of course, a great problem to have.

As such, being presented with a penalty this past Saturday, which was awarded without us terrace dwellers having to angrily roar like a dog with its head caught in a tuba, was suitably unusual – and set me on the customary verbose, descriptive nonsense which has been pissing readers off for nine years now. My terrace associates were keen to point out to me though, quite correctly of course, that one does not need to appeal for a penalty, this not being cricket and, also correctly, that a light push it may have been, it was a push nonetheless. I am quite happy to put the record straight, respecting the opinions of my terrace brethren as I do. As I very occasionally do.

However, when you consider that we otherwise handsome fellas are the type of one-eyed bell-ends that bellow “HANDBALL” every time a leather panel hits a player anywhere above the ankle; for a penalty to be awarded whilst we were serenely pondering, like poets on a boating lake, is very much not the regular way of things and thus worthy of comment.

To be honest I could have done with something like it in this game against Boreham Wood, so I wouldn’t need to fall back on a ‘over-statements I have made’ section to fill the space. There was Danny Blanchett’s crisply incisive opener, plus the fact it’s a rare treat to see left back Blanch find the net at all; that was good. Then that they equalised in similarly efficient fashion; that wasn’t good. Not long after said equaliser, Benji Büchel was required to make a tremendous save as a powerfully hit shot swerved around like a bat curving around thick woodland chicanes. That was certainly a very welcome intervention.

After that, not much to report, but as we’ve said, the fact that our players are still standing and aren’t all stacked nine-deep on the physio’s treatment table is quite astonishing. We’re now down to four games to play in the final eight days, including a home game on Easter Monday against local rivals and likely champions Eastleigh, as well as games against Maidenhead and Tonbridge, both eagerly scrapping against relegation. We are still fifth and intend to keep it that way.

So, the going is getting really tough. Billy Ocean levels of tough. As such, we get going, or rather we keep going. We’ve ploughed through enough brick walls already to not fear a couple more. CHAAAAAAAARGE!!