It’s difficult to write about Athletic 1 Track and Field 3 without mentioning how wet it was. And it’s August. The game itself was I suppose how much of this season is likely to go : the opposition being far more up for it and more capable of getting a result, but us ultimately coming out on top. It all started with Ursell making it 1-0 to us fairly early on. Cue songs of “we are top of the league”. Then, following a nice cross into the box and a nice bit of control, it was, urm, hold on…. [checks Official Site] …. Ursell again to put the game slightly beyond reach. Then I headed to the bar. Came back out and while CAFC were huffing and puffing a bit more, it was Jamie Taylor (with a bit of help from JS) which made the scoreline CCL level. Needless to say, a defensive lapse made it 3-1.
The rest of it? I was watching the rain. Very pretty it was too.
Moving forward…
Plus points: Another vintage Wimbledon performance. Probably harder than Ashford on Saturday. Generally solid display.
Minus points: Defence not concentrating for 90 minutes. The weather sucked.
The referee’s a…..: It seems like nobody liked the short arsed one, it appeared even DA had a couple of words with him at the end.
Them: Now, this is the sort of thing that makes me glad we went up. Nice little ground – even if the roof wasn’t special – and CAFC are extremely organised, even if they did have to use Palace stewards. Attempts at a beer tent weren’t overly successful, the amount of times they put it out that it existed over the PA wasn’t a good sign. It was wet (really?) and all they sold was Fosters, Fosters and more Fosters. And I hate Fosters. Fortunately, I managed eventually to get into their rather nice bar, with lovely Guinness (better than the KM shite anyway) and even the Wales vs Latvia game. They then stopped showing the football and put England vs Ukraine on instead.
Copper nickus: Plenty of police about, but then considering the area, it’s just as well. Put it this way – put a load of white chavs and black chavs together and forget to clean the place up and you’ll understand where I’m coming from. Some of the best traffic policing afterwards which got people away from the place quite quickly.
Did you know?: CAFC’s ground is actually as close as dammit to the Merton border. Serious. If you decide to use your half price voucher (which I think a couple of people might, I know I’m tempted), just walk through the park by the main car park entrance, and you’ll spot the street sign in glorious Merton colours. Perhaps there’s some spiritual thing about Merton that made the vibes here good. Needless to say, the more Croydon-esque areas should be flattened immediately, preferably with most of the inhabitants still in there.
Point to ponder: How come that teams like CAFC can get a reasonable ground together for relatively not much money, and yet Franchise claimed they couldn’t do anything in Merton? It is rather strange that a R1 club can put a good new stand up, spend £150k on the pitch, and make a bid to buy the surrounding pitches yet a professional club was somehow so incapable of doing likewise that they just had to so desperately move 70 miles northward. Sorry to rant, I think that going to a place that was on the way to Selhurst just brought back the old prejudices. And did we really put up with that sort of shit for 12 years?
Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) Being trapped at half time by the mad CAFC fan who talked about hurricanes – don’t ask – and gave me a free programme for listening to him. I can feign interest in the most tedious of things, with the exception of Dons Trust meetings (2) Christ, we were loud in the second half. I wonder if the level of expectation has lifted us beyond last season’s lethargy?
Anything else? Ooh, who’s relationship is based on “electronic items”? If you don’t know, don’t ask…
So, was it worth it? Yeah.
In a nutshell: Champions by Christmas, surely?