Before I start – SW19 match reports written by me may be sporadic for a little while. Yes, it is down to work (and from past experience, that can change very rapidly), but your editor is rather enjoying this semi-hiatus. Writing about yet another game with shit defending doesn’t half drain the creative juices (which does affect the rest of the site – that’s the excuse reason for no front pages recently). And you won’t believe how nice it is not to have “where’s your report?” bawled at me every Sunday at 9am.
And by the looks of it, I made the right choice (again) by not going to the H&R game. Why does that not surprise me?
Not going to add too much more to Baskers’ account (see below) but I can say this : with the exception of Tom Davis, this was exactly the same side that put Worcester to the sword last week. And people wonder why we rely so much on Main and DK.
Incidentally, as you probably all know by now, Luke Garrard has done his cruciate and will be back at the beginning of next season. And that’s on the optimistic-if-he-can-recover-as-well-as-Lewis-Taylor side of things. Yet you hear stories of players coming back 18 months afterwards, and in truth they’re never really quite the same player again. With Hussey’s injury yesterday, what this will force us to do is to properly look at the defence.
I know we’ve shyed away from further strengthening (ie buying more players) because of last season’s import/export approach. However, I discovered something interesting at Stevenage vs Wrexham yesterday : both sides have signed a fair amount of loan signings. According to the Wrexham secretary (a nice bloke, and he loved our Nuts TV thing last season), they signed at least five loanees because they want to get out of the Conference. And not in the wrong direction either.
Could it be that we’ll have to go down that route again if we’re serious about going up this season? I can fully understand people getting a bit moody at it, and last year it was only because we got promoted that we considered it a success. But if we’re constantly shipping shit goals, and if playing for us is as damaging to your health as staying in Mumbai right now, perhaps it’ll soon be time to think of new chants……
REPD was off somewhere (again), so I decided to do the decent thing and volunteer to do the SW19s report. As you may well know, I’m pessimistic at worst; realistic at best… and with that, normal service was well and truly resumed today with Cocks 1 -Â 1 Beavers.
I’ll be honest with you, we were lucky to get a point – very lucky. It was a typical game against Richmond, you know, the usual – falling over, cheating, pushing, shoving, cuntyness. Can I write that?? Well, it’s true. I think we hate them more than Bromerlee, and that’s probably because we’ve never actually beaten them.
The game was delayed for about 7 minutes from what I can only deduce was that the goal net were missing pegs… Yes, this happens in the Blue Square South too.
Oh – and it was cold. Very cold.
TB seem to continue with same team from last Saturday’s Trophy game – to be frank, it didn’t really work at all. Belal huffed and puffed but he didn’t get too far. He looked like a player that was just getting back to fitness and was in need of match time… What’s that – he is? I know Main and Kedwell have had the sniffles, but they’re big boys and I’m sure they’d have relished the chance to stick one up the Beavers (sorry – had to).
Sam Hatton had a good game for 70 minutes and scored Goal of the Decade – if Christiano Ronaldo had scored that, we’d have Sky wanking over it for the next 10 years, cooing about the skill and panache of it, and that it could only be scored by a player on £100,000  (net) a week. Hope it was captured on film – however the lack of gantry makes me think otherwise… Shame; guess it’ll go down in the history books along with the Wizard’s strike against Brentford.
Anyways, time to press on…
Plus Points: We didn’t lose. Hatton’s wonder-goal. Final whistle.
Minus Points: We didn’t win. Opposition scoring from a set-piece, yet again. Chelmsford winning.
The Cunt in Black: Usual pedantic affair. Very gullible to Richmond’s dives, and they weren’t even as good as the last time we played them. Seem to give them cheeky smiles and winks… Hmmmm.
Them: Think Thurrock, but a bit more stubborn and annoying. Nothing spectacular, but likely to cause many-a-team problems, hence their league position. Wouldn’t be surprised if, a la Ryman Prem, they sneak to the top with no-one really noticing. Aggressive as hell and made some nasty challenges. Interesting to see our fans heckle their player who was stretched off the pitch… Mind you, this was cause directly from trying to take JG’s kneecaps off – prick. The brought around 150 fans, which was good, as they did have a massive 9.2 mile round trip to do – Bravo to them. Only heard them when they equalised – they then gave it the usual knuckle shuffle and two fingers… Go figure.
Point to Ponder: Not really happening at the moment, is it? In the last three games we gained two points… although other teams around us also seem incapable of putting a run together… Apart from Chelmsford Island. This season has real shades of our last season in the Ryman Premier… Although we came into this league with aspirations of 11th and consolidation, it’s quite clear that our board, players and fans want a little bit more. We seem to have real consistency issues, and also have the ability to press the self-destruct button… Again, very similar to last season. Have a hunch that we’ll play Richmond in the PO final – however, I’m not going to make any bold bets about us going up through the POs, as we know what happened last time.
Crowd: 3366 turned up, which let’s face it – is not to be sniffed at. Up 14% from last season… If Chelmo fans are reading this: Your attendances are down.
Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) The Arctic Tempest End singing Sam Hatton’s name, and on more than one occasion. Watch him get POTY come the end of the season. (2) Spending one hour before the game jump-starting the family fan and causing a mini traffic-jam in the process of doing so. (3) 180 listening on WDON – the Dons are global. (4) Eastwood Town beat Wycombe Wonderers 2-0 in the FAC 2nd Round… from the highlights it looked as though they played a hard, aggressive, up ’em at ’em type of game… Makes you wonder what might have been, eh?
Anything else?: Yeah, I really don’t like Richmond. It’s not a healthy rivalry that we share with Bromerlee and Chelmsford – it’s on the other end of the spectrum… much more aligned to that of McFranchise. Did they play today? I heard that they’re near the top of their league… Frenzyville must be cooking right about now. Cunts.
So was it worth it? Probably not, but this club is a bit of an addiction, isn’t it (?)
In a nutshell: Let’s make up some ground on Tuesday… I’ll settle for 5-1.