I wasn’t there yesterday, but it seems I didn’t miss much…
The one thing that has grabbed me from reading the post-match analysis of losing to Woking in the FAT is how sodding predictable it is. A cup game against lower opposition is virtually nailed on to be absolute shite – in fact, I’d wager that we stand a better chance of beating Fleetwood on Tuesday than Colliers Wood United on Thursday.
You can fill in your own comments on the game, but it’s nice to hear that DK has gotten himself back on the scoresheet. Even if it was from the penalty spot.
If truth be told, it’s only the FA Trophy. A competition that you only care about if you’re a middling Conference side with no realistic playoff aims or a middling Conference regional side. If you’re chasing promotion to the Conference, it’s a hinderance (ref: AFC Wimbledon, Conference South season), if you’re chasing promotion to the Football League then you try your damnest to go out at the earliest possible stage. Look at the results from the competition yesterday, and see how many Conference sides went out.
The competition is devalued somewhat now – Conference sides for the most part don’t care for it, Ryman Prem level sides aren’t good enough to reach the latter stages, so you get a good day out for somebody at Wembley, and a couple of quid, but not that much in the way of kudos.
But then, the FAT reflects the change of non-league generally in the past decade. Remember when Kingstonian got to the FAT final? It wasn’t that long ago, relatively speaking. Yesterday was a bit embarrassing, but I doubt if I was the only one who shrugged their shoulders, and thought “ah well, better to lose now than in a game that means something”.
Which is why I think TB was wrong to shout out from the rooftops about going for the FAT. Firstly, our record in it guarantees early humiliation. While TB is by far and away the best manager of the AFCW era, and probably the best Wimbledon manager since, well, even before OGEM started taking all the credit for Terry Burton’s work, our cup record under him sucks.
We are, and have been since at least 2005 a team for the league. We are one of the most successful sides in non-league in this past decade, if not the most successful if you discount all cup competitions. Three league titles, one playoff win, two playoffs failures, currently in Conference playoff position (top for now), no relegation and the lowest we’ve finished in any division in the AFCW era is eighth. That is not a bad record. Cups? Meh.
Secondly, we try to build our hopes up and it makes everyone look stupid. The reaction afterwards has been the grumpiest for some time, and it’s got a lot to do with this. Why did we suddenly believe that we could reach at least the semis when our recent form and general cup uselessness suggests otherwise?
Perhaps more importantly, why are we such utter toss against teams in lower divisions? Quick quiz question – name a game in the last 3/4 years against a team in a lower division where we got a good scoreline and with a performance to match? Not just yesterday. We struggled against Ebbsfleet in the FAC this year. We won 3-0 against Braintree but in apparently one of the direst 3-0 games known to man. We just about got past Basingstoke.
I need not remind you of Workington in the FAT last season, or Uxbridge in the same competition a season before. And if I’ve sent you on a relapse with the therapy you’re receiving over one of these “contests” I apologise. In fact, the only cup run worthy of the name was under DA in the FAT, where we heroicially gubbed Ebbsfleet and Aldershot, who fielded an under-strength side under the tutelage of one Mr T Brown…
And we got bloody chucked out of that.
I guess it’s because we’re at such a higher level now that we just can’t motivate ourselves for those kind of contests. Subconsciously, I think we all wanted to get away from the lower reaches of non-league so much that we just don’t want to go back to that level at any point. Even for just a once-off cup tie. Could you get up for yesterday? Or of the ones I’ve mentioned above? For the last round, many were actively looking at using that weekend to do that odd bit of shopping/business/brownie point earning, because you knew you wouldn’t miss much.
We expect to win those games, and yet we’re unsurprised when we don’t. Every time we’ve drawn somebody lower, there’s usually the odd bit of nostalgia, followed by a sense of “thank fuck we’re in the Conference”. Which basically means that you’re not that interested deep down. You do it, I do it, and it looks like the team do too.
Aldershot fans had the same attitude when we beat them as we do today.
Disrespectful? Probably, but then that’s the way it is. Now we’ve got away from that culture, you realise even more how out of place we were in the “loving” confines of the Non-League Family…
Anyway, it’s over for another year. Perhaps our last ever game in the competition, although the general mood right now suggests we’ll get another chance to make ourselves look dicks against Staines Town next season.
Our current form is a bit of a concern, or rather our lack of goals. Form however is temporary, although we have to somehow find the goalscoring touch again. Something somewhere is wrong – we can’t quite place our finger on it, but something isn’t clicking.
There is a growing concern that we are starting to repeat January to April 2010 again. It was this weekend last year that we beat Mansfield, a certain much-maligned loanee from Shrewsbury netted and we all know what happened after that. Is history about to repeat itself in that most gut-wrenching of way?
If we can show an improvement against Fleetwood on Tuesday then do what a team at the top should do to Southport, we’ll be OK. We did show that required fight at Newport in the second half not so long ago, so it is within our capabilities. We’ve been ordinary for a while, we were lucky against Luton, and we have some more toughies coming up.
Are we falling into the trap of the loanee system again? Mind you, we’ve only got two. Gwillim and Hudson are those extra bodies on the ground, so it’s hardly a major re-organisation. Suppose you could count Mulley, but he’s been a recent bright spot and he’s playing for a contract anyway.
We still await Patrick Kanyuka to get the dreaded international clearance, and he’s going to be a substitute whenever Yak can’t make it. Which will be often for the forseeable. So it’s not like we’re replacing players for the sake of it – we need a left back so we have Gwillim, and you can’t have enough centre backs at AFCW.
As for those on the out list, the big one here is of course Jon Main, who is currently at Dartford. There are a few schools of thought about him:
The Rob Ursell romanticism school: Jon Main is too good a player to be sitting on the bench. He hasn’t been given a chance this season, and will prove what he can do if he gets a run of games in his preferred position. 14 goals last season proves he can score at this level. We are not scoring and we cannot afford to let his high caliber go.
The Middle Class Liberal ever-so-slightly-hopeful school: Jon Main hasn’t been firing, but by going to Dartford he can hopefully find his goalscoring touch and come back to us all afresh. He might do it, we hope he can because he loves the club. It would be something if he can score the winner in the playoff final against Crawley.
The Realist/Pessimist-but-won’t-quite-admit-it school: Jon Main hasn’t really performed. He’s looked a little boy lost at times this season and hasn’t done enough to justify starting. He had a purple patch last season but at the beginning of 2009/10 he was quite poor and only got penalties which artificially boosted his goal tally. He may come back and perform but time is running out.
The SW19 uber-cynicism shitstirring school: The club has realised it has made a mistake on the goal bonus front with Main, and is looking to take him off the wage bill. Don’t be surprised if you never see him again, though not that he was of consistent enough quality for this division. He’s way down the pecking order, and we need to keep the wage bill managable so he’s first to go.
I’ll leave you to guess which school I subscribe to.
For what it’s worth, I’m surprised Main has been at AFCW as long as he has without going on loan. One suspects his friendship with DK has kept him here, ditto the dewey eyed nostalgia, and a lot of people do seem to still think it’s the Conference South Jon Main that is in our squad.
This is the problem with him going to Dartford, because in a way it’s a no-win situation for him. If he fails to fire there, you could argue his career as a professional footballer is over. If he scores just a couple, then you could argue the same thing to an extent.
If he scores a load, then he has to come back and repeat that. If he doesn’t, then it will finally prove he’s not a Conference level player. It’s all very well him wanting to stay with us, but the constant complaining that the system doesn’t suit him, getting played out of position etc etc really does get tedious to listen to.
As a professional footballer, you are supposed to have a degree of flexibility. No, that doesn’t mean that you have to be able to play in goal, or play left back if you’re on the right wing. But if you play in one outfield position and one position only, you don’t half make it more difficult for your manager whenever he wants/need to change formation. This season, Main hasn’t shown the aptitude (or attitude?) to adapt to a new system. One that has put us in a good playoff position and has made us one of the top scorers to boot…
The other side effect of this is that poor Nokkers has become a bit of a scapegoat. Now that nobody bar the odd retard is attacking Hatton, we need a new figure of hate, and our summer signing seems to fit the bill perfectly. He’s not JM, nor DK, he hasn’t fired in 20 goals already and he went missing at the beginning of the season, for whatever reason.
Is he the answer? Dunno, but out of him and our loanee to Dartford we have the one who has made more of a contribution this season. Though one suspects plenty would prefer the latter.
Still, another weekend is over, and the games really will start coming thick and fast now. Now wouldn’t be a bad time to find a bit of form…