A nice and sedate opening…
It may be odd to write this the day after something genuinely mental, but Hannibal 4 Romans 2 might have been the perfect performance after all.
At least, it was since the thirteenth minute when James Ball just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Power, pace, an attacking prowess that had been strangely missing during pre-season, coupled with a defence that eventually knew what it was doing.
Jake Reeves’ curler from the edge of the box was enough to win any game, and while it probably wasn’t a penalty – at least we now have a spot kick taker in Matty Stevens.
And it was very pleasing after the break to see us push for the fourth goal and eventually getting it.
Even if it resulted in their player ending up in hospital and needing two new front teeth, apparently.
OK, Colchester had a bit more of the ball towards the end that I would have liked, and it’ll take me a while to feel remotely confident with that back line.
But to our credit, we made sure they didn’t get a sniff and that nine minutes of injury time felt more like an inconvenience rather than an eternity with us holding on.
And yes, I’ve forgotten something in writing all that out.
Actually, that was intentional, because it proves what a weird game yesterday was. If you forget the first 600 seconds, it might have been one of the best performances in a while.
Of course, we can’t ignore the opening ten minutes, that genuinely could have killed us before the new season was barely a day old.
What time was their opener? 50 seconds? 52? 53? Earlier than that? Regardless of when it was, it was though we were still on pre-season.
If the first goal was a shock to the collective system, I’m not sure what their second did.
Those who chickened out of going to Barnet were given a second showing of how utterly wank our defending was.
Trust me – it was as bad last week at the Hive. Thankfully, this time round it got better, though it couldn’t have got much worse
I expect we’ve learned a lot from this game, as much as we did throughout the whole pre-season. I hope we have, anyway.
I’m not sure how many will end up surviving the season if it’s going to be like that most weeks. The first game we get a clean sheet will almost be like when Curtis slayed Franchise.
I said “almost”…
Plus points: We won. Thirteenth minute onwards. Reeves’ goal. Furlong. Ninetowns and his pace. Looking potent as an attacking force. Defence finally defending.
Minus points: First ten minutes. Carrying on from where we left off from the PSFs.
The referee’s a…: Seemed to give a few free kicks to them, though at the same time he awarded us a spot kick that I’m surprised we got.
Them: They must really hate playing us.
Have they ever beaten us in the AFCW era? Hell, we gave them a two goal start and they still managed to lose.
Their two players who combined for both their goals were really making us look like a bunch of idiots, and I’m not joking when I say Goodliffe could have had a hat-trick.
It was some end to his afternoon needing to go to hospital trying to keep out our fourth goal, it has to be said.
And yes – he’d be an ideal player for AFCW. Just like his old man was.
Interestingly enough, they signed Lyle Taylor this summer and he wasn’t even on the bench yesterday.
A calf injury, apparently. And I remain not particularly upset that he didn’t rejoin us. Hell, I’m not 100% on us re-signing Piggy, and I’d prefer him any day.
Over a thousand of them travelled from Essex, a couple of them were seen discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the cops, the stewards and one or two of our fans afterwards.
Either that, or they got reminded of the old quip about them buying a house. You know, a two-up, four-down…
Point to ponder: Did we have our Neal Ardley at Crawley moment?
For those too young, or too forgetful, the season that ended at Wombley saw us go down to Broadfield Stadium the second game of that campaign.
Our manager was trying some avant-garde way of playing, a 3-4-3 according to the SW19 report from that very game.
The players clearly hated it, and suffice to say it wasn’t going to plan – to the point that we were chanting “4-4-2” at half time.
Anyway, Ardley changed it, we won, and it ended well after all (you can read the aforementioned SW19 writeup here).
After we woke up yesterday, and started looking like a football team for once, I wonder if we had the same epiphany?
Unlike that fateful afternoon in Sussex nine years ago, I don’t think we changed things against Colchester.
But it suddenly decided to work after all, and to be fair when it did we were quite solid.
Like Ardley, JJ seems to have a tactical preference that I’m not sure properly works in competitive football.
I don’t think our current manager is as dogmatic or as wielded to his UEFA coaching manual as our former one was, but modern coaches sometimes seem to treat pragmatism with contempt.
Which is fair enough, until they lose games and eventually their jobs too.
We’ll know more in the next few weeks whether this was just a reaction to our horror start or not.
if it is, then we could be in for a quite exciting season after all. If not…
Truth is stranger than fiction: 1) Currently third in the table. End the season now. 2) Scoring four goals in an August fixture since 2009, apparently.
Anything else? As the picture above shows, and as perhaps this slight-more-dispassionate-than-usual tone of this report highlights, your editor was in the press area for this one.
Here’s what I wrote on the whistle, by the way.
Our press facilities have the potential to be very good. There’s a quite sizeable press room as you enter the main stand.
As is standard (or should be), there’s tea and coffee available, although the hot water urn wasn’t working.
The view is actually very good, and unlike a lot of press areas there’s a good amount of table space as well.
Getting post match interviews is pretty straightforward, you go down to the dug out areas, and just wait for both managers to do club/Sky stuff first then plebs like oneself.
If you’re lucky, both won’t appear at the same time.
The basics work, and at League Two level that’s all you tend to get – or indeed need.
I did say “potential to be very good” and I’ll explain what I mean by that. The facilities are there, but we’ll have to be at a higher level for us to properly make use of them.
What we have available wouldn’t look out of place at some Championship clubs, but we’re a long way off that level as a club.
A couple of little things did kind-of highlight a worry I’ve had since Plough Lane was built, mainly I wonder how many things are being maintained.
Which for a new build stadium shouldn’t be happening.
Stuff like technical issues like wifi not working (which happened to me) or a general technology failure (which happened to the club’s audio) are annoying but surmountable.
Things like not having working ISDN lines shouldn’t happen in a ground that is less than four years old though.
It doesn’t quite matter most weeks, but little things that don’t get dealt with can hide a wider issue.
Our media people are actually quite good, there are definitely a lot worse out there at higher levels, although I wonder what backup they get from those higher up.
When you go behind the scenes at the club, so to speak, you do get a sense there is potential there to move things up a level.
I do wonder though how much organisational ability there is to do that. Especially when we’ll be needing to grow more than ever…
So, was it worth it? Eventually.
In a nutshell: AFC Wimbledon. Never boring.