It feels like ages since I last did an SW19 writeup. It’s certainly been a month since I’ve been able to see a full 90 minutes. At least I won’t suffer so much of a close-season comedown as some of our fans 🙂 Anyway, apologies for the relative brevity of this report, I promise to make Burgess Hill next week a bit of a better one. Assuming I go that is..
There’s not really much I can say about Play at Ks Ground 3 Play at Bromley’s Ground 0. We did what we needed, basically. As soon as Rob Ursell was doing his impression of an olympic diver upended in the box on seven minutes, and Ryan Gray slotted home, that really was that. We had the most possession, seemed to be on top most of the time and we even hit the post before some good work by Rob Ursell again gave Shane Smeltz the chance to put us 2-0 ahead. Which he did.
The hAE was full of noise. Well, everyone was chatting amongst themselves anyway. Inbetween discussing the merits of teeline shorthand vs Pitman shorthand (SW19’s notetaking is now being written in teeline, for the record) and whether Mayo is worth going to – doesn’t really seem to be – we scored again. RB came on, had a sort of 1-on-1 with the goalie, shot and it bounced over him into the net. The excitement was all too much for me, and I went home soon after. Read the NLP’s Sussex League roundup and say how good it is, it’ll make me feel better 🙂
As for the rest of it…
Plus points: Win. Nobody played that badly. Didn’t concede a goal
Minus points: We won’t be back at KM until July at least.
The referee’s a……: Nobody seem to say anything adverse about him. I’m sure one person even said how good he was. Things really must have been placid yesterday.
Them: Not really too sure what to make of them TBH. How the hell they ended our unbeaten record I will never fathom. They were all right but not much more. Certainly weren’t able to keep the ball on the pitch on occasions. They are in the playoffs though, and now I’ve questioned their ability I expect them to stuff Horsham 3-0 in the playoff final. Oh, and they looked like Dundee United.
Point to ponder: I dunno what it was, and others will disagree on this – they usually do 😉 – but I couldn’t help feeling a bit of flatness that you shouldn’t get at the last home game of a Championship season. I covered Barnet v Carlisle last Tuesday and the atmosphere and emotion was electric, something I haven’t seen at any AFCW game. They were in the same boat insofar as they didn’t need to win. Think that’s the difference – Barnet are in league football again, and were subsequently motivitated, while we’re still playing teams whose total attendances don’t reach one game at KM.
OK, the bar did well – the amount of people in there when I left at 4.25pm was a bit on the staggering side – and there was a disco as well. Though why people still call them “discos” I dunno, the phrase reminds me of middle school parties and wedding receptions held in WMCs in Coventry. But there didn’t seem to be the obvious jubilation of last year. Are we blase? Even a tad bored, collectively? Are we just simply waiting for that competitive big game that means as much to the opposition as it does to us?
Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) Richard Butler winning the POTY for WISA, WUP Young player, JD and Players Player as well. An impressive feat I’m sure you’ll agree. Even more impressive when you consider he was called the much maligned RB earlier on this season with good reason. The campaign to call Danny Naisbitt the oft-criticised DN starts here. (2) Heard stories of a little, ahem, discussion between two Wombles in advanced stages of alcoholic beverage consumption last night. Appears that one was led away in handcuffs, and not by a passing dominatrix either. All further accounts on this incident welcomed. Anonyiminity guaranteed unless it’s somebody I don’t know 🙂
Franchise watch: Yes, we know what happened yesterday, don’t worry. This is actually a bit of advice. If you’re considering going to Peterborough or Colchester, one word of advice: don’t. Openly talking about it is the surefire way of guaranteeing that Franchise will pull it off. The way that Franchise seem to get out of trouble is more than just sheer luck or coincidence. Even a postal vote for the Labour party doesn’t smell quite as much…
Anything else? Yes, nice to see the U-18s getting onto the pitch. Maybe there’ll be a rebirth of the famous Wimbledon youth policy? On a related subject – were there any pitch invasions?
So, was it worth it? Guess so.
In a nutshell: Have we really only got two games left?