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Blue Square South Guide

Bin Man 87

27-08-2008

Striking while the iron is hot

Finally we’ve unzipped, unfurled and uncorked. After a disappointing opening fortnight of draws and defeats, we finally have our win and a big one at that, a 5-1 thumping of Basingstoke. I’d had a feeling that we’d unleash some punishment at some stage; although I had rather hoped that it might not be whilst I was on holiday. Sigh.

Still, I’m happy to make the sacrifice to get the cogs greased and whirring properly amongst the Hawk unit.

That said, one result does not a season define nor make, and we’ll need to take on the confidence and put a run of results together right away if we’re to make up for lost time. Certainly one must not be deceived into thinking that this flurry of goals means everything is spiff and crystal on the goal-scoring front.

First we needed Paul Bastock to punch the ball into a nearby arse for us to get a point at St. Albans, and then Basingstoke’s Ross Kitteridge decided to give us some helping finger-tips for the goal that has been credited to Jamie Collins this past Monday. See the latter at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RKRRcDYk-YQ.

Despite having seven strikers on the books, only one of our nine goals thus far has come from ‘em, and even that was a penalty kick. We’ve complained in the past that we haven’t had enough goals from our middle men since the departure of Cockney Midfield Genius Timmy “I’m a geezer in’ I” Hambley five years ago, but this season it appears they, and our centre-backs, are our go-to guys, while our .

There’s certainly nothing like successful ex-players to bring this into perspective; there’s Richie Pacquette with 4 for Maidenhead and Andy Gurney with 3 for Weston to start with, not to mention our record goalscorer ‘Super’ Jimmy Taylor who is currently owning the Southern League Division One Scarf and Vest with 7 in 4 games for AFC Totton. Admittedly he’s playing well below himself at that level, but it still makes one sigh a little wistfully.

However, it is perhaps a little unfair to be harsh with a side that’s just registered their biggest win in 18 months. It bodes better certainly! Hopefully our strikers will follow the lead of the men playing behind them and ignite a series of passionate affairs with goal nets across the land.

Roll on Saturday and bring on the Thu’ck.

Posted by skif at 14:52:41 1 comments Leave a comment

17-08-2008

Did we get round to drawing up a plan C by any chance?

You know them jokes about blustering, hubristic managers who've come into a club claiming "I'm going to take the club out of this division" before promptly getting them relegated? Yeah, we always laugh at them don't we, cos we don't think such a situation will ever happen in reality to our own club.

To be fair to Shaun Gale, he's never made any big statements, five-year-plans or owt, aside from saying last year that Cup runs are all very well, but the league was our bread-and-butter. If anything he's been very keen to downplay all the pre-season hype created by opposition fans and bookmakers based on our percieved riches.

However, in as much as most of our fans thought the idea of us as "champions-elect" was more than a little far-fetched, perhaps our expectations were getting subconsciously raised by all the talk. Perhaps we saw the signing of four of last season's league winning squad as the exact reason we'd win it this year.

Last week though I was discussing this in a comments box on the twohundredpercent blog, whose author writes regularly and knowledgably about non-league football, and who watched Lewes several times last season. His thought was that signing individuals from that side guaranteed nothing as last season's champions were a whole greater than the sum of their parts under a gaffer they all wanted to play for and, besides, their best individual talents were the ones who went to Eastbourne in the fire sale, rather than the ones who came to us.

The first eight days of this season would seem to support this theory, as one point from nine and none from six at 'Fortress West Leigh' (our home form last season was the only thing keeping us in with a sniff of the play-offs as away from home we were pretty woeful) isn't play-off form, let alone the kind of thing that announces the passing through of this year's champions.

A relegation battle is not what we planned for, and certainly don't expect. It remains early days but while the 3-2 defeat to Weston saw us go down fighting, Bromley's 1-0 win today saw a pretty listless show. We got, and deserved, nothing - and as such has seen a distinct change of mood amongst our support.

With signs of discontent already starting to murmur on terraces and web-fora, this could be taken by Shaun Gale as a crisis, or an opportunity to really prove his mettle as a manager.

Posted by skif at 00:01:32 1 comments Leave a comment

13-08-2008

…he is who he is because he looks like everyone (sort of)…

Errr, well, I’d be lying if I said things were going to plan. Perhaps this is an effort on our part to diffuse the hype (mostly coming from outside our club I should add once more) that suggested we were going to run away with this league, albeit possibly skipping hand in hand with Chelmsford up to the end of April. If anything it appears that Chelmo have already shaken off our hand like an eight year old boy trying to disown his embarrassing younger sister at a zebra crossing.

Four days in and five points off the pace-setters (Tin Bath are going to piss this Tin Pot etc.) despite playing some good stuff at times, particularly on Monday at home to Weston. Andy Gurney’s contribution to our season last year was derided in many a quarter (indeed he was booted out in the direction of Weston and Newport even before Christmas) so perhaps it was inevitable that he should pop up and score what turned out to be their winner.

So whilst we’re not feeling too collectively gloomy, we certainly can’t help feeling a little troubled. So to lighten my mood I’ve been thinking about the important issues…

…such as how many different people does our new signing Matt Gray look like? (See his handsome mush here - http://www.havantandwaterlooville.net/stats/player.asp?p=226) Any suggestions over and above the following are most welcome in the comments box.

Now popular suggestions on the terraces thus far have been Bobby Charlton and Little Britain’s Andy Pipkin. I would also add in John Gorman from The Scaffold (on the left in this picture)

However as I’ve suggested in my piece on the St Albans game, my first question on entering the ground and seeing him warming up (not knowing prior to the game that we were signing anyone new) was “who’s the one who looks like Lieutenant Gruber?”

Now I know its not exactly right, given his hair’s a bit long but give him a short back n’ sides (and you’d have to really, as there’s not much else left to work with) and he’d be ripe for camping it up in a café in wartime France, sticking bits of cheese in his ears and so on.

So, I like him then! The fact he’s made a good start to his Hawk career certainly helps – it looks like he’ll put a lot of effort in, and its always good to see players that are prepared to sweat.

Often in football hardowkring midfield players are said to have “a good engine”.

Matt Gray, it would appear, has a “little tank”.

Posted by skif at 10:21:07 0 comments Leave a comment

10-08-2008

On your marks, get...oh, 1-0 down

"It’s raining, the Hawks ain’t playing particularly well and, on the terraces, our Malcolm is dealing with his personal space issues by adopting a weightlifter’s pose to squeeze out yet another furious fart. Football is back. Proper football. You can smell it. Well, we can smell something, and it’s causing our support to part quicker than the Red Sea. It’s weird what you come to miss during the close season."

Reportage from the opening day of the campaign at http://dubsteps.blogspot.com/2008/08/st-albans-city-1-havant-waterlooville-1.html.

Posted by skif at 13:17:17 3 comments Leave a comment

08-08-2008

It begin'

Happy new season then, to all our Conf South brethren.

I don’t mind telling you I’m quite excited, despite dialling down the optimism after an only fair-to-middlin’ pre-season campaign. Certainly, for all of ‘Harry the Hawk’s admirably brash confidence on the Conf South forum, there is a groundswell of realism enveloping West Leigh Park which, in the long run, will be no bad thing. I imagine Shaun Gale will be fairly pleased that expectations aren’t at fever pitch. Expectation, rather than curiosity, has seen off many a managerial cat.

Certainly, if we are going to do well this year, we’ll have to get the most from a small-ish squad, and scrap all the way as there are plenty of teams who will be up there challenging. Nonetheless, with the calibre of players we have brought in, anything less than the play-offs would be a major disappointment, so we’ll need to hit the ground running at St Albans City tomorrow.

However I have reason to be a little concerned as both times I’ve seen us play at Clarence Park, we have lost. Whenever I’ve been on their terraces, there always appears to be a force-field around their goal. This may or may not have something to do with the angry-looking bald guy stood in the middle of it. Good old Paul Bastock. He’s not doing bad for a man who likes to wear a blanket over his knees and have a three-bar fire full on while he listens to the half-time team talk.

Last season we went there in late March needing a result to keep our play-off challenge alive, and we went down 1-0 in grey, drizzly rain. The forecast for tomorrow shows a massive, pulsating blue mass over southern England from lunchtime onwards, which is disappointing on a number of levels.

Firstly, there are the omens, and I like my omens, even if, fundamentally, I don’t believe they can have any effect. How can a result from four years ago, for example, affect this season’s game? Still, I’ve not seen any peer-reviewed academic studies into this so I do try and keep an open mind.

Secondly, and possibly, more importantly, August football should mean shirt-sleeves, outrageous shorts that suggest a recent holiday to the Hawaiian islands, and a display of more sandals than a Greek concierge’s lost property cupboard. That I’ll have to dig out the rain-mac I got free with a (now-lapsed) subscription to Four-Four-Two is rather disappointing when, frankly, I was hoping to tan up the lower half of my legs so it could look as though they’d been dipped in Ronseal. A bit like Bognor gaffer Mick Jenkins’ face.

Ah well, I’ll just have to try and enjoy the football instead. Like I say though, that’s not really happened at Stalebuns before.

Posted by skif at 10:49:38 1 comments Leave a comment

Archive
Striking while the iron is hot
Did we get round to drawing up a plan C by any chance?
…he is who he is because he looks like everyone (sort of)…
On your marks, get...oh, 1-0 down
It begin'