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Blue Square South Guide

Bin Man 87

30-11-2008

On edge, in the hedge

"As with tubs of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. As with the quality of films in the Star Wars series. As with the comfort of knowing there’s a Woolies on the high street and thus Pick n’ Mix cherry lips are never too far away. As, now, with our undefeated record against Eastleigh. All good things, rather sadly, must come to an end..."

Bollo! Miffedness, albeit a verbose form, here.

Posted by skif at 02:11:10 2 comments Leave a comment

15-11-2008

No favours asked or given

Theoretically, it was the right team at the right team. Newport couldn’t have looked in more disarray if they’d all turned up paralysed from the waist down and having to drag themselves from the coach to the dressing rooms on a fleet of skateboards.

With only a threadbare squad, and having to play some kids, not to mention the fact that Newport fans have been calling for Dean Holdsworth’s head since about five minutes after it popped around the dressing room door, saying “Alright fellas. I’m Dean. You might recognise me from ITV2’s ‘Deadline’”, it appeared they were there for the taking.

Dean, of course, is a former player of ours, his goals virtually single-handedly ensuring we didn’t get relegated in the first season of the Conference South. He then went off to join Phil Brown for an ill-fated spell as assistant manager at Derby County, before returning to us a year later via Weymouth.

However by this point, as I wrote at the time, his team-shirt had begun to fall around his body in much the same way as a pair of tights settles around a bank-robber’s face. Nonetheless, for his thirty-three goals two seasons prior, he has remained fondly thought of. Well, those and his blindingly white teeth, which he was requested to show off whenever scoring.

Naturally, we hoped those gleaming ivories would remain firmly under wraps today. We didn’t want to kick our old chum whilst he was down. No, we needed to kick our old chum while he was down. The Cup guff now being over, a rebuilding of confidence was required for the league, particularly after five consecutive defeats.

It all started pretty well too, looking lively, getting width with the return of Charlie Henry and Brett Poate to the starting line-up, and Robbie Matthews, newly arrived on loan from Salisbury, looking just the big, physical presence we needed up front. However, all it took was for Newport to convert the first chance they had, and it all dissolved like rice paper in the rain.

The second half we hoped, apropos of little, would see us come out all guns blazing. As it was we came out largely with empty holsters, and those that did brings guns were just click-clicking round the empty chambers whilst holding the barrel up to their eyes to see if there was a clog.

However, a late equaliser was got, Paul Booth getting a spongy touch on a pass from Jamie Collins that then trickled into the far corner like a dying stream in a drought. We celebrated, but with a hint of realism. Even with Ian Simpemba and Craig Watkins missing sitters, Newport might well feel that they’d been robbed.

This just turns up the pressure on the manager just that little bit more. I would hate to see a good man, who gave us some of our best times, hounded out of the club with taunts from the terraces. However there is only so much people can take without getting frustrated. It must look even bleaker to those who didn’t get to Chelmsford or Crawley, but perhaps those performances are the exception that proves a rather depressing rule.

Even I, trying to keep a rose-tinted rictus grin on my face through league defeat after league defeat, have found some selectorial and tactical decisions baffling. There are one or two players that have struggled on like wounded animals to the point where it wouldn’t be too shocking to turn up to West Leigh Park to find Shaun Gale rubbing their belly fur and weeping softly, whilst behind him a vet was flicking a syringe. Instead, they have tended to get a first team start.

However, for all the gallows humour (if you can call it that), perhaps the good fortune of a point against our fellow underachievers can represent the start of something and hopefully, oooooh-oi, it’ll be something good that’s going to happen.

Next Sunday we go to our Conference South chums Fisher in the FA Trophy, another club with sapped morale, the money having disappeared forcing them to field an amateur side. However, an away win for them this weekend at Bishop’s Stortford will prove that such adversity can seal a battling bond. As our game with Newport has proved, there are never any easy tasks, especially when we retain the ability to make things hard for ourselves.

Yet, if we translate our twenty-minute start today into a ninety-minute tour-de-force, then something good will happen.

Posted by skif at 22:00:38 1 comments Leave a comment

12-11-2008

Box social

"our lot have been getting so used to the featurette appearances on sports programmes and the general showbiz lifestyle that part of last years cup run money had to be spent on a giant mirror surrounded by light bulbs for the changing room."

Andy Townsend! Clive Tyldesley! Nellie the Elephant! They're all here - http://dubsteps.blogspot.com/2008/11/havant-waterlooville-1-brentford-3.html...although in the latter case, I'm still not entirely sure why?

Posted by skif at 09:43:46 0 comments Leave a comment

07-11-2008

Cathode to joy

It is written in all history books that John Logie Baird said, upon invention of the television, "I have created this object in the hope that, one day, mankind will be able to experience visually in their living rooms, the full wonder of an H&Dub cup run. Oh, and maybe some moon landings and stuff."

No doubt JLB was as cheesed as many Hawk fans and, apparently, an expectant British nation when, during our tour of the grim north, and the even grimmer south-west Wales, our exploits were ignored for live TV coverage.

You can understand why the Liverpool game wasn't picked as at the time of picking their live games, they could well have been forced to promote Luton v Swansea as being something people might want to watch. Which sounds like a hiding-to-nothing Apprentice task more than anything else.

Frankly, I'm not disappointed that the Liverpool game was held effectively 'in camera' at the traditional time. I like the fact that people were picking up the scores from text messages, the radio, Soccer Saturday and, not long after, picking their chins up from their living room carpet. Inside Anfield, my phone was going off like loose caboose with variations of delighted swearing that suggested most of my friends wanted me to err fornicate them, in one case sideways.

Like we could complain anyway - would the Swansea replay being on the telly have made it any better? For those absent, certainly, but for us there, certainly not. It was made all the more special, in my view, for being witnessed live by only 4,400 people, the hardcore and a load of new and keen locals.

However, thanks to our squad flying in the face of another poor season and making it once more to the propers after nervy games against Shortwood and Godalming and then, weirdly, handing out a spanking to Conference Premier high-flyers Crawley, we have our delayed televisual reward.

So on Sunday H&W will be broadcast to the nation on ITV (with delayed coverage across the globe, apparently). I genuinly thought ITV might screw up FA Cup coverage once handed to them but, thanks to the ITV Local coverage of the qualifying rounds, have actually done a better job. So far. I may recall this posting should I spot Andy Townsend standing behind a lecturn at pitchside looking, as ever, like a pub doorman regretting the choices he's made in his life.

There's always the danger that this will be one cup game too far for our club and we'll get the gubbing I always, always fear. Still, I've gone into every FA Cup game we've ever played in the 'propers' thinking it was going to be the end of the road. It works for me, so why stop now?

However, if Crawley was anything to go by, this new Hawk team just like the last, and like a stalwart actor from the blueys, can be relied upon to rise to the occasion.

Whatever happens, assuming the television coverage and our 50% upping of the usual ticket prices doesn't mean we have a much-lower-than-capacity crowd, it'll be great to see our increasingly handsome ground (and possibly glimpses of my decreasingly handsome mush) on the box.

Posted by skif at 10:08:53 27 comments Leave a comment

Archive
On edge, in the hedge
No favours asked or given
Box social
Cathode to joy