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Blue Square South Guide

Bin Man 87

27-12-2008

Five alive

"Bognor manager Mick Jenkins, once of our parish, has been juggling players like flambéd snooker balls, the saloon doors at Nyewood Lane slapping back and forth every week with bodies being thrown both in and out. Given the circumstances and the lack of ready cash, for the fact he’s got them to Christmas with the plates still spinning, ol’ leather-faced Mick deserves a great deal of credit. Indeed, they have battled through these tribulations without being on the end of any stern hammerings either. At least, until now..."

Luke Nightingale goals of late have come round less frequently than the Hale-Bopp comet, so we treasure them when they do. Which is much the same as we do with 5-1 away wins generally.

Thus there is reportage over at dubSteps

In short, we're a darn sight happier than we were three weeks ago.

Posted by skif at 02:12:50 0 comments Leave a comment

19-12-2008

Goodwill to all men (who don't want to borrow my train set)

Well folks, as Noddy Holder has been inclined to intone with the same force as a hippo belching back a hearty breakfast, it’s Christmas. You may have already spotted this and you’ll either have immediately responded by playing Jona Lewie’s ‘Stop The Cavalry’ in the office on a seemingly never-ending loop to the ‘delight’ of your colleagues OR you’ll have tutted and said something about it having “started too early again this year” or that “it’s just for kids really”.

You know what else is just for kids? Football. When I say kids, I don’t just mean them little fellas you see scampering around the supermarket, I mean me, you and everyone we terrace-up with. The Kidults. Football does that to all of us.

Take me off a bank of concrete steps facing some draped netting and I like to think I’m a fairly rational human being, reasonably generous of spirit and as ‘mature’ as it’s possible for the male of the species to be.

However, as soon as I step up on there, or onto the modern e-terraces that are the internet forums, I suddenly lose all of that and regress to a time when I was much smaller, when I really wasn’t that good at sharing things. Some kids first words are “Da-Da” or “Ma-Ma”, others might refer to a pet or teddy bear. Mine, I imagine, were “I really think you’ll find that’s mine.”

This week two things have occurred that have reminded me of my filthy-faced toddlership. Firstly there was the news of Neil Sharp’s move from Cambridge City to Eastleigh…

Now down at WLP we certainly don’t like sharing our stuff, particularly when we have to do it with the sticky-fingered, snot-rinsed, thuggish little bell-end from down the road who’s climbed into our garden and blatantly nicked some of our gear in the past. Alright it was largely a bunch of old weather-beaten rag-dolls that were no longer our favourites but still, it’s not like we’d pocketed his beloved Ken and Barbie at his birthday picnic. We hate him! We hate him! We hate him! **bursts into tears**

The neutrals amongst you will wonder how we are considering Neil Sharp as ‘ours’ when he was last stationed in Cambridge. Well, having played for us for four seasons and been one of our FA Cup heroes, we were sad that he left us in the summer citing his family’s move to Milton Keynes as being too much of a travelling strain.

It’s not often players leave in fairly happy circumstances, with the fans not only still thinking they’re worth applauding, but also understanding the personal situation that takes them away. This is why Sharpy now suddenly being able to manage to travel ‘all that way’, now Eastleigh have come knocking, feels such a let down.

Like I say we are kids without rationality, we believe in things that aren’t there. When we were small it was ‘Santa’, whereas now it’s ‘player loyalty to our club’. Throw in as many qualifiers about players being hired hands, not fans, as you want, but we want our hired hands to care about the shirt they’re wearing and when they can make more of an effort for your local rivals than your club then, well, its tantrum time.

The second thing that reminded me of my youthful caught-with-fingers-in-the-biscuit-tin-again selfishness was Blyth Spartans win over Bournemouth earlier this week. Now as a non-league fan I, rationally, should love the fact that more non league sides than ever before have made it to the third round proper of the FA Cup.

You might think, having had our turn, we’d encourage other teams to go and claim some glory for themselves. Not a bit of it. We want all the cake (i.e. all the non-league-FA-Cup-heroes-cachet), at least for a little while longer. At the minute, it’s like we had the key to the ‘special stuff’ back room of the cake-shop, but Shaun Gale’s had it nicked out of his car and now any number of copies are being flogged on eBay.

I blame Alfie Potter, clearly he is at the heart of this counterfeit keys ring. The evidence is there – he was with us last season throughout the propers, laying on the pass for the winner at Notts County in the second round, then being the miniature hero at Anfield. This year he is with Kettering, who are in the third round having beaten, yes, Notts County (Alfie laying on a pass for the Poppies opener).

Kettering now face Eastwood Town, guaranteeing a non-league club in the fourth round once more. The way it’s panning out we can almost certainly look forward to Liverpool vs Kettering, and many more Harry Potter references, in late January.

If that is to be the case then I can tell you now, unless Kettering get relentlessly chunked, without scoring, I am going to be in an almighty stomping huff, one worthy of being sent to my room without my tea for.

So? Didn’t want any anyway.

**blows a particularly watery raspberry**

Posted by skif at 16:22:48 2 comments Leave a comment

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Five alive
Goodwill to all men (who don't want to borrow my train set)