Tuesday 30 September 2008

U's:1 Blues:0

In the wake of the recent non-goal at Watford and non-penalty at Old Trafford, there’s been a lot of talk about introducing video technology.

But I think a better idea would be to give managers the right to change the referee once per match. Denied a penalty by the whistler that starts the match? Then why not upgrade him for one that will grant you a spot kick in second half injury time. Worked for us on Sunday didn’t it, and I’m sure Sepp Blatter would probably agree it’s a good idea. Maybe.

United’s performance against Grays was a big improvement on the shoddy capitulation at the hands of Oxford. However, were it not for ref number two’s intervention we’d probably be looking back on another frustrating afternoon at the Abbey. The U’s had plenty of chances to put the game to bed, and should have registered a more comfortable win against an ordinary, un-ambitious, Grays side.

Referee number one was an interesting fellow, who I feel had good intentions but often didn’t execute them properly. His keenness to play advantage undermined United’s case for what looked a clear penalty in the 20th minute. Chris Holroyd burst onto a Challinor pass but was yanked back as he was about to shoot. The ref waved play on as the ball had reached Danny Crow, whose angled shot was saved by David Button.

Challinor and Carden had shots blocked, while another good run from the speedy Holroyd saw him reach the byline but arc a cross just over the head of Crow. And just on half time, Button flapped at a corner, but Phil Bolland’s shot on the turn flew just wide.

Given our recent form, you got the feeling United might be made to pay for this profligacy, and Grays started the second period well. However, they weren’t able to test Danny Potter, despite a couple of set pieces that flew dangerously across the goalmouth.

And after a little spell under the cosh, United regained control, with Crow drawing a fantastic full-length save from Button with a deft flick that looked to be heading for the top corner. From the resulting corner, Danny Brown’s shot crashed against the cross bar, and moments later Mark Convery curled a free kick just over the bar after Crow, who seems to be gradually improving, had been fouled.

With the game drifting towards a goal-less conclusion, the crucial substitution took place, with the fourth official taking over from his injured counterpart. Evil also came on in place of Jardim, and set up Challinor for a weak shot on the turn that was easily repelled by Button.

But Big Lee was to have the final say. Challinor hurled a throw into the box, and as Hatswell rose with a defender the ref spotted some kind of infringement. It could have been handball, it could have been an elbow in Hats’ face, and most likely it was neither, but no matter, because once the dust had settled Evil thumped home the penalty, high to Button’s right. Hurrah.

So yeah, overall United deserved their win and played some decent stuff. But the return of Mark Beesley to add a bit of cutting edge in the final third can’t come soon enough if you ask me.

Man of the Match: Chris Holroyd – With Evil relegated to the bench, Holroyd took on the mantle of main striker with gusto, enjoying probably his best outing to date.









Non-league shoddiness of the Match – The Grays number 23 was presumably a new signing, as duct tape covered the name of shirts previous incumbent. Classy.

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Saturday 27 September 2008

Paranoia sets in

Much as I don't like to sound like a Newcastle fan (Hahaha, Joe Kinnear, hahahaha), it has seemed like the media is working against us this week.


Maybe the fact that the team haven't been winning much lately is making me paranoid, but everyone seems to have been sticking the boot in. First we have Pravda going on and one and about Histon Village being above us in the table by an enormous margin of one point, a point just about gained against a ten man Lewes side who are surely the worst team ever seen at this level (yes, worse than Droyslden).

Fair play to Histon, who have started really well this year and seem to be going the right way about avoiding "second season syndrome", but I must have missed the news that the season finishes in September now. If they're above us in May then they'll have something to crow about, but until then the CEN should stop trying to make something out of nothing, and well done to Danny Brown and Dan Gleeson for not being drawn on the subject this week.

Then we have Setanta, who conducted a full on Oxford United love in before, during, and after Tuesday's game at the Kassam. "We thought they might crumble again, but thankfully they got a third" said Steve Bower during the post match summary. Thankfully for who exactly? Not for me or any other fans of the real U's, that's for sure. And by the way Steve, I'm not certain exactly how you pronounce the name of Oxford's number seven, but I'm fairly confident that he's not Yemi Od-uu-bad.
Of course, Bower is still more literate than the witless Paul Parker, who continues to display an overt anti-Cambridge attitude. At one point he accused Felino of diving in the box, then went very quiet when replays showed the defender had trod on his foot and brought him down. How these imbeciles get on TV I don't know.

To make matters worse, Radio Cambs have re-employed the smug, P*sh supporting, not-half-as-funny-as-he-thinks-he-is, numpty that is Paul Stainton to front their sports coverage. I think I might just stick to Teletext in future.

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Monday 22 September 2008

Stags:1 U's:1

Every day I travel down the A1198 to work, and almost every day, without fail, I get held up behind a tractor, a horse box, a caravan, or a slow moving lorry, delaying my progress and giving me mild road rage.

So you can imagine my displeasure when we got stuck behind ALL FOUR of the unholy quartet on the one-carriageway road into Mansfield on Saturday. Having already taken 45 minutes to get four miles along the A1 due to stupid roadworks, it probably wasn't a great surprise that we missed kick off.

Luckily nothing had happened in the first couple of minutes. United had lined up in a 4-4-2 formation, with Felino Jardim making a welcome return wide left, with Jon Challinor wide-ish right ahead of Dan Gleeson. However, Challinor's tendency to wander inside meant Glees was often exposed to the probings of Alex Jeannin and Michael Blackwood. Jason Lee headed the home sides best chance over the bar, while at the other end Evil perhaps should have done better with a header from a Jardim free kick.

Big Lee was described as a "veteran striker" by the non-league paper on Sunday, a statement which worryingly means I'll qualify for veteran status next April. Anyway, he got through plenty of work given that he had apparently been sick all week, linking up well on occasions with Holroyd and the tricky Jardim. However, none of these three were involved directly in our goal, which stemmed from a Tonkin long throw. With Bolland lurking at the near post, it was partially cleared by a defender as far as Danny Brown on the edge of the box, who unleashed a stonking volley across the keeper into the far corner. Back of the net. 1-0.

The Stags were never going to surrender their 100 per cent home record lightly, and they pushed United back in the opening stages of the second half, aided by penickity refereeing of Mr Brown, who seemed determined to disrupt the flow of play wherever possible. Blackwood and Nathan Arnold were the chief tormentors of the U's backline, and we were served notice of what was to come when Blackwood was given a free kick on the edge of the box after going to ground very easily.

Moments later, Arnold was awarded a dubious set piece in an almost identical position on the other side of the field. He swung the ball over to the back stick, where Alan O'Hare climbed above the otherwise immaculate Wayne Hatswell to head home the equaliser. 1-1.

After that it was mostly United on the front foot, with Evil and Hatswell shooting wide and the former having a goal disallowed for offside after he had wandered round the keeper and poked the ball into the empty net. An enterprising Holroyd dash saw him shoot disappointingly wide, and there was time for Danny Crow to make a positive ten minute cameo. He already looks fitter after a week of training with the squad, and will hopefully be a good addition once he's fully up to speed.

The U's could've stolen it with literally the last kick of the game when Jardim's cross was helped onto Evil on the left of the box. But his shot was blocked by O'Hare, and seconds later the final whistle sounded.

Mansfield were the best side I've seen so far this year, so we've got to look at this as a point gained, even thought it could have been so much more. We could with three points against Oxford tonight though, there have been a few too many draws lately.

Man of the Match: Felino Jardim - At times he had three of four players on his tail, but somehow still came away with the ball. It seems the rest has done him good.







Losers of the Match: The over-zealous Mansfield stewards, whose insistence that everyone sit down (while the Mansfield fans remained standing) caused some unnecessary aggro. A big special well done to the steward who spent five minutes offering to "settle things outside" with several United fans. Very professional eh?

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Wednesday 17 September 2008

Busy little...

One of my favourite football quotes of recent years came from Jaap Stam's autobiography. In it the Dutchman described the Neville brothers as "busy little c****".

Those words came to mind when reading this article from Gavin Hoyte's agent, Dave Thomas, who is seeking to engineer a loan move for his client.

Given that big Gav isn't seeing much on pitch action at the moment, a temporary move is probably a good idea, and of course it's not unusual for agents to speak on their clients behalf.

But it's a bad state of affairs when agents start making statements apropros of nothing, without the club being involved (seeing as Thomas has a byline at the bottom of the article, I'm going to assume this is the case). Who is he to say what is in the best interests of all parties?

This particular fellow has already caused us to nearly not sign Felino, and was very vocal about another of his clients', Ben Farrell, on/off move to Histon Village. Sadly I think we've found the new Richard Cody.

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Sunday 14 September 2008

U's:0 Gulls:1

I’m a bit worried that I’m becoming a bad omen.

The last game I saw was our loss against Kettering. A win and two draws later I’m back, and so is the sinking feeling which accompanies defeat. If anyone’s interested in sponsoring me to stay away from the Abbey then drop me an email.

Our poor performance could also be attributed to the teams’ reluctance to win whenever the South Stand initiative is put into action: Who can forget such glorious failures as Salisbury last year, and Crawley the year before that?

Regardless of the reason, we were pretty poor yesterday. Not poor like oh-my-gosh-I-want-to-kill-myself poor, but more a sort of this-is-so-mediocre-I-may-fall-asleep-at-any-minute poor. There was quite a bit of nice passing on display, but none of it came in areas that threatened Torquay, and as a result I don’t think their keeper was extended all afternoon.

It still should have been enough to get us a point against a Gulls side who came for a draw and executed their smothering 4-5-1 tactics to perfection. However, a last minute lapse of concentration allowed the visitors to take the win. Man-of-the-match Mark Convery (I doubt that combination of words have ever been used in the same sentence before) tried to play a long pass up to Chris Jones, but it was intercepted by Chris Todd, who sent Danny Stevens away down the right. His cross found Tim Sills and Wayne Carlisle in acres of space on the left, and latter dispatched a superb lofted shot across Danny Potter and into the far corner.

Prior to this chances had been at a premium, and in fact it was Carlisle who registered the only other significant shot of the match, ghosting into the box but seeing his effort brilliantly blocked by Potter.

United started really well, with Beesley, Evil, and Holroyd picking up where they apparently left off last week. However, we lost impetus when Beesley was forced to depart injured, to be replaced by new boy Danny Crow. Crow had the odd good touch, but for the most part looked like a man struggling for fitness, and you have to question the wisdom of sticking him on for such a long spell.


In fact the Brabinator tactics were a bit dodgy throughout. Without Beesley to link play 4-3-3 didn’t really work, as the midfield and front line were too far apart to get any cohesive attacks going. The obvious way to remedy this seemed to be to summon Felino Jardim from the bench, but instead when Brabin did make a change he introduced Chris Jones, who once more failed to make an impression. Word on the not-usually-that-well-informed street which I inhabit is that Felino isn’t very fit at the moment, but if that’s the case what’s he doing on the bench in the first place?

Our best chance of scoring looked to be from a set piece, and Evil really should have got one of three good headed chances on target. The lively Holroyd also spurned a good opportunity when Hatswell’s intelligent header found him six yards out with his back to goal. But his instinctive shot on the turn flew over the bar, and it was left for Carlisle to win the match for the visitors, booooooo.

Man of the Match: Chris Holroyd – Like the rest of the team he was a lot less effective in the second half, but the speedy striker looked dangerous whenever he got on the ball. Just work on the finishing please.

Celebrity fan of the Match – Soccer AM presenter and “fanatical” CUFC fan Max Rushden, who was parading around at half time. He told Five Live’s excellent Fighting Talk programme earlier this year that he’d “lost interest [in CUFC] since I moved to London”. Hardcore eh?

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Wednesday 10 September 2008

Danny Crow - what do we know?


So the Crow has swooped/flown in/landed/other bird pun of choice. As I said yesterday, I’m not sure it’s an entirely necessary signing, but if we have the cash in the budget – and I’m sure we wouldn’t overspend, we never have before, ho hum – adding a quality player to the squad can’t be a bad thing.

A lot has been made of his bad attitude, mostly stemming from the now infamous Big Ron Manager documentary which P*sh took part in a few years back. But a glance at the Scum messageboard shows that opinion about our new signing is very much divided.

There’s the good:

“Good luck to him. The best natural finisher at the Club for years. Pity it has not worked out and obviously faults on BOTH sides.”

“Far more natural talent than Rendell or Hatch but its up to the manager to get players to perform. I know who I blame.”

The bad:

“I would say he had every chance, but he just seemed disinterested and lazy. I was keen for him to do well, and prove his critics wrong but ended up totally disillusioned with his lack of effort.”

“He was a workshy mofo who was good in his debut season, when he had something to prove. good riddance. shame we had to pay him to leave.”

And the indifferent:

“Crow never got a chance under DF, and i'm actually pretty gutted about that as he quite clearly has talent to go far (albeit his attitude somewhat overshadows that talent).”

Seems like a signing that could either way really. But on the positive side, Evil came with a reputation as a troublemaker and he’s done alright so far. If the Brabinator can keep all these strikers happy, we will surely have the best frontline in the division.

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Tuesday 9 September 2008

U's:2 Wrecsam:2 - In the wilderness


Hi folks, I’m back from the wilderness, or to give it its other name, Jersey. As I mentioned previously, I was at a wedding over the weekend, but was hoping to be able to keep up with news of the match via text.

However, this plan went horribly wrong when I arrived in the Channel Islands and discovered that – quelle catastrophe – my phone didn’t work. So for the first time in ages I went through the whole of Saturday completely oblivious to goings on at the Abbey, until returning home in the early hours of Sunday to a note from my girlfriend’s uncle (with whom we were staying): “Matt – Camb United win 2-0 and go top of the league!”

Good old Uncle Stuart, I have a new found respect for him now. Anyway, sounds like we played really well in my absence. And, in an interesting parallel with this time ten years ago, we did it playing 4-3-3. Now as then our front line is full of guile (Beesley/Butler), experience (Evil/Shaggy), youthful exuberance (Holroyd/Benjamin) and most importantly goals. Lets hope that this time around the end result is the same as it was in 98/99.

In other news, Phil Law is gone, which is probably not a bad thing. I don’t know the guy, and suspect that some of the stick he has taken from the keyboard warriors on the messageboard is a bit OTT. However, anyone who was at the fans forum will know he lied concerning the matter of the £2000 supposedly offered by Brian York to cancel the City match – first stating there was no truth in the rumour then by the end admitting it was true but suggesting it had been taken out of context. Whether this was motivated by some alternate agenda or was simply because he’s a bit of a buffoon I don’t know, but either way, I think it was one cock up too far from a man who’s made a plenty of them lately.


And congrats to the club for taking the mature step of threatening to remove the messageboard (although, bizarrely, it's still there, just without links from the main page). Very professional, and not at all reminiscent of the stick-your-fingers-in-your-ears-and-hope-it-goes-away stance Histon Village took regarding Craig Pope.

Meanwhile, it seems we are trying to entice Danny Crow to the Abbey. The former P*sh striker watched Saturday’s match from the directors box with George Rolls, leading our Director of Football to remark to the CEN that “If Ronaldinho was there, he'd have been impressed. I think Danny was quite shocked by the level of the football.” Never one to over-egg the pudding is our George, oh no.

But I’m pleased to read we won’t be breaking the bank to get him here. While Crow is a talented player, we don’t desperately need another striker, and it would be a shame to upset the balance of the squad when Evil, Beesley, and now Holroyd, are all playing well.

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Thursday 4 September 2008

Quinn in

Anyone who has read/seen the second Harry Potter book/film may remember the character of Gilderoy Lockhart, played in the movie by Kenneth Branagh. There’s a great scene where Harry goes into his office and sees that the walls are covered with thousands of pictures of Gilderoy himself carrying out heroic deeds.

For some reason I can just imagine Jimmy Quinn decorating his office in a similar fashion. Upon his arrival in Bournemouth this week, our former manager demonstrated that a summer of unemployment has done little to dent his ample self-esteem:

"I was leading goalscorer [for the Cherries in 91/92] if anybody can remember that far back," he told the BBC, while arranging his Northern Ireland international caps in a glass case and unpacking his stock of brown envelopes.

“I've got a reputation for going into clubs when they've been struggling and although this is going to be a tough job, I'm confident I can do my bit and keep them in League Two. The past three jobs I've taken on, the clubs have been rock bottom and I've got them back,” he added in the Bournemouth Echo, failing to mention that none of his last three clubs were on -15 points when he took the reigns.

I wish the best of luck to Quinn, who did a good job last year regardless of the manner in which he left. There’s no doubt he’s a decent manager when he has time and money to put together a team, but we shouldn’t forget that, when asked to work with an inherited squad in 06/07, he only just kept us up by the skin of his teeth. And unless Bournemouth have a Robbie Simpson-alike waiting in the wings I suspect JQ may be plying his trade in the Conference again in the near future.

Hopefully United won’t be there to see it, and we picked up another good point at Ebbsfleet on Tuesday. I wasn’t there, and won’t be at the Wrexham game this weekend as I’m going to a wedding. Who gets married during the football season anyway? I should’ve asked them to reschedule…

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Monday 1 September 2008

Terras:2 U's:2 - transfer SHOCK and AWE

So have we all survived the SHOCKS and SENSATIONS of this UNBELIEVABLE transfer deadline day which, as usual, hasn't been half as shocking or sensational as the media would have us believe.


When I say the media, I'm mainly looking at Sky Sports, but even their presenters must have struggled to maintain their boundless enthusiasm with AMAZING transfers like, um, Portsmouth signing Nadir Belhadj, and Stoke flogging Jon Parkin (whose continuing career success surely gives hope to hopeless, overweight, footballers everywhere) to Preston SHAKING THE FOOTBALL WORLD. It would be quite funny if Berbatov joined Man City though - C'mon Dimitar, do what's right, we all want to see Fergie's head explode.

The mood in the rest of the football world has been reflected at the Trade Recruitment Stadium, with no movement in or out seemingly imminent. I would've liked to see the Brabinator sign some cover for the right side of defence, as Glees looks set for a spell on the sidelines, but he seems content to promote Rory McAuley from CRC. Time will tell whether that's a good move I suppose.

I didn't travel to Weymouth at the weekend mainly because it's in some kind of strange transport black hole. There is only one road in and out, and it seems to be perpetually blocked with obstacles (caravans, road works, unexploded bombs etc etc). Last time we went we only made it into the ground about five minutes before kick off, the game was rubbish (we lost 2-1 in the FA Cup), and on the way home the exhaust pipe fell off my car. All in all, it wasn't a good day, so you can see why I was in no hurry to return, and why I wasn't surprised that the supporters coach ended up arriving late. However I would like to thank the coach driver for leaving at the ridiculously optimistic time of 9am, only because it meant us radio listeners were spared Steve Line's inane ramblings for the first half.

Line was back for the second period to comment on the U's throwing away their two-goal cushion. Coincidence? I think not. It's a shame that the Brabinator felt the need to indulge in some characteristically scouse self-pittying whinging in his post-match interview, blaming injuries, the referee, the credit crunch, and Hurricaine Gustav for our failure to take three points. One can only hope it was for the benefit of the press and fans, and that he will be addressing the things we can control (ie defending better) with the players ahead of tomorrows game at Ebbsfleet rather than concentrating on the things we cannot.

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