A true Frankenstein footballer

Anyone seen the article on the BBC website about Football's Frankenstein? Some bloke is apparently taking the best bits from the worlds top footballers and training himself to immitate them using some kind of brain programming. When he's finished he seems to think he'll be the ultimate footballer.

Sounds like a load of old crap to me, but it did get me thinking about who you could combine to get the worlds worst footballer. Imagine a combination of the "skills" of these ex-United players - it trully would be a Frankensteins monster:

Brain: Stephen Reed - Despite being solid if unspectacular on the pitch, Reedy was clearly not the sharpest tool in the box, as demonstrated when he signed a new contract this summer, then apparently marched into the managers office two weeks later to demand, er, a new contract.

Movement: Dan Chillingworth - Even though he scored one of the best goals ever at the Abbey, for most of his career Chilli was about as mobile as that sculpture outside the Grand Arcade.

Turning: Danny Webb - Has there ever been a more anemic front line in United history than Webb and Chillingworth? The former had the turning circle of a battleship, and probably the best thing he ever did in United colours was smacking Luke Guttridge in the face (something I'm sure we'd all do given half a chance).

Finishing: Martin Carruthers - Hailed as the man to save our 04/05 season by Steve Thompson, a statement which should disqualify the fat-ankled one from ever working in football again. An open goal miss in the crucial game against Kidderminster was a particular lowlight of Carruthers undistinguished spell in black and amber.

Strength: John Turner - United fans must have spent two or three years waiting for JT to bulk out a bit. I imagine our counterparts at Kings Lynn are still waiting.

Explosiveness: Ashley Nicholls - I'm not entirely sure how you quantify explosiveness, but I just wanted an excuse to add Nicholls to this list because he's a pie-eating t*****.

Balance: Kingsley Mbome - I have no idea how Kingsley managed to spend time on the books of both Sheffield United and Celtic, considering his legs appeared to be screwed on the wrong way round.

Dribbling: Trevor Robinson - There are some seriously inept footballers in this list, but not-so tricky Trev was the worst, despite (or perhaps because of) looking just like Gus from Eastenders.

Heading: Leo Fortune-West - The term 50-pence-head could've been coined for the Lemu, who somehow appeared to be smaller when jumping than he was in a static standing position

Tricks: Parys Okai - How many defenders quaked in their boots when young Parys charged at them, stopped, did a few slow-motion step overs, then carried on. I'd be willing to be it wasn't many.

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One of those days

It hasn't been a great Monday here at U's blog towers. First of all I came in this morning to find that one of the computer servers was emitting a high pitched beeping alarm. Our wonderful IT support team were unable to solve the problem - apparently the obvious (to me anyway) answer of pulling the plug wasn't an option - so I had to endure a four hour beeping nightmare.

Then I discover that the Brabinator has decided that the best way to solve our current goal-crisis is to loan out our top scorer. It doesn't take too much reading between the lines to realise that he's obviously not happy with Evil's attitude, and while he hasn't been scoring with regularity of late it seems a shame to let him go so soon after one of his best performances of the season. Hopefully one of the other strikers will step up to the plate (and looking at Evil it's probably a big plate, hoho), but it seems like a bit of a gamble to me.

And finally there was the unwelcome confirmation of our now annual FA Trophy trip to Bridge Road, where we will no doubt play spectacularly badly and be defeated in humiliating fashion by the villagers. Can't wait for that one.

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Nooooooooo

I notice in this mornings Cambridge Evening News that the Brabinator is threatening a return to 4-3-3 for tomorrows game at Alty.

If you're reading this Gaz I can only urge you in the strongest possible terms not to do it. Our best performances of the season have come playing 4-4-2 and I don't really see a place for 4-3-3 at present. The team performed well enough on Tuesday night not to require drastic surgery.

So while I can understand the wish (and necessity) to get Rendell into the side, I think it has to be at the expense of one of the other two strikers rather someone like Jardim, who certainly doesn't deserve to be dropped. I wouldn't want to choose which one of Bees or Evil to ditch, but then again I'm not paid to make such decisions am I.

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AOB: Video Nasty

I was disappointed to see in the news today that the BBC trust have blocked the corporations plans for a £68million network of local video news sites.

The plans met with widespread criticism from local newspaper bosses, who are probably now sitting back in their exclusive private members clubs smoking big fat cuban cigars, brought with the profits generated by the countries thousands of poorly paid, downtrodden, local journos. Or something.

Anyway, I thought it was a great idea, and totally agree with the ever-pertinant Dave Lee (bonus points for mentioning U's Blog) and Roy Greenslade that the regionals need to pull their socks up when it comes to embracing the web.

Look at the CEN's video output: The news and sport videos rarely bring anything to the story that you couldn't have gleened from reading the text or looking at the pictures. Whats the point of watching a five minute video of Gary Brabin sitting in the Harris Suite answering questions when I could just read the article in 30 seconds and find out the information that way.

I strongly believe in the value of local news, and that there is a place for video within that, but the visual output needs to be original and interesting, and at the moment most of what is served up by our local papers is neither. Unfortunately most prefer to do things on the cheap, rather than providing their staff with the tools, training, or extra manpower to make something that they can be proud of.

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U's:1 Minstermen:0

Players come and players go and sometimes players come back again. Sometimes they even come back and are as good or better as they were first time around.

Let’s hope that Scotty Rendell adds his name to the illustrious list containing Shaggy, Super Paulie Raynor, and, er, Jamie Campbell, and enjoys a prolific and happy second spell at the Abbey.

Certainly the team demonstrated once again on Tuesday night that what we lack most at present is someone with Rendell’s predatory skills. Another performance during which we totally dominated possession yielded just one goal, and you have to think that teams with more ambition than York will take advantage of our failure to hit the target.

And it wouldn’t be hard to show more ambition than York, who rarely had less than seven men behind the ball during Tuesday’s game. Manager Colin Walker’s bizarre proclamation that his team are losing games by “little inches” (I wonder if he impresses Mrs Walker with talk of “little inches”) didn’t really match up to way his ultra-defensive team played.

Much like in the Lewes game, United made a very bright start, but when they didn’t get the early goal they lost a bit of impetus. Felino Jardim, back in the side and looking back to something like his exciting best, headed wide, while good work from Evil saw him bowl a defender out of the way and cross for Beesley who someone put his shot over with the goal gaping.

York had a couple of efforts on goal, with Potter dealing comfortably with a long ranger from Hogg then clutching a tame effort from Craig Farrell, who should’ve done better after latching onto a quick free kick.

Convery was enjoying a decent game against his former club, and he and the imperious Carden spread the play to the wings at regular intervals. Robbie Willmott didn’t have a particularly great 90 minutes, and summed up a poor showing when he got free near the byline, but hit a weak shot into the near post area with Bees and Evil screaming for a pass in the centre.

Thankfully the goal came in the early minutes of the second half, and given our finishing of late it had to be a City player who scored it for us. Jardim beat his man on the right and arced a delicious cross in towards Willmott. Ben Purkiss got to the ball first, but in trying to chest it back to his keeper only succeeded in looping the ball into his own net. Ho hum, they all count. 1-0.

It should’ve been 2-0 soon afterwards when Beesley’s super pass put Willmott in on goal, but the young winger dallied to long and was denied by a defender before he could get a shot away.

It’s not happening for Bees in front of goal at the moment, and he saw an on-target shot blocked at the last by a defender before he made way for the returning Rendell. Scotty always looked dangerous after coming on, and could’ve had a debut goal if Evil had chosen to square the ball to him instead of going for goal in 77th minute. Instead our top scorer tried to beat the keeper himself, and saw his shot blocked.

Evil had his most effective game for ages though, so I shouldn’t complain too much, but he was nearly made to pay for his miss when York almost grabbed a wholly undeserved equaliser. Russell’s cross found Farrell, whose header bobbled across the goal, kissed the post, and bounced to safety. Pottsy had it covered anyway, maybe.

Man of the Match: Paul Carden – Outstanding in the centre of the park, and he and Convery look to compliment each other nicely.

Surprise of the Match: Referee John Hopkins – the name Hopkins has become synonymous with nightmares for U’s fans over the last couple of years following some abject performances, but on Tuesday he was unobtrusive and mostly spot on with his decisions. Perhaps he’s been in rehab.

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Creepy Crawley:2 U's:2

We’ve all seen things happen on a football pitch which defy any kind of sense or logic – remember this? Or this?

Now we can add the unbelievable sending off of Ben Farrell in yesterdays match at Crawley to that list. Having been shown a yellow card in the first half, the ginger genius surged into the box in the 76th minute but was halted by a challenge from Sam Rents. Undeterred, Faz picked himself up, and looked set to put in a cross until he was stopped in his tracks by a blast on the refs whistle.

Penalty to United perhaps? Oh no, referee Ian Cooper amazingly deemed that Farrell had taken a dive, despite the fact that no one appealed and the player had picked himself up and carried on playing. A second yellow, and the inevitable red, card followed. I do feel sorry for poor old Farrell, who has now been on the end of two absolutely scandalous refereeing clangers this season which have ended in dismissal.

And unfortunately this was just one of a host of awful awful decisions by Mr Cooper, a referee so clown-like they may as well have stuck a red nose on him and called him Krusty. It’s a sad day when I find myself agreeing with Neil Warnock, who I have just seen on ITV’s The Championship declaring that “there is no respect campaign”, but sadly he’s absolutely spot on; How can the players be expected to respect these jokers when they get no respect in return? Will Mr Cooper look at the video and admit he got it wrong? I doubt it. If he does, will anything happen to him in terms of sanctions? Again, I doubt it.

Anyway, back to the beginning, and once again I have to take my hat off to poor old deprived Steve Evans, still struggling manfully against the tide of extreme poverty: “I would dearly love a budget close to that [of Nigel Clough’s Burton Albion], never mind what is being spent by the big six or seven clubs in the Blue Square Premier,” he remarks in his programme notes. In the same article he welcomes a new signing, erstwhile Weymouth top scorer Michael Malcolm, who is presumably playing for nothing other than the love of Crawley Town and the honour of working alongside Super Paulie Raynor. Bless.

United once again lined up in a 4-3-3 formation, with captain for the day Beesley in the hole looking to feed Evil and Willmott. And once again, it all looked a little disjointed, with the U’s players staying huddled tightly in the centre while Crawley exploited the space on the flanks.

First chance of the match came the way of giant striker Steve Fletcher, who found space at the far post to reach Thomas Pinault’s cross but could only direct his header into the waiting arms of Potter. His opposite number, Simon Rayner (no relation), was perhaps a bit fortunate when his sliced clearance fell to Beesley, who could only lob the spinning ball wide from 30 yards with the goal gaping.

Malcolm saw a free kick deflected over by Wayne Hatswell before Crawley took the lead. Beesley gave the ball away in midfield, and Crawley broke down the right. Forrest whipped in a good cross which spun up off Josh Coulson’s leg, allowing Jon Paul-Pittman to drive the ball past the helpless Potter from eight yards. Young Josh should have perhaps cut the ball out, but it was a tidy finish from the muscular Pittman. 1-0.

Mr Cooper was fairly quiet in the first half, although he did serve notice of what was to come by only cautioning Thomas Pinault for a nasty late lunge which left Gleeson in a heap on the touchline. One suspects it was perhaps the proximity of the incident to the Crawley bench that saved the French midfielder from a dismissal.

Anyway, the fun and games really started in the second half. United had spent the final 15 minutes of the first half and the first five of the second camped in and around the Crawley box, and won a corner in the 50th minute when Convery’s shot was deflected behind. The midfielder himself swung the corner over and the ref immediately blew his whistle and pointed to the spot. What the penalty was actually for remains unclear, but Big Lee wasn’t asking any questions, and drilled the kick high to Rayners left. 1-1.

Of course, when you get a soft penalty you always worry that the referee is going to want to even things up, and unfortunately he did just that by awarding the Red Devils an equally baffling spot kick. Rents launched a long free kick into our box, and as one of their players battled with two of ours, Mr Cooper spotted another infringement. Pinault made no mistake with the penalty, as Potter helpfully dived out of the way. 2-1.

More controversy followed as Farrell’s header appeared to be blocked on the line by the hand of Giles. Nothing doing said the Cooperman, who was now awarding a string of soft free kicks in the home sides favour, as their players went to ground, shall we say, a little easily. The only real chance they had was when Pittman got free again but fired wide with Potter at his mercy.

Then came the two sending’s off. Farrell was soon followed down the tunnel by Rents, who launched a horrific two-footed, knee-high assault on Challinor which left the midfielder with a serious looking injury. Even Cooper could hardly get that decision wrong.

Jardim replaced Challinor (a substitution which could have happened a bit earlier to be honest), and as the match ticked into seven minutes of injury time, United came up with a deserved equaliser.

Convery, who had been the subject of much abuse from yours truly throughout the game, picked up a loose ball midway inside the Crawley half, and advanced a few metres before cracking in a terrific low shot which fizzed into the corner beyond the helpless Rayner. Cue bedlam amongst the United faithful; it felt like we’d won the world cup rather than scraped a point in a Conference game, as the pent up anger of all the injustices suffered at the hands of the man in black exploded in a wave of joy.

Given the circumstances and the quality of the opposition, a draw isn't a bad result. We really need a win tomorrow night against York though, otherwise we are going to start losing touch with the leaders.

Man of the Match: Dan Gleeson - Covered a lot of ground to provide width in attack, as well as for the most part defending assiduously.

Toilets of the Match: The Broadfield Stadium is an archetypal new non-league ground, but the toilets in the away end are certainly of Premier League quality. It makes you wonder why they didn't use some of their lavatory budget on more important things, such as building a fourth stand to go along the far side of the pitch.

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AOB: Showing the way?

Remember this article written in September by the Guardian’s David Conn.

If you haven’t seen it, the gist is that the Conference has introduced a raft of trail-blazing measures to try and stop clubs getting into financial difficulty, with penalties to be incurred if the requirements set out by the league are not met.

“The system has teeth”, declared Conn, referring to penalties such as transfer embargos and expulsion, which can and have been applied to clubs in the past.

Well since then we’ve seen Weymouth, Salisbury, and Grays make huge cuts to try and save a bit of money, while Lewes are up for sale and in danger of entering administration, and doubts continue to surround the futures of Rushden and Northwich (best not to mention Histon here, or I may end up threatened with a law suit).

This has all happened despite the Conference’s supposedly strict rules regarding finances. If indeed the league is “showing the way” (as the title suggests) to the rest of the football world, I hate to think where we’re heading.

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FA Cup stuff

It's been a unpleasantly busy seven days here at U's Blog towers, which means I haven't had a great deal of time to reflect upon a week of cup football that has been more depressing than a double bill of La Vie en Rose and Requiem for a Dream.

Of course, the reserves losing to Telford in the Barrowman Bowl shouldn't have been too disasterous or unexpected - I suspect anyone could've looked a midfield four of Jones - Convery - Quinton - Jardim and noted that it was on the lightweight side of flimsy.

But to pick up suspensions for Carden and Bolland in a nothing match was careless in the extreme. Without Carden, I'm not especially confident that we can beat Crawley this weekend but you never know. One positive is that Steve Evans' teams tend to be skillful rather than thuggish, so that could play in our favour.

Saturday's match also trundled to a drearily predictable conclusion, I think the only way to break our Aggborough hoodoo would be to try and persuade Kiddy to sign Shaun Marshall or Darren Behcet, or to just get them to play without a keeper. Even then we'd probably still lose somehow.

"I've told the lads to keep believing. I'm looking at the bigger picture and I'm happy with the way we're doing things."We'll soon get the rub of the green and I still believe someone is going to get a pounding where everything is going to go in for us and that would kick us on," said the Brabinator, who post-match ramblings are sounding more hopeful than expectant by the week.

You have to wonder whether we are paying the price for having two defenders and a defensive midfielder on the coaching staff? Certainly it sounded on the radio (yes I wasn't there) like we created plenty of chances but couldn't take them. Beesley in particular seems to have got into a lot of good positions in recent matches but put the chances away. Despite being a naturally cautious manager, JQ always seemed to be able to get that little bit extra out of the strikers which at the moment our current management team don't seem able to do.

To make matters worse, that other lot are into the next round, and have landed a plum home televised tie with Leeds or Northampton. "If we play Leeds then we would look to bring in a couple of temporary stands," Gareth Baldwin told this mornings Cambridge Evening News. Temporary stands for temporary fans sounds about right to me, hehe.

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Things that are as pointless as the Setanta Shield

Number 1: John Barrowman














Number 2: Sprouts

















Number 3: Moths

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U's:0 Diamonds:0

In my life so far encounters with famous people have been few and far between.

I’ve spoken to a couple of low-ranking politicians, interviewed Amanda Barrie, and served Lionel Perez an ice cream, but other than that my celebrity cupboard is bare.

So you can imagine my excitement when I pulled into a petrol station last Friday and found myself standing next to the great Wayne Hatswell.

I’d like to say I indulged in some witty banter of the kind that footballers favour, but instead I stood there gawping like a starstruck teenage girl as he filled up his BMW (he clearly gets paid too much by the way) and sped off into the distance. Never mind, I’ll certainly be frequenting that particular garage again in the future, so the chances are we may meet again.

Hats and his defensive colleagues were back in top form on Saturday, as we returned to our clean sheet-keeping ways by shutting out crisis-club Rushden and Diamonds. Sadly our forwards weren’t in such good form, and we failed to find the net in a game that always threatened to produce more than it did.

Although I wouldn’t agree with the Brabinator when talks of an “excellent performance”, we certainly played some good stuff at times, even if it didn’t result in goals.

The early loss of Beesley didn’t help of course. He went for a cross with Chris Hope and came off second best, leaving him with a cut right across the forehead. The problem when Beesley isn’t playing is that there’s no one to hold the ball up and bring other players into play. Without this we were a bit one paced, with the only threat coming from the flanks, where Robbie Willmott again put in an assured performance. Felino Jardim didn’t enjoy a great game, and was particularly poor in the first half, although he did pick up in the second period.

Best chances of the first half fell to Challinor, who saw two shots from outside the area saved by Dale Roberts.

Danny Potter had a quiet first half, but was much busier in the second period, when the visitors put in a series of crosses into the six-yard box which required decisive catching and punching from the U’s number one.

Leading the line for the Diamonds was our old camera-licking chum Daryl Clare, whose love of cold hard cash led him to make the move to Irthlingborough in the summer. He missed the best opportunity of the game, spooning a shot wide from six yards with the goal gaping after being set up by the languid Andy Burgess. Honestly, you don’t get much value for £3,000 p/w (allegedly) these days.

United didn’t really test Roberts unduly, with Carden shooting straight at the keeper, and Jardim and Willmott putting in awesome crosses that didn’t get the finishing touch they were crying out for. Holroyd had the ball in the net in the last minute, but this was disallowed for offside.

As a positive person, I chose to believe that we’re close to rediscovering the form we showed at the start of the season. At the moment it’s not quite clicking, but we’re still only two points off the top and, as I said last week, if we can get all parts of the team functioning at the same time it should all be happy days.

Man of the Match: Paul Carden – Totally dominated midfield. Please never get injured again Paul.







Quote of the Match: Brabin on Beesley – “He’s got a nasty gash on his head so he’s all stitched up - he looks like young Frankenstein at the moment!” Gotta love that famous scouse humour eh?!

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