Brabin in

The words continuity and Cambridge United usually go together like MP's and honesty, Bono and modesty, or Trevor Robinson and footballer.

But with the news that the Brabinator isn't going to Blackpool (and let's face it, who would want to, have you been there lately?), we're hopefully set fair for a turmoil free summer.

"I'm in work as usual and I had players in yesterday sorting things out for next season."I'm speaking to the players in a certain order," said our leader, brandishing Super Chris's newly signed contract extension. "I'll have more in today and I'll be speaking to others on the telephone."

Judging by that picture on the official site, I'm not sure that the Brabinator even knows how to operate a phone, but no matter, let's hope he's been perfecting his best Alan Sugar impression so that he can fire a few of the less able members of the squad. With most of our key players on contract, it should be the case of getting rid of some of the dross and picking up a couple of additions.

It'd be nice to lose McMahon and Challinor, and sign Reason permanently. Getting rid of Challinor may prove tricky, as he's under contract, but there's bound to be some mug, I mean wise manager, out there who'll take him off our hands. We'll probably need a central defender as well, because Bolly will presumably be back off to the frozen north so he can teach his newborn child the art of fouling strikers without the ref noticing. But assuming there are no surprise departures, and we can get Phillips/another big striker signed up, the rest of the squad seems to take care of itself.

Examples of teams which are thrown together and enjoy instant success are few and far between, so lets hope we can perservere with an evolution rather than revolution approach. Although the last couple of summers have been quite exciting in a way, I'll be quite happy if we don't hear much from the club until the pre-season friendlies kick in.

Read more...

Divorcing the Mighty U's

In what is a U's Blog first, today we have a guest contributor. In this piece, Simon Evans tells us why he and United could be heading for the divorce courts.

I’m going to support Man Utd from now on. No really, I am. The weekend finally broke me. Why do I waste so much time, money and emotional angst on eleven men I don’t know from Adam. Who the hell is Robbie Willmott to put me through such pain? What is it that makes me so depressed when they lose? I can erase a lifetime of dedication. I’m not related to any of them, I have no professional or personal connection with anyone at the club. Dammit, I’m nearly twice as old as some of them. I haven’t even lived in Cambridge for over 20 years. There is surely nothing, nothing, to stop me from just jumping ship.

So I will. I’ll go down to my local Tesco and buy a Man Utd shirt. There might even be someone else there wearing a Man Utd shirt. I can smile and nod at him in a matey sort of way. I can celebrate winning the title three years in a row. Imagine how good that must feel. Every week a victory, loads of goals, any minor blip erased the following week in a blaze of glory. It would be like Stevenage at home week in week out. I might even actually go to Old Trafford. No one would know that I’m an impostor. I’ll bluster my way through Man U squads of past and present. I can use the first person plural. “We’re looking forward to the Barcelona game” See it’s that easy! If I was really lucky, I might actually get some abuse for being a Man Utd fan. I could get accused of being a “glory hunter” – what a novelty that would be. Anything would be better than the pained sympathy of work colleagues which I am suffering this week. “Never mind” they say “there’s always next year”. “Yes, I know - thanks” I lie. And I’d never have to hear my Mother in Law kindly enquire “and how are Cambridge? Oh it’s such a shame, would you like another piece of cake?”

And my poor son. I could buy him a Man Utd shirt too. Go on son – fill your boots. Breathe in the Glory. Never have your teachers ask you what shirt you’re wearing at PE, never need to know where Gateshead is. Stick a photo of that Portuguese bloke with fancy boots on your wall like every other kid in the street. Never ever ever have to watch a game involving Torquay or Exeter again. And I could sleep safely in my bed at night knowing that the Child Protection Team are not about to prosecute me for willingly and knowingly leading my eight year old into a life of broken dreams and shattered expectations.

No – its got to be non stop triumphs from now on. I think I owe it to myself. I used to think that football was about highs and lows irrespective of the level. It was all relative. Beating Barrow away could feel as good as beating Inter Milan. But I realise now that that’s just bollocks. What’s the use of that comparison if there are never any highs? Supporting Cambridge United is just endless lows punctuated by the occasional false dawn.

So its me and Alex, Giggsy, Best, Charlton. The money, the skill, the passion. The lack of teams from Devon in the Premiership. Me and my mate from Tescos. Me and a million other faceless morons. It’s the bland life of meaningless glory for me. I can divorce the U’s.

I can.

Pause

Deep sigh.

See you at the Abbey in next season.

Simon Evans

Read more...

U's:0 Gulls:2

So, er, yeah, I was kidding myself when I said I could handle us losing if we played alright. There is no honourable defeat in the play-off final; you either win and go home happy, or lose and fall into a black chasm of despair. There is no middle ground.

But make no mistake, we played a lot better this year than last. I guess that's a bit like saying dying by lethal injection is better than drowning, but we were evenly matched with Torquay except in the area that matters most; finishing. While the Gulls took their chances when they came along, we did what we always do when we go behind and started fannying about and trying to walk the ball into the net. Needless to say their keeper Michael Poke wasn't tested much in the second half.

I was so depressed after last years final that I didn't even do a match report, and as such didn't voice my opinions on Wembley Stadium, the soulless home of football. While it's a perfectly decent modern arena, it lacks any kind of character, and when one considers some of the truly unique stadiums built in recent years, such as the Allianz Arena in Munich, I don't think it's unreasonable to have expected more for the near £800million build cost.

Anyway, United started like a team that had enjoyed a purposeful, hype-free, pre-match build up, knocking the ball around and using the full width of the pitch. Courtney Pitt in particular was taking up some great positions on the left, but unfortunately he and Robbie Willmott seemed to have left their crossing boots on the bus. Time after time attempted centres thumped into the first defender with frustrated team mates left waiting in the centre.

Poke was only called into action once, to foil Willmott after he had wriggled free on the right, but other than that our efforts all missed the target, with a Hatswell blaster deflecting wide, Rendell shooting over, and Lee Phillips going close with a left-footer from outside the box that fizzed past the post.

Not that Adam Bartlett was having a particularly busy debut between the United sticks. He confidently grabbed a couple of crosses, but he hadn't been extended before Torquay took the lead. Poke's long clearance was flicked on by Tim Sills to Elliot Benyon, who had time and space to play in Chris Hargreaves. My blogging rival from the South West charged through the Hatswell-shapped hole in our backline, and beat Bartlett with a rising shot from 18 yards. Disaster, 1-0.

Sills had earlier not endeared himself to the United fans by catching Hatswell with a forearm smash, for which he somehow escaped a booking. If his plan was to unsettle our number six then I think it worked, as the Torquay man won the majority of their aerial duels for the rest of the match, and nearly added a second goal before half time only to be denied by a lunging tackle from Dan Gleeson.

The goal seemed to have sapped all the confidence from the United players, and this translated into the stands, where the mood soon changed from cautiously optimistic to decidedly gloomy. One particularly charming chap sitting behind me spent the entire second half yelling "this is s*** United, you've got no bottle", a statement which - though ultimately accurate - was perhaps a bit premature with the game still in the balance.

Part two started with another patch of United possession which was ultimately about as fruitful as the Kiwi tree plant on my patio (ie not very). Rendell almost connected with Pitt's chipped pass, and Gleeson drove in a cross/shot that was deflected behind, but much like the Altrincham game you never felt that a goal was imminent.

And our chances of getting back into the match evaporated on 70 minutes, when Bolly got his marching orders. Having already been booked, he needlessly flattened Benyon near the touchline and was sent off. Five minutes later it was 2-0, as Wayne Carlisle found space on the right, and landed a cross right on Sills' ugly, alien-shaped, head. The sight of Devonian celebrations at the opposite end of the pitch was no less galling than last time.

Where we go from here I don't know. With budget cuts on the way, and the future of the management team uncertain, it looks like it will be another interesting summer at the Abbey. When are the fixtures coming out?

Man of the Match: Dan Gleeson - Solidity personified.









Rip off of the Match: A toss up between £1.90 for a bottle of water, or £5 for a programme which appears to have been copy-and-pasted together in about half an hour.

Read more...

Like deja vu all over again

I surely can't be the only one who is feeling a bit like Bill Murray this morning.

Spend big, lose at Wembley, lose manager, start again. Repeat until you want to kill yourself in order to escape this neverending football hell.

And why do I get the feeling that, if Gary Brabin does join the unnamed league team interested in making him their new manager, our chairman won't be too disappointed to see him go?

"Hopefully Gary will show some loyalty to us. We gave him a job when he'd only been in football for five or six games," Chairman George told Radio Cambridgeshire this morning. "We gave him a huge budget last year, more money than Jimmy Quinn the year before. I just hope he stays around and tries to build again for next year."

I always think the concept of loyalty in football is a bit of a laughable one. George allegedly wanted to sack Brabin in January when we were going through a rough patch, and if we start next season badly - not an inconceivable scenario given that we'll have a much reduced budget - I'm sure he would have no qualms about giving his manager the boot. The Brabinator's stock is quite high at the moment, so if he gets offered a better job then why would loyalty come into it? If he stays and then gets fired next season suddenly his CV doesn't look quite so impressive, and his managerial career could be over before it has hardly begun.

And if Mr Rolls really does want him to show some loyalty, perhaps he should give the manager some credit for the job he's done, rather than making him sound like some kind of charity case who we dragged from the gutter out of the goodness of our hearts.

I'll do a match report on yesterday later. Suffice to say it is unlikely to make good reading.

Read more...

It's nearly here...

Are you nervous yet? I myself didn't sleep very well last night, although I think that had more to do with the late dinner we had at Anatolia than any kind of Wembley-related anxiety.

Apparently some people have been taking their mind off the match by distributing an army of gnomes around the city. Whatever floats your boat I suppose - I'm just hoping that the amber army dwarfs the support from Torquay, and that Gary Brabin pixies the right team for the occasion.

The elf (sorry) of Danny Potter seems to be a bit of a concern ahead of tomorrow's match, with the club having drafted in Adam Bartlett to provide experienced cover. Obviously you'd prefer not to have to change your keeper for the most important game of the season, but Bartlett comes highly rated and I'm sure will do a decent job if called upon.

Knowing the Brabinator's predeliction for tinkering, I wouldn't put it past him to decide that now is the time to unleash his new 2-1-3-1-3 reverse Christmas tree sweeper formation. But assuming he doesn't have a brain storm, the team mostly picks itself, save for two positions: the left wing and up front.

It's probably a straight fight between the Pitt and Parky for the left flank role. I'm a big fan of Courtney, so would probably stick with him from the start, with Parky to come off the bench if required. The latter has rarely been very effective when starting a game anyway, and it having a natural left-footer offers much better balance. We can only hope that the Pittster has one of his good days if he does play.

Up front I guess Brabin is likely to stick with Rendell and Phillips, but I think that I would bring Holroyd back at the expense of the ex-Torquay striker. The Gulls defenders are big boys, and seemed to cope well with Histon's strong arm tactics in the second leg of their play-off semi final. So it would seem to me that the pace of Holroyd is more likely to trouble them than the power of Phillips. Plus the big pitch at Wembley would give super Chris plenty of space in which to operate.

Whoever plays, let's hope they perform a bit better than the shambles of last season. I think I can (just about) handle us losing again, so long as we do ourselves justice this time. Que se ra, se ra, and all that.

Read more...

Ticketing shambles part two

Got my tickets for Sunday, and it seems that, compared to some people, I got off fairly lightly: three are in one row, and two are in the row behind. Not a complete disaster, and it puts a nice cushion between me and my dad who is, as I've mentioned before, a bit of a nightmare at football matches.

There was some clown from the tickets.com on Radio Cambridgeshire this morning trying to say that any mistakes made were down to their computer system. It always makes me laugh when people try and put the blame on computers as if they're some kind of mysterious entity that cannot be controlled. Computer technology works on logic, therefore it can't make "mistakes" unless someone enters some data incorrectly somewhere along the line. When asked by the presenter whether his company were to blame, the ensuing silence spoke volumes.

Still, at least they made an apology of sorts, and I'm sure this whole sorry fiasco will be a distant memory if we get the right result against Torquay. Here's hoping...

Read more...

AOB: Quitting while you're, er, behind

There have been a lot of quitters in the news this week.

The wonderful Steve Coppell has decided to step down at Reading, Carlos Tevez is reportedly going to quit Man Utd, and the all those dastardly MP's who redecorated their homes at the tax payers expense are resigning from their posts with their heads bowed in shame. Oh, hang on a minute...

But it was another threatened departure that particularly caught my eye. It came from West Indian cricket captain, Chris Gayle, who said in an interview with the Guardian that he may give up the captaincy and pursue a career outside the test arena.

"I wouldn't be so sad", said Gayle, when asked how he would feel if Test Cricket died out. "To be honest with you, there's a possibility I might give it up – I will be giving it up, shortly."

Gayle seems to prefer the Twenty20 format, although I suspect the limitations of his Windies side (they are currently third from bottom of the world rankings) has something to do with his disinterest in what I would call "proper" cricket. And moreover, I think it would be a shame if test cricket was relegated to being a poor relation of it's newer, glitzier, cousin.

Twenty20 may be where the money is at presently, but it is still a relatively new game. Will it have the long-term appeal of test cricket? For me, the jury is still out on a format which involves a lot of brute force and very little in the way of tactics. Once the novelty value wears off, I suspect the public's interest, and therefore the sums of money being paid to players in competitions like the IPL and the ill-fated Stamford Series, will drop a bit.

I also think we're stuck in a vicious circle while there is no live test cricket on terrestrial television. With the sport in the clutches of Sky, it will always be difficult to attract new, young, fans because hardly anyone can see it. If I was growing up now, with virtually no cricket on TV, I doubt I would be as big a fan of the game as I am today. This in turn helps to add weight to the argument of those who say there is no interest in the longer form of cricket, and that Twenty20 is the way forward, and so we go round and round.

Twenty20 isn't going away anytime soon, and I can see where Gayle is coming from when he comments on how crowded the current cricket schedule is. So ideally I think we should have less test series, and get the ones we do have back on terrestrial television. Of course, the only snag about these two ideas is that neither are likely to be more profitable than the current state of affairs.

Still, it would nice to think that the International Cricket Council, the sport's governing body, could do something for the long-term good of the game, rather than the short term gain of players and administrators. I won't hold my breath on that front.

Read more...

Ticketing shambles

When it comes to consistent football-related buffoonery, I don't think anyone - apart from perhaps Newcastle United - can beat the folk that administer the Football Conference.

No task is too simple for these idiots to cock up. Not content with creating the shambles of player registration-gate (there's a great article about that in this month's When Saturday Comes by the way) they now seem to have employed the worlds worst agency to oversee the sale of tickets for the play-off final.

When you consider that both of last seasons finalists managed to sell their own tickets (via agencies) without any major problems, you have to wonder what possessed the Conference hierarchy to think that they could do a better job in a shorter space of time? Even if they did want to take over sales themselves, why not just use the same system we used last year?

Instead, they've (unsurprisingly) gone for the cheapest option. Or at least I assume it was cheap, given that the website portal you visit to purchase tickets looks like it was designed in five minutes by a myopic monkey armed with Wordpad and Microsoft Paint.

It seems the shoddiness doesn't end with the aesthetics. Despite the fact you can't chose where you sit, the agency seem to have failed to put groups of people together. According to reports on the CUFC messageboard, people who booked, say, five tickets at the same time have found that three of their party will be sitting in one section, and two in another.

In the immortal words of the dastardly Richard Littlejohn, you really couldn't make it up. There are going to be (at the most) 42,000 fans in a 90,000 capacity stadium this Sunday. That they can't manage to even group people properly beggars belief. What on earth are we paying a booking fee for when nobody is putting any thought into this process?

My tickets aren't here yet, and I wait with baited breath to see whether they will be all together or not. The sad thing is that the vast majority of people coming to Wembley will not be regular attendees at United games. Some will inevitably blame the club if this mess causes them to have a bad experience, meaning we could be losing future supporters through absolutely no fault of our own.

No doubt the Conference will continue to use slogans like "For the love of the game" and "Real football, Real fans", when in reality the lust for money dominates at this level in the same way that it does in the Premier League. They certainly don't put the needs of the "real fans" first. Let's hope we get the right result on Sunday so that we can wave farewell to this poxy league (c) Chris Wilder) for good.

Read more...

Keeping our feet on the ground update

Thursday: CARDEN URGES U'S NOT TO GET CARRIED AWAY: PAUL Carden insists Cambridge United will treat the build-up to the Blue Square Premier play-off final no differently to any other game.

Friday: CUFC LAUNCH PLAY OFF FINAL SHIRT: The Cambridge United players will be wearing a new kit for the Blue Square Premier Play Off final against Torquay United on May 17th. The kit, supplied by Vandanel, will only be worn on this one occasion and supporters have the opportunity to snap up a rare replica before the big day and even have it signed by the players.

I don't blame the club for trying to wring as much money as possible out of the day-trippers who will inevitably crawl back out of the woodwork and dust down their Wembley 2008 flags for next Sunday. Indeed, it's about time we started getting wise to these opportunities.

However, I do object to them chosing such an awful kit, one which looks like it might have been found in the bargain bin at Sportsworld. You would usually expect a Sunday League side to turn out in such an obviously off-the-shelf design, and the last thing we need for the final is a Sunday League-type performance. We've already had one of those last year...

Read more...

Lets get serious baby

How's your Wembley fever? Mine's slow burning at the moment, but I'm sure it'll increase in intensity as the days progress. At least it's better than having swine flu I suppose.

Within the confines of the Abbey Stadium, excitement is apparently not on the agenda. That's because everyone is taking this years final very seriously. Very very seriously in fact.

"There will be no suits, no specially recorded songs or anything like that this year. We'll be wearing the club tracksuit and polo shirt and that's how we want it done," Cardy told the CN, for some reason eschewing the chance to produce a follow-up to that seminal opus We're Going up with Jimmy and Willy. And scousers liking tracksuits eh, who'd have thunk it? Next you'll be telling me they're partial to the odd hub cap.

Meanwhile, chairman George has been sticking his beak in as well: "We haven’t done anything yet, though, and what we don’t want to do is just see it as a day trip to Wembley and for everyone to come back saddened by it.

"My personal thoughts on last year are that we didn’t prepare properly for the game. We got it totally wrong in a lot of areas and the fans were very much let down and I think the board of directors were let down as well by the scenes that went on beforehand," he said.

All jokes aside, these are admirable sentiments, and it's great that the management seem determined not to let the occasion over-ride the importance of the match.

But it's a bit rich of Mr Rolls to stick the boot in on Jimmy for what went on last time. If the managers preparations left a bit to be desired, perhaps his boss should've stepped in and suggested we do things differently. Who was Jimmy's boss at the time? Oh yeah, that would be you George.

Far be it from me to defend JQ, who was never the most likeable of individuals, but I don't remember too many people complaining about his methods at the time, certainly not in public anyway. If you ask me our chairman would be better off concentrating on the business in hand rather than having digs at someone who isn't around to defend himself.

Read more...

U's:3 Chavs:0

DESTINY WILL ALWAYS TAKE OVER.

So proclaimed a banner held aloft by the Stevenage fans during Monday's game, a reference to one of manager Graham Westley's favourite psycho-babble mantras.

Memo to Westley, Dino Maamria, David Bridges, Lee Boylan, and Stevenage generally; Your destiny is to remain in non-league for ever and ever and ever (or at least one more season) you big losers. Mwahahahaha.

Sorry for that little outburst, but having taken a large amount of stick from my Stevenage-supporting colleagues and boss last week, I've been feeling smugger than Bono/Angus Deyton hybrid for the last two days. Part of the smugness stems from the sheer surprise element of our victory. If I'm honest I never expected Stevenage to capitulate in the way they did, and that is great credit to our players, who put in surely their best performance of the season at the time when it was most desperately needed.

Credit also to the Brabinator for his team selection, which was pretty spot on. I would have opted for the pace of Chris Holroyd, but in choosing the power of Rendell and Phillips up front, I think he managed to sufficiently ruffle the Stevenage defence in a way we never did in the first leg.

From the off it was clear the Chavs had reverted to usual Westley type of timewasting and feigning injury as they looked to protect their two goal advantage. United began on the front foot, but wasted a couple of good opportunities to score an early goal, with Pitt and Willmott delivering poor corners that were easily dealt with. Reason also tumbled in the box, but his claims for a penalty were met with a dismissive hand gesture from the referee. Mr Tierney seemed acutely aware that he was on television, with massive sweeping arm movements accompanying his every decision. Perhaps someone should tell him that the best ref's are usually those that you don't notice.

Anyway, Rendell headed into Chris Day's arms from a Pitt cross, but that was about all we had to show for our possession, and the best opportunities fell to the visitors. First a ball over the top from Drury found Morison in the clear, but with the whole goal to aim at Stevenage's leading marksman dragged his shot wide. Then a slalom run from full back Ronnie Henry took him into the box, but he tried to dink a shot over Danny Potter and only succeeded in chipping it into the grateful keepers arms.

0-0 at half time, but as we saw in the first leg a lot can happen in 45 minutes. Again United began positively, and got the slice of luck they needed in the 55th minute. Phillips laid the ball off to Willmott, who cut inside an unleashed what was probably a cross, which deflected off Laird and found the net with Day flat-footed. Robbie's John Cena-style celebration was a bit last season, but who cares, we were back in the tie. 1-0.

United still look susceptible to that most rudimentary of tactics, the big hoof into the box, and Mark Roberts saw a header fly wide of the post after connecting with a Drury free kick. Stevenage were beginning to find more and more space as United pushed on for the crucial second, and it took some determined play from Jai Reason tackling back thwart Morison as he ran in on goal.

But the next goal went the way of the good guys. Reason's free kick into the back post found Hatswell who nodded the ball across the face of goal and found Rendell, who scuffed the ball past Day into the far corner.

At this stage The Chavs looked a spent force, and they passed up two glorious chances to win the match in the dying minutes. First, Gary Mills found space in the area, beat Potter, but saw his cross/shot half cleared by Tonkin. The ball dropped to Morison eight yards from goal, but the usually deadly striker inexplicably miskicked, allowing a combination of Tonker and Hatswell to smuggle it behind for a corner. The flag kick was met by Jon Ashton, who powered a free header from six yards straight at Danny Potter, when directing it anywhere else would surely have resulted in a final, very cruel, twist in the script. The final whistle sounded shortly afterwards, meaning the 22 exhausted players faced another 30 minutes on the pitch.

Scott Laird had obviously decided he couldn't be bothered with all that. Having been booked in normal time for body-checking Willmott, he lunged in at Reason in the first period of extra time was sent off. While Stevenage may have had grounds for complaint about their red card in the first leg, it didn't appear they had much to moan about this time. Westley then inexplicably withdrew Drury, who had been central to most of his teams good work, and replaced him with loanee Junior Mendes.

Despite a few ooh's and ahh's from the crowd, United didn't do much to trouble Day in the first period, but that all changed in the second half, as Stevenage battoned down the hatches and prepared for penalties. Substitute Andy Parkinson's shot was blocked, Rendell headed straight at the keeper, then missed an even better chance when he found space at the far post but headed across the goal and wide.

The tie looked destined to be decided by spot kicks, but United found one last push. The inspirational Carden drove forward, exchanged passes with Reason, and unleashed a low drive from just inside the box. Although Day parried the initial shot, Rendell swooped to gloriously drive the rebound high into the net. 3-2.

Cue much joy, merriment, and hugging of random old Habbin dwellers. The final whistle sounded seconds later, confirming United's place in the Wembley, and prompting a mass pitch invasion as fans rushed to greet their heroes. I don't know whether it was just because the novelty factor had worn off a bit, but I felt like both players and supporters were in slightly more sombre mood this season. It's great to be at Wembley, but nothing has been achieved yet, so lets hope the players can do themselves justice this time around.

Man of the Match: Paul Carden. It was nice that the sponsors gave it to the whole team, as they all played their part, but Carden was almost everywhere cajoling his side to victory.






Non-league losers of the match: The people responsible for that banner saying "Man Utd, Stevenage, Daz and Kev" should take a long hard look at themselves.

Read more...

Chavs:3 U's:1

I may be partly to blame for our demise at Stevenage on Thursday.

Having just seen Darren Murphy get his marching orders on the stroke of half time, I uttered the fateful words; "surely the worst we can do now is lose 1-0".

It was a school boy error on my part, because Cambridge United can always be relied upon to snatch disaster from the jaws of certain triumph. Our lackadaisical second half showing means we now have mountain of Kilimanjaro-esque proportions to climb in the second leg. Anyone got Cheryl Cole's number?

Everything seemed to be going so well too. The Brabinator shocked everyone with his starting line up, and although some of his personnel decisions were a bit dodgy (Crow? Challinor? no Holroyd?), the 5-3-2 formation he opted for worked like a charm for 45 minutes, with Gleeson and Tonker getting forward well to support the midfield, and the back three nullifying Steve Morison and Lee Boylan to the extent that they didn't manage a shot on target in the whole half.

For United Phillips was impressive, barreling about like a bovine in a crockery emporium. He looped a header onto the roof of the net, then blasted a 25-yarder narrowly wide after linking well with Crow. Chance of the half fell to Crowy though, and he really should have found the net when he met Jai Reason's clever cross but headed wide of the far post from close range.

Then came the sending off. To be honest I wasn't really paying attention as the players lined up for a corner, but replays show that Murphy ran across Challinor, who shamefully crumpled under the merest touch of the Stevenage man's shoulder. It wasn't even a foul, so you can understand why our hosts were little miffed to see their midfielder shown a straight red for violent conduct.

So often matches turn on incorrect refereeing decisions, and this was certainly one of those times, although not in the way most people would have expected. Stevenage came out for part two like a team possessed, whereas United looked like a team gripped by malaise. Whether they thought the game was in the bag, or (more likely) they were panicking at the thought that they must take advantage of this golden opportunity, I don't know, but what I do know is that it resulted in the archetypal game of two halves.

The Chavs scored almost immediately. Drury flung a free kick into the back post, where Morison beat Coulson all ends up and nodded the ball across goal for blond bombshell defender Mark Roberts to nod home from a yard out. Calamity. 1-0.

To give United their credit, they responded immediately and in emphatic fashion. From kick off, Reason and Crow worked a nice exchange on the left, with the former chipping a pass into the area where Crow chested it down and Phillips thumped a cracking volley past the unsighted Day from 18 yards. 1-1.

This should have been the cue for United to go on and win the match, and for a few brief moments we did threaten a second goal, with the immaculate Jon Ashton getting the faintest of touches on the ball to take it away from Challinor as the midfielder threatened to pounce on a Gleeson centre. But too often we were giving the ball away far too cheaply, and Stevenage made us pay by scoring a second. It came from a long ball from Drury, hit vaguely in the direction of Morison. Potter started to come, then stopped, meaning he was in no mans land as the Stevenage top scorer easily beat Coulson (again!) and looped a header into the net.

Our leader switched to 4-4-2, introducing Pitt and Willmott, but it had little effect, with neither of our flying wingers delivering any kind of quality into the box. The Pittster could have had a spot kick when he appeared to be shoved over in the box, but by then the ref had long since stopped giving United any decisions, presumably in an attempt to make up for his horrendous decision viz-a-viz the sending off.

Still, at least 2-1 would have been salvageable, but the third Stevenage goal put them very much in the driving seat. Again it was a stupid, stupid, one to concede, especially for a defence which is usually so solid. Day launched the ball long, Drury headed it down and Morison was given all the time and space he needed to slot past Potter. Easy peasy lemon effin squeezy. 3-1.

Ultimately most of the blame for this defeat has to lie with the players. I was a bit mystified and worried by the line up when I first saw it, but having done so well in the first half there was really no excuse for the meek surrender in the second. I usually hate all that cliched bollocks about showing "heart" and "desire", but there's no doubt the Stevenage players were more up for it in the second half than we were, which is a bit worrying at this stage of the season.

What the Brabinator should do for Monday's game I don't really know. The 3-5-2 formation worked well to a point, but is a bit on the defensive side when you need to score twice. On the other hand, Stevenage easily snuffed out our attack when we played 4-4-2 in the regular season game at their place the other week. Let's hope he makes the right decision; another year in non-league could turn me suicidal.

Man of the Match: Lee Phillips - One of the few players to keep going for the full 90, and scored a terrific goal to boot.






Tasty hot snack of the Match: Bacon Roll - Much as I hate to say it, the Stevenage version is much better than it's Cambridge counterpart.

Read more...