The U’sual Ramblings #16, and here we are with the last U’s awayday before Christmas. Not just a chance to dig out the Santa hats and tinsel, but with a game at relatively local South Londoners Sutton United promising a decent following. Sadly though, with England playing France in the World Cup quarter-finals at 7pm, and no one appearing to want to move the kick-off to 1pm, it looks like barely a handful will be making the journey to Gander Green Lane. I hope I’m wrong, but as already mentioned, I sadly won’t be one of the travelling few either. Touching briefly on yesterday’s World Cup events, for one beautiful moment it seriously looked like both Brazil and Argentina would be leaving the competition, following a marvellous display of League 2 hoofball from the Dutch, but La Albiceleste squeezed through on penalties.
At least my sweep stake pick Morocco are still in with a shout after eliminating Spain
The world outside U’s World
In the week following my stat attack last weekend focused on the 1984-85 miner’s strike, Communities and Levelling Up secretary Michael Gove has approved a new UK coal mine at Whitehaven, Cumbria. It will mine coking coal for steel production and is virtually the first new UK coal mine since the strike. Supporters of the proposal point out that it will be both cheaper and more environmentally sustainable than importing coking coal from overseas, and with the bonus of making the UK more energy-independent. So the party responsible for systematically dismantling our steel and then coal industries now has to open a new coal mine because we have to import too much coal, to prop up what’s left of our steel industry — just let that sink in…
Personally, whilst local employment in a somewhat deprived area and energy-independence are to be applauded, surely fossil fuels should have been consigned to the slag heap by now. Even with an estimated 85% of the mine’s production going for export, climate campaigners forecast the mine will still add significantly to the UK’s carbon footprint — an estimated 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year according to the Grauniad. Worse still, some commentators point out that not only is the sulphur content too high for UK steel production, the blast furnaces at Tata Steel’s Port Talbot works, the only viable domestic market for the mine’s production, only have a shelf-life of perhaps a decade at best.
The Metropolitan police are in the news for all the wrong reasons again, after they arrested and searched two young black men who ‘bumped fists’ in salute, wrongly believing they were dealing drugs. The brothers Dijon and Liam Joseph sued for false imprisonment, assault (during the arrest) and racial bias, a case the Met originally contested. However, as soon as the evidence in the case began to be heard, lawyers for the Met changed the defence, and they have agreed to pay damages and legal costs to the men and release an agreed statement which states the two men “did nothing wrong to cause the police to stop them”. Of course, this will all be paid out of the taxpayers purse — these incidents won’t stop until either the officers involved, or at the very least, the police pension fund, start having to settle these cases out of their own pockets.
In a contest that I suspect very few people care about, beleaguered rich boy Elon Musk, currently presiding over the implosion of Twitter, is in danger of losing his “World’s Richest Man” top slot. Since taking over Twitter, shares in his company Tesla have tanked, dropping 49% from $340.79 per share to $173.44. Apparently, the CEO of the luxury group LVMH, Bernard Arnault is now hot on his heels, and even briefly moved ahead following share movement midweek. For anyone affected by this issue, I can heartily recommend the wise words of Kevin Bloody Wilson.
U’s World
Not too much really to report on for the U’s over the last week. Obviously we had the disappointment of seeing a well-deserved point snatched away from us in injury time at Field Mill last Saturday. Newby’s free-kick, almost a carbon copy of his one against Doncaster, gave the U’s the lead in the first half, only for Will Swann to level for the Stags before half-time. The second half was nip and tuck, with the U’s playing positive direct football, but were undone by lax defending in the dying seconds to allow Mansfield’s Lucas Akin to snatch all three points. Ironically, Akin had been bought on by Nigel Clough at the start of injury time to replace goal scorer Swann, a move which prompted howls of derision from the Stags supporters. By the way they and their supporters celebrated at the final whistle, you’d think they’d just won the cup — which is a fair measure of how much threat the U’s posed if I’m honest.
Of course, although the U’s are definitely starting to play better under Matt Bloomfield, the harsh reality is if those performances aren’t translated into points, it really means nothing. If there was any good news on Saturday, it was at least that Gillingham and Hartlepool fared even worse, both thumped at home 0-3 and 0-5 respectively. Not that I want to stay in our current perilous position, but whilst we’re only third worse in the league, there’s still hope. However, that hope took a bit of a battering last night, with Hartlepool bouncing back to win 2-0 at Crawley, dropping the U’s back into the relegation places again.
The weather has taken it’s toll on weekend fixtures, with at the time of writing matches at Carlisle, Crewe, Harrogate, Rochdale and Salford postponed, plus Gillingham’s home game against Bradford City tomorrow already postponed as well. I have no idea whether there’s a doubt at present for our game at Gander Green Lane — I did read somewhere later last week that the Sutton staff had the covers out, so fingers crossed it worked and the game is going ahead.
I haven’t yet seen how Samson Tovide’s wonder strike against Doncaster fared in the Colchester United Goal of the Month competition, but it has been nominated for the Sky Bet League Two Goal of the Month competition for November. Voting is now open, and will close at 5pm on Monday 12th December, so if you haven’t done so already, I heartily recommend you get your vote in now.
https://www.efl.com/news/2022/december/november-goal-of-the-month-cast-your-vote
Stat attack
A stat attack concerning Sutton United would be a fairly slim volume at the best of times, given we’ve only played each other seven times, and one of those was in the Bob Lord Trophy (we lost 2-0 at Gander Green Lane in front of 582 foolhardy souls). We did of course face them in our first season in the Conference, with Ian Atkins’ U’s doing the double over them. Since then, however, it’s five straight defeats including that Bob Lord Trophy game, so if we have a bogey side, it looks like Sutton United are starting to build a very strong case.
So, instead, it’s going to be an On This Day special, covering the 10th of December throughout the history of the U’s. First off, there are surprisingly few of them, just 12 matches in all competitions, possibly explained because this time of the year is often reserved for the 2nd Round of the FA Cup — an event we seem to do our level best to avoid.
Incidentally, it’ll probably come as no surprise that our most common day for a football match is Boxing Day, on 63 separate occasions, with New Years Day a distant second on 28 occasions. You’d think the least common day within what would traditionally be considered the core football season (mid-August through to very early May) would be February the 29th. You’d be wrong though, even with just three matches, that’s equalled (bizarrely) by January 6th, but both pipped by one other day of the year, Christmas Eve, with just two matches.
Getting back to 10th December, our record is pretty good, winning six, drawing four and losing just once on this day down through the years. Getting the blemish out of the way first, our only defeat was back in 1966, with Neil Franklin’s U’s going down 3-1 in front of 8,195 at Layer Road to Queens Park Rangers in the old Third Division. In the context of that season, that’s probably not too much to be ashamed of. QPR would eventually run away with the title, winning the league 12 points ahead of second place Middlesbrough, and that was when it was still just two points for a win. Rodney Marsh would score the third for the Hoops and finished top scorer of the division with 30 goals that season.
Our first victory on this day was way back in 1938, when Ted Davis’s U’s got us off to a flyer with a 4-0 Southern League victory over Bath City at Layer Road (attendance not known). Our first league victory on this day would come at Saltergate in 1960, when Benny Fenton’s U’s would squeeze through with a 3-2 nailbiter against the Spireites, and in 1983 Cyril Lea would equal the Bath City result, this time putting Wealdstone out of the 2nd Round of the FA Cup 4-0 at Layer Road. Our most recent win on this day was under John Ward in 2011, when the U’s brushed aside Bury 4-1 at the JobServe.
Oddly, our four draws have been against just two sides. Firstly against Swansea City, 2-2 at Layer Road in 1988 and 1-1 at The Liberty Stadium in 2005 in front of our record attendance on this day of 13,230 (and pretty sure I was one of them too). Interspersed with those were two draws against Mansfield Town, 1-1 at Layer Road in 1994, and our most recent game on this day, 0-0 in 2016 for John McGreal’s U’s at Field Mill.
We can but hope the Gods of the 10th of December continue to smile favourably on us this afternoon, lord knows we need them to.
Match of the Day
Wycombe Wanderers v Colchester United
Saturday 26th April 2003
Nationwide Football League One (Tier 3)
Attendance 6,283
Match of the Day for this blog, and we return to the tried and trusted memorabilia random match selector, which has chosen the U’s trip to auld enemy Wycombe Wanderers at the tail end of the 2003 season. Following an excellent run of form from the beginning of February, with the U’s losing just once in 15 games, albeit the wheels had well and truly come off midweek, getting smashed 5-0 at Layer Road against Luton Town. It is no coincidence that much of that run of form was down to new manager Phil Parkinson, appointed on 25th February after a caretaker spell from his new assistant Geraint Williams.
With the intense rivalry between the two sides still very fresh, 695 of the Faithful made the trip over to Adams Park. As usual, that included a considerable presence of our more vociferous supporters, the ones that are usually seen on days like this. I travelled over on the train, only to encounter a strong police presence strung out across the entrance to Wycombe train station. Not even thinking for a moment they were there for my benefit (I was probably half an hour before the main contingent rolled in to town), I happily walked right past them and off into town to meet my brother-in-law. A mini-pub crawl later, inevitably finishing at the White Horse, we found ourselves up the back of the away end moments before kick-off.
Phil Parkinson’s U’s lined up that afternoon:
31..Richard McKinney
20..Sam Stockley
29..Mike Edwards (24. Pat Baldwin 12’)
5….Scott Fitzgerald
19..Alan White
6….Thomas Pinault
7….Karl Duguid
10..Kem Izzet
11..Dean Morgan
17..Bobby Bowry
9….Scott McGleish
The Chairboys, managed at the time by Lawrie Sanchez, were chock-full of names we’d grown to hate — including the likes of Danny Senda, Chris Vinnicombe, Darren Currie, Keith Ryan and Dannie Bulman (yes, the same Dannie Bulman who would slam home Crawley’s goal in our Carabao Cup game over 17 years later). They’d had a much worse season than the U’s to be fair, but back to back draws against Cheltenham and Port Vale leading up to this game meant they were just about mathematically safe.
Considering our pre-match itinerary, I’m doing well to remember much of detail from the game, but what I do remember was the U’s came out of the blocks like a train (if that’s not mixing too many metaphors). Within a minute Dean Morgan had torn down the wing, only to be fouled out of sheer desperation from Wycombe. Wave of wave of U’s attacks, roared on by our support, crashed against the beleaguered Wycombe defence in the first ten minutes.
But the defence held on, mostly through last ditch tackles/ fouls to deny the U’s. On 11 minutes Danny Senda reminded us just why we hated him, drilling in an opportunistic shot on goal from a tight angle which still had Richard McKinney at full stretch to keep it out. I wouldn’t say it was a turning point, but one of those equally desperate tackles from Wycombe injured newby central defender Mike Edwards on 12 minutes, forcing Parky into an early change to replace him with Pat Baldwin. One of Parky’s first signings, Edwards had only joined the U’s in March after being released by Hull City, and this would prove to be his last appearance for the U’s as well.
With the score still 0-0 at the interval, it was time to join the interminably long queue for the facilities. One bright spark, realising there was no one queuing for the single female cubicle, decided to use his initiative, if not his common sense. The absolutely devastating tongue-basing and berating he took from one of our better known and more vociferous female supporters when he emerged was a joy for all to behold.
Into the second half, and the U’s continued to lay siege to the Wycombe goal, showing far more intent than our opponents to get something from the game. As the half wore on, Sanchez had to try something to give his team some sort of foothold in the game, bringing on Stuart Roberts and Lewis Cook in rapid succession for the struggling Darren Currie and Keith Ryan.
To little or no avail though, and on 72 minutes a Doogie corner floated into the box reached the most unlikely of destinations, the head of Kemi Izzet. Kemi crashed his header against the bar, and Alan White drilled the rebound back to goal, only for a defender to block the effort on the goal line. We weren’t done yet though. The block ended up back out with Doogie on the wing, and in an almost déjà vu moment he again found the head of Kemi Izzet, only this time his glancing header ended up safely in the arms of goalkeeper Frank Talia.
Quite how we hadn’t scored to this day I still don’t know. But we didn’t, and although we continued to press and harry to the bitter end, Wycombe clung onto the point they were probably hoping for from the outset.
Wycombe Wanderers 0 Colchester United 0
Post-match Parky commented “they have absolutely given everything. I like the set of lads here. There is a good spirit and hopefully we can improve on things in the summer”. We would finish the season on 58 points in mid-table
The journey home was eventful to say the least. The police, anticipating the mood amongst the U’s support was not exactly empathetic, decided to hold us at the ground for as long as possible, and then frog march the core of the more vociferous support onto a double decker for transport direct to the station and out of Dodge — myself included.
However, what they hadn’t banked on was the U’s supporters refusing to leave the bus when it got to the station, and there the police had a stand-off entirely of their own making. A bus full of antsy supporters, and no real way of doing anything with them. It was actually quite amusing, there was nothing really to be gained by staying on the bus but doing so just to really pee off the police was inspired.
Eventually, a few tired of the game, and as I had connections to make to get home at a half sensible time, I left to get my train. As it pulled out of High Wycombe station, it was hilarious to see a largely full bus of U’s supporters still stood in the car park, with a bunch of police milling around scratching their heads in confusion.
Up the U’s!
Blog credits:
https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/958840/ten-things-you-need-to-know-today-10-decem
https://www.cu-fc.com/news/2022/december/mansfield-report/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002%E2%80%9303_Colchester_United_F.C._season
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002%E2%80%9303_Football_League
https://www.coludata.co.uk/match/1022/3107?sort=sdate&order=asc&fsea=all
https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/5454606.soccer-wycombe-wanderers-0-0-colches
https://www.11v11.com/teams/wycombe-wanderers/tab/matches/season/2003/
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