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The U’s return to a Saturday football league match today, after the cancellation of all fixtures last weekend following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. As a result, The U’sual Ramblings #7 returns after a two-week break, which for yours truly was just as well, as a trip to London last Saturday meant I wouldn’t have been able to blog even if there had been a game. On Monday we have a Bank Holiday for the Queen’s funeral, to allow the nation to mourn her passing. For me, it'll be a much more important day, as it’s also the day my beautiful boy becomes a man.
Happy Birthday Alfie!
The world outside U’s World Obviously the news dominating the headlines for the last week and a half or so has been the passing of the Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. Whether you are a monarchist or not, it is very much the end of an era for the British monarchy. My Nan, bless her, was borne in 1898, three years before the end of Queen Victoria’s reign. By the time she’d reached my age, she had lived under six different monarchs, including Elizabeth. For me, and probably most people alive in the UK, the Queen has been the only monarch I’ve known until now — that is truly quite something.
What is equally amazing, however, is the Queue — and yes that does need a capital. One of the most esoteric and uniquely idiosyncratic of British things, its 5-mile length along the Embankment is formed by hundreds of thousands of mourners wishing to pay their respect as the Queen lies in state at the Palace of Westminster. From joining the Queue, it is estimated that most will spend somewhere between 12 and 24 hours queuing, many overnight, before they have barely a minute to pay their respects at the Queen’s coffin. The organisation and order are equally impressive too, no jumping the line like Johnny Foreigner might do, no tantrums, toilets are provided along the route, wristbands issued as if it were Glastonbury, even an online Queue Tracker. Much of the credit for this goes to the chief organiser Prof Keith Still from Burton-on-Trent, who has spent 30+ years studying and teaching crowd science. Some might think this is slightly bonkers, but no one can deny the depth of emotion shown by those who are happy to endure the Queue simply to have the chance to pay their respects.
U’s World There are two midweek results for the U’s to mention, First and foremost we had the 1-1 draw at Walsall on Tuesday night, in a game which got off to a flier with Frank showing both strength and poise to deftly roll a long punt from Beryly ‘don’t call me Bez’ Lubala past the Walsall ‘keeper to roll agonisingly slowly into the net. The rest of the first half sadly didn’t live up to that sensational start, with both sides very ‘keen’ to swiftly close down the opposition attack, in a game that the poor referee Carl Boyeson struggled to keep control of. By half-time, he’d shown five yellow cards, three of them to the U’s, with both Coxe and Eastman in defence skating thin ice for the remainder of the game.
The second half was a more controlled affair, and I for one can’t deny that Walsall’s equaliser was a masterclass in break-away football, coming directly from a U’s corner at the other end. In the end, Walsall weren’t anything special, and whilst the 3pts might have been available, sadly we weren’t really good enough to take them, and a point apiece probably fair.
However, the U21s on Friday night really showed how it should be done, taking the game to neighbours Ipswich at Florence Park, and beating them 2-1. Ipswich took the lead, converting a penalty ten minutes before halftime, with our triallist goalkeeper sent the wrong way. If anything, this rallied the U’s, and for the first 15-20 minutes of the second half attacked the Ipswich defence mercilessly. Eventually the pressure told, and beating the offside trap, Ossama Ashley ran on to confidently and competently slot past the onrushing Ipswich ‘keeper. Five minutes later, the U’s were in front, thanks to the second spot-kick of game, with big John Akinde blasting his shot straight down the middle, the ‘keeper beaten by pure power.
One final thing to note, for those planning to tick off the new Plough Lane with a visit on 1st October (I know I’m certainly planning to), it is being reported there may be more train strikes that day. It is unfortunate, but from my own perspective anyway, I can’t deny that what the rail workers are fighting for isn’t a just cause.
Stat attack So as a mark of respect for the Queen, but equally in celebration of Alfie’s 18th birthday, today’s Stat attack is going to focus on September 19th over the years — a kind of ‘On This Day’ special. The first thing to note, which is actually quite remarkable, is that of 17 matches played on that day over the years, 13 of them have been away from home.
In fact, following our first ever game on September 19th under Ted Fenton in 1946, against Millwall Reserves (the U’s won 3-2), those 13 away games were consecutive. It would take until 2009 under Aidy Boothroyd to finally have another home fixture on September 19th, a 2-0 victory over Hartlepool United at the JobServe. Considering how many times we’ve had to play away on this date, our record is surprisingly good — won eight, drawn three and lost six.
The pick of the bunch was a 4-0 demolition of Torquay United at Plainmoor under Bald Eagle Jim Smith back in 1973. During our first season in the Conference, Ian Atkins’ U’s defeated Boston United 3-1 at York Street in 1990, and there was also the previously mentioned 3-2 victory over Millwall Reserves at Layer Road. Twice we’ve been beaten 4-1 away, at Shrewsbury Town in 1959, and Reading in 1962, both under Benny Fenton.
More recently, the U’s bowed out of the second round of the League Cup in 2000, losing 3-0 at Bramall Lane, in front of a surprisingly poor crowd of just 3,351. The biggest crowd we’ve played in front of, and a game I was at, was 18,773 at St Mary’s watching a spirited 1-1 draw for George Williams’ U’s against Southampton in the Championship, and the lowest that records are available for just 1,620 for that Conference game at Boston.
We may not be playing on the 19th September this year, but let’s hope the football gods smile on the U’s this afternoon, and allow our good fortune associated with that date to continue.
Match of the Day Colchester United v Yeovil Town Saturday 6th May 2017 English Football League Two (Tier 4) Attendance 6,565
For today’s Match of the Day I’ve chosen an Alfie special, one of the few father and son matches I’ve yet to cover over the years I’ve been doing this blog. This one was our end of season finale at the JobServe in 2017, in what was our first season back in the 4th tier. Throughout the season our form had been patchy at best, but with decent runs November through to January, and again since early April, the U’s had done enough to remain in contention for the play-offs on the final day of the season.
However, even if we won, we had to rely on results going our way, with Blackpool filling the last play-off spot at home to already relegated Leyton Orient, and Carlisle in 6th place away at Exeter City in 5th place (both 2pts ahead of the U’s). Both Blackpool and Exeter had significantly better goal differences, and no one realistically expected Blackpool not to defeat Orient, so most hopes were pinned on Exeter defeating Carlisle and the U’s overtaking the Cumbrians as a result.
Me and Alfie drove over for this one, in a match that kicked off at 5.30pm, meeting up with a whole bunch of family for the occasion. The faithful had risen to the occasion too, with over 6,500 at the JobServe for the match, including a decent few hundred from the South West. Pre-match beers (just the one mind) out of the way, we took our seats up the back of a noisy South Stand on an evening of perfect football weather.
For his last game of that season, John McGreal’s U’s lined up:
The big news, and a huge blow for U’s fans, was the announcement that Brennan Dickenson had suffered a cruciate ligament injury during midweek training and was likely to be out for up to nine months. Regardless of whether the U’s got over the line and into the play-offs or not, that was going to be a huge loss for a large part of the following season. Yeovil had struggled for much of the season but went into this game knowing they were already safe from relegation. The Glovers side that day included a start for former U’s Ryan Dickson, and they had U’s to be Omar Sowunmi on the bench.
Perhaps because of the pressure of the occasion, the U’s started somewhat nervously, and it was Yeovil creating the early half-chances, albeit Sam Walker wasn’t really being troubled. The wall did it’s job for an early Yeovil free kick, with Sam comfortably snatching the resultant corner out of the air. Two minutes later, good interplay between Whitefield and Khan for the Glovers saw Khan whip a decent shot just wide of the post.
Just over ten minutes in, and the news started filtering around the ground, Exeter were 1-0 up against Carlisle, just the news we needed. This definitely rallied the support, and no doubt realising good news had come in from elsewhere, the U’s themselves. On 20 minutes, following some patient build-up play, Tom Lapslie flicked a pass through to Drey Wright, but Wright dragged his shot narrowly wide of the post.
Five minutes later, we went even closer. Following a crunching tackle on Fosu (which earned Lawless a yellow card), Brindley’s free-kick was floated in perfectly for Briggs to get on the end of, but his header was straight at goalkeeper Liam Shephard for the easiest of catches — literally anywhere either side of him and it was a nailed-on goal. To make matters worse, we also learned that Carlisle had equalised from the penalty spot at St James’ Park.
Finally though, with under ten minutes of the half remaining, the U’s got their break through. A powerful defence header from Eastman went straight to Chris Porter, who tapped into the path of onrushing Tariqe Fosu, who from all of 25-30 yards out, drilled past the outstretched dive of Shephard and into the far corner of the net. The ground erupted, now we had hold of the three points we needed, just could we catch one of the others ahead of the U’s? Blackpool looked home and dry, going 2-0 against Orient shortly after the U’s goal, so all eyes focused on the Exeter v Carlisle game…and as if on cue, at the stroke of half time Exeter regained their lead in the 1st minute of injury time, and North Essex erupted in celebration.
Into the second half, and the mission was win at all costs, and just keep fingers crossed that Exeter did their job professionally. Surprisingly, given the tension of the occasion, the U’s were in control and playing free-flowing foot ball now. Drey Wright blazed over the bar after being put through be an inch perfect pass from Fosu, and on the hour mark Brindley blasted a 30-yard free kick over the wall and agonisingly just over the bar too. Even better, news arrived that Orient had pulled a goal back at Blackpool — could the doomed O’s pull off a miracle at Bloomfield Road? Unfortunately not it would turn out, with Blackpool restoring their two goal cushion just 15 minutes later.
With less than 15 minutes to go, no sooner had we learned that Carlisle had again equalised at Exeter, and again from the penalty spot, the U’s doubled their lead. A corner floated in by Sean Murray had the Yeovil defence at sixes and sevens, with the corner dropping between two defenders getting in each other’s way. Eastman capitalised, picking the loose ball up and side-footing to Fosu, who made no mistake from ten yards to send the U’s faithful mental. Now, even with Carlisle’s equaliser, the U’s were still making the play-offs, and surely there was now no hope for Yeovil to prevent the victory.
Sadly, our celebrations were cut short almost immediately by the news that Carlisle had taken the lead at Exeter City, at almost exactly the same time as Fosu had bagged his second. The U’s had done all they could, everyone now was focusing on smartphones praying for another Exeter goal. But it never came, and even though we celebrated a fine win at the end of the season, the U’s fell one point and one place short of the play-offs.
Colchester United 2 (Tariqe Fosu 36’, 77’) Yeovil Town 0
This would be Tariqe Fosu’s last appearance and goals for the U’s, with his loan spell from Reading coming to an end. After refusing a new contract with Reading, any hope of the U’s signing him permanently were dashed when League One Charlton picked him up for an undisclosed fee in the summer.
As gut-wrenching as it was to be so close and fall short, unfortunately that is more often than not the outcome when you have to rely on others. To be honest, our promotion ambitions were largely undone by a dreadful spell through September, October and November, with the U’s going ten league games without a win, and only four points to show for it.
Credit to the U’s, to go from there, in the relegation zone, to the very edge of the play-offs was quite some achievement really — but without that terrible run we should really have been looking at automatic promotion at the very least, maybe even as champions. Portsmouth, Plymouth and Doncaster Rovers were promoted, with Blackpool joining them via the play-offs. In the opposite direction, the Bechetti era was brought to an end with the relegation of Leyton Orient, joined by Hartlepool United.
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