After a week or so of press speculation, bookmakers swinging every which way in the wind, and countless ITK rumours circulating, The U’sual Ramblings #9 comes on the day the identity of our new manager was finally revealed. Take a bow Matt Bloomfield, welcome to Colchester United, and I hope this proves to be a very successful step in a long and distinguished managerial career. As I write this blog early, tomorrow Alfie and I will be on the road to Plough Lane to cheer on Matt Bloomfield’s Blue ‘n’ White Army, the U’s have yet to release the news, so I am relying on the official press release from Wycombe Wanderers as my source — I can’t imagine it’s just an elaborate hoax by the Chairboys?
https://www.wwfc.com/news/2022/september/30/matt-bloomfield-leaves-to-take-up-he
Get your hair cut son!
The world outside U’s World
Hot on the heels of chancellor Kwesi Kwarteng’s contentious ‘trickle down’ mini-budget, which gave significant tax relief to the most affluent, causing mayhem in the markets in the process, Truss and Kwarteng are to meet the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. The meeting is to reassure the OBR that their economic plans have merit, a government insider likening the meeting to “trying to read the manual after you’ve broken the thing”. On the back of the mini-budget, Labour have surged to a 33-point lead over the Tories in a YouGov opinion poll, their largest lead since the Tony Blair years, which I guess if nothing else rules out a snap election for now.
As if plunging us into recession wasn’t enough, Kwasi Kwarteng is also in the spotlight amidst collusion allegations. Following a lunch with his former hedge fund boss Crispin Odey in July (during the Tory leadership campaign), Odey invested significantly on the possibility of the pound falling. This gamble has now returned a significant profit to Mr Odey, who naturally denies any wrongdoing, nor even that he might have a trading advantage because Kwarteng used to work for him.
In what are almost universally believed to be sham elections, the Russian occupied regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in Ukraine have all voted in referenda to join the Russian Federation. Who’d have thought eh! Putin is expected to sign into law the annexations imminently. US president Joe Biden has vowed “the United States, I want to be very clear about this, will never, never, never recognise Russia’s claims on Ukraine sovereign territory”.
U’s World
Given our (ahem) ‘special relationship’ with Wycombe Wanderers, I expect most of the U’s faithful will know his name, given he was a stalwart at the heart of their midfield for nearly 20 years, during which time he’s played in Leagues Two, One and the Championship, and a League Cup semi-final appearance to boot. A local lad from Felixstowe, Matt started his football career with Ipswich Town Youth, so we’ll try not to hold that against him as well 😊. Prior to joining the U’s Matt had retired from professional football following a serious concussion injury and had been coaching the Wycombe Wanderers first team alongside manager Gareth Ainsworth. In October 2011, Matt was the first professional footballer to sign the “Football vs Homophobia charter for action”.
Whether out of blind optimism, or simply pure hope, one can’t help but make a direct comparison to the signing of our relatively young and inexperienced manager Phil Parkinson in 2003. Both combative gnarly midfielders, established legends at their parent clubs, seemingly cast from the same mould, and both with energy, hunger and ambition driving them forward. There will no doubt be many who are disappointed we haven’t signed someone with significant managerial experience, but if there were decent candidates that matched that criteria out there, one has to ask why aren’t they already employed?
I don’t know if Matt will take charge of the squad for tomorrow’s game, given there’s precious little he can do now to directly influence the match — but one would hope just being in the stand watching on will be enough of an influence over the underperforming U’s. The last time I checked, the U’s had virtually sold out three of the five blocks that make up the away end of the ground (probably no more than 20-30 tickets left). With tickets also available on the day, I expect there to be a decent 7-800 turnout for what will be a first visit for most to the new Plough Lane.
Stat attack
Technically, as a ‘new’ club, this will be the U’s first competitive fixture against AFC Wimbledon. Proper football fans know however why that is the case, and given AFC Wimbledon were resurrected from the remains of the original Wimbledon Football Club, once Pete Winkleman had purchased their league place and created MK Dons in Milton Keynes, I’m happy to see this as a continuation of the same football club.
That being said, our paths haven’t actually crossed that much over the years, given they only achieved league status in the 1977/78 season, replacing Workington in the process. The U’s first played Wimbledon in 1962, when they were still non-league, with Benny Fenton’s U’s losing an FA Cup 1st Round tie 2-1 at Plough Lane (see, cup defeats against non-league opponents are nothing new for us). Since then, we’ve only been in the same division as Wimbledon twice, in 1979/80 and 1982/83.
In 79/80 Bobby Roberts’ U’s got our league record against the Dons off to a flyer, with a 4-0 at Layer Road. Later the same season the U’s played out a more nail-biting 3-3 at Plough Lane. In 1982, Allan Hunter’s U’s had a similarly positive experience at Layer Road, winning 3-0, but by February of the following year Cyril Lea was in charge, and the U’s lost 2-1 at Layer Road.
Leaving aside a 1984 dreary 2-1 victory at Layer Road in the Associate Members Cup, our final run-out against the Dons was in 1995 at Selhurst Park in the FA Cup 3rd round. I’ve already featured this match in a previous blog (Letters from Wiltshire #37), so I won’t dwell on it here. Suffice to say traitor George Burley had walked out on the U’s on Xmas Eve for Ipshit, and Dale Roberts was placed in temporary charge whilst chairman Gordon Parker looked for a permanent replacement.
Although a top-flight side at the time, Wimbledon had been struggling to keep attendances up during their period in exile at Selhurst Park, and it was a cracking day out for the 1,000+ supporters who made the journey, amongst an attendance of less than 7k. The U’s eventually lost 1-0, but there was no disgrace in that, and plenty to be proud of.
However, the bottom line is that the U’s have never won away against Wimbledon to date — time to put that right I reckon.
Match of the Day
Colchester United v Wycombe Wanderers
Tuesday 18th January 2000
Nationwide Football League One (Tier 3)
Attendance 4,075
For today’s Match of the Day we continue with the memorabilia random match generator, which remarkably has selected a game against none other than our dear friends Wycombe Wanderers. In what the programme front cover billed as “the final Nationwide League game of the Century”, this match should have been played on Wednesday 29th December 1999. However, the weather had other plans, and at very short notice, and with the pitch already starting to refreeze, referee Keith Hill had no choice but to postpone the game.
I can’t for the life of me remember why or how I managed to find myself over in Colchester for an evening home game. Okay, it was Wycombe, and most U’s fans will usually make an extra effort to be there for that most strange of football rivalries, but still. I strongly suspect, as we were working on some of the HS1 sites in Kent and East London at the time, that I pulled my usual trick of managing to arrange my work diary to ensure I was out that way for the match.
At the time the U’s, managed by Steve Whitton after taking over from Mick “Bigger b’stard than Mick Wadsworth” Wadsworth, had been struggling through most of the first half of the season. We had finally pulled clear of the relegation zone in early December, and after a half-decent run (including the epic 5-4 victory over Bristol Rovers in our previous home fixture), were just about starting to pull away from the relegation zone. Wycombe were having sightly better of it, and bar a catastrophic collapse in form, were probably going to avoid slipping into a relegation dog-fight — albeit challenging the play-offs was equally unlikely.
Steve Whitton’s U’s lined up that chilly January evening:
1….Simon Brown
6….Joe Dunne
3….Joe Keith
5….David Greene
4….Gavin Johnson
24..Ross Johnson
8….David Gregory (15. Lomana Tresor LuaLua 45’)
30..Steve McGavin
11..Jason Dozzell
7….Karl Duguid
9….Jamie Moralee
This was before Matt Bloomfield’s time at Adams Park, it was before he’d even signed a professional contract for Ipswich and was still part of their Youth set-up. You never know, with nothing much else to do, and nowt on the tele, he might have even been at Layer Road that night to watch a game of football? If he did, he was in for a treat in more ways than one.
Referee Keith Hill is a big name now, but back then he was very much an unknown, just starting his professional career as a referee. However, that evening he really was going to make sure the match was all about him. In an otherwise rather bland affair for such a tense rivalry, he brandished his first yellow of the evening to U’s skipper David Gregory in the 19th minute, and by half-time had brandished another three (Simpson 26’; Dozzell 37’; Duguid 44’) and a second yellow followed by red to Wycombe midfielder Michael Simpson for a clip of McGavin’s heel with just 31 minutes on the clock — and it wasn’t as if it was a particularly dirty game! To make matters worse, Steve Brown also talked himself into the book as a result of the red card.
When the U’s and Wycombe could manage a few minutes of actual football before Hill’s whistle again pierced the night sky, there was very little to talk about in the first half. Early on, there was a decent cross from Doogie that McGavin should have done better with from five yards out. Unfortunately, Wycombe goalkeeper Martin Taylor was up to the task, and tipped his header around the post. Midway through the first half, a long-range effort from Jamie Bates nearly caught out Simon Brown, but otherwise not much else, and so half-time arrived at 0-0, or 11-10 depending on your perspective.
Everyone — look at me!
In a bid to inject some energy into the game, Whitts brought on LuaLua for the second half, which at least saved David Gregory from the likelihood of a second yellow, as Keith Hill was clearly enjoying himself and on a roll. As he’d done against Bristol Rovers, LuaLua was turning Wycombe inside out with his trickery, so when he skinned Steve Brown for pace, we all expected a free-kick in a dangerous position from the resultant foul. Steve Brown paid the price for his needless first half yellow card, as a gleeful Keith Hill reached for another yellow, followed by the red, leaving manager Lawrie Sanchez absolutely incandescent on the touchline.
Down to nine men, Wycombe resorted to some creative time-wasting to try and run down the clock, but, you guessed it, Hill still hadn’t had his fill — and up flashed another yellow for Martin Taylor for time-wasting. Remarkably, just five minutes later the nine men of Wycombe took the lead, or so we feared, but in scoring Devine had strayed miles offside. Even he didn’t object that much to the flag going up — either that, or he didn’t want to pick up a booking like everyone else?
That scare finally woke the U’s from their slumber, although the resolute defensive core of McCarthy and Cousins were digging deep to try and keep out the U’s, now utterly dominant in midfield. However, and with less than ten minutes to go, LuaLua finally worked himself into a shooting position, and from all of 25 yards blasted home an absolute rocket that virtually took the Layer Road net off, and the roof off an erupting Barside in the process. And that was that, without any control in midfield, there was no way back for Wycombe — the U’s could have even scored a second, but an inch perfect pass from LuaLua was fired wide of a gaping goal by Doogie.
To ensure, however, that the real star of the show wasn’t forgotten at a celebrating Layer Road, Keith Hill added Dannie Bulman to his collection of names late on.
Colchester United 1 (Lomana Tresor LuaLua 81’) Wycombe Wanderers 0
Our good form would continue the following Saturday, with a thumping 3-1 victory at home to Bournemouth, very much laying the foundations for our eventual survival, finishing the season reasonably clear of relegation in 18th place, and eight points above the relegation zone. As expected, Wycombe maintained their midtable safety zone position, finishing 12th.
No doubt tipped off by Wadsworth, Bobby Robson signed LuaLua to Newcastle United on a five-year contract at the start of the following season for a whopping £2.25 million.
Up the U’s!
Blog credits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999%E2%80%932000_Colchester_United_F.C._season
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999%E2%80%932000_Football_League
https://www.coludata.co.uk/match/1022/2934?sort=sdate&order=asc&fsea=all
https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/5518006.soccer-colchester-win-but-ref-grabs-
http://www.chairboys.co.uk/onthenet/reports9900/colchester_a_180100.htm
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