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The U’sual Ramblings #21, and I’m back after a break last weekend to fit in a trip to Essex. Not the result I was hoping for, but it was still great to catch up with family and friends. I often reflect that as an exile usually restricted to reachable away games in the general vicinity (and occasionally far from the general vicinity), I often travel more in hope than expectation. On Saturday the expectation let me down, but my faith was restored by a stirring battling 1-1 midweek performance against promotion hopefuls Salford City, including in a five minute spell leading up to Kel’s excellent equaliser, some of the best football I’ve seen the U’s play for many years. More of the same please U’s!
The world outside U’s World American race relations have been under the spotlight yet again, this time with the death of Tyre Nichols. Originally stopped for what has been claimed was reckless driving, two officers immediately went hands on, dragging Mr Nichols from his car whilst he was asking what he had done wrong and trying to force him to the ground using pepper spray and a taser. Escaping from their clutches, Mr Nichols fled on foot towards his mother’s house, but was caught by five more officers barely 80 yards from her doorstep and subjected to a frenzied three minute long beating using fists, feet, batons and more pepper spray.
Then, calm as you like, they dragged his limp body over to a car and just propped him up against it whilst chatting calmly about the incident. It would be more than 20 minutes before Mr Nichols received medical aid, and he died of his injuries in hospital three days later. Having reviewed the bodycam footage, and a static CCTV camera overlooking the scene, Memphis police almost immediately fired the five officers, all of whom were also black, and they have now all been arrested and charged with second-degree murder, kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. The harrowing video footage of the event was also released to the public yesterday evening, which has sparked protests in multiple American cities, and outrage across the world.
Never far from the simmering point, tensions also continue to rise in Israel after a Palestinian gunman on Holocaust Memorial Day killed seven and wounded three Jews at a synagogue, before being shot dead himself by Israeli police. In a separate attack, two more Israelis were wounded by a 13-year old boy, before the boy was in the words of the authorities “neutralised”. Needless to say, the attacks were celebrated by Palestinians on the Gaza Strip and West Bank, and the inevitable backlash from authorities has already seen 42 arrested. With an oddly frank choice of words, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “I call on citizens not to take the law into their own hands, for that we have an army and police”.
In an effort that the family of Ghislaine Maxwell believe will help discredit Virginia Guiffre’s case against the Duke of York, two of Ian Maxwell’s acquaintances posed fully clothed wearing masks of Ms Guiffre and the Duke in a bath that is claimed to be one of the locations at the centre of her alleged rape at the age of 17. Laughingly, although there is nothing funny about the case at all, they have claimed it is definitive proof that the bath was too small for the reported events that occurred. Seriously, have they no imagination at all?
U’s World Yet another very busy week in the transfer market, with the U’s snapping up not one but two more additions to the squad that Matt Bloomfield is building (and Robbie Cowling financing), with one or two familiar faces going in the opposite direction through the revolving door.
First through the doors was experienced striker Tom Hopper from League 1 Lincoln City. Tom’s career started at Leicester as a trainee, and after loan spells at Bury and Scunthorpe, signed for the Iron in 2015. In 2018 he moved to dear friends Southend, from where Lincoln paid hard cash for him in 2020. Not one who you would describe as a prolific goal scorer, but definitely someone you’d call a steady goal scorer, maintaining a pretty decent return of one per four games throughout most of his football career. Like others, the former Lincoln City captain has been given a two and a half year contract. We can’t ignore the elephant in the room, the sex tape that Hopper and teammates James Pearson and Adam Smith made whilst on a Leicester City tour of Thailand back in 2015, which was obtained by the Sunday Mirror. All three gave contrite apologies for making the video and quite rightly had their Leicester City contracts terminated.
A day after Tom Hopper, the U’s signed defender Will Greenidge from West Ham, also on a two and a half year deal. Greenidge prefers right back, but can apparently play anywhere across the back line. He played regularly for the Hammers’ U21 side, and that has included all three of their Pizza Slice goblet matches. On face value you’d think that Will is probably one more for our own U21 squad, but with the news from Tom Dallison on twitter that he hopes he’s going to be back within 12 weeks, I suspect we’ll see Will in the first team sooner rather than later.
That segues nicely into the departures, with the headline news obviously being Tom Eastman’s loan to Harrogate until the end of the season. Heart ruling head, it is obviously sad to see such an excellent servant to the club go out on loan…but, it cannot be denied that’s he’s quite a way down the pecking order even for the bench these days. Tom’s contract is up at the end of this season, so depending how the season pans out, logic would suggest that might be the last we see of Tom in a U’s shirt. I hope you have a tremendously successful time at Harrogate Tom, and if you’re not to return, you at least earn the sort of permanent contract that you richly deserve.
As if moving to Harrogate wasn’t far enough, Ryan Clampin has gone further, with a loan to Scottish Championship side Dundee, and should be in their squad today for their match against Queens Park. Ryan and Tom join a long list of departures this transfer window, including Owens, Lubala, Chesters, Longstaff and Coxe, which no doubt as far as Robbie Cowling is concerned, is helping to balance the books somewhat.
…and finally
Claiming fixture congestion as the reason, Southend United pulled out of their BBC Essex Senior Cup replay at the last minute, giving Braintree Town a bye through to our quarter final game at the Jobserve on February 7th. My conspiracy theory is the ‘weed couldn’t face the prospect of another shellacking at the hands of the Mighty U’s and ran away crying.
Stat attack I’ve already featured a stat attack review of the Monkey Hangers in a previous blog (TUR#06) from earlier this season, when the U’s drew 1-1 back in September, so I won’t be repeating that. Ironically, that previous meeting was just after the summer transfer window had closed, and we were celebrating the late arrival of Beryly Lubala, Kwesi Appiah and Matty Longstaff. That seems a long time ago now, with only Appiah surviving, and him on the treatment table at the moment.
I’ve also previously explored our long history of matches against Hartlepool in their various guises (Hartlepools United, Hartlepool, Hartlepool United) in WSC#37, so I won’t be repeating that either, so what’s left to say?
They’ve had a pretty busy transfer window of their own, resigning Newport County defender and prodigal son Matty Dolan on loan as the first through the door. Not content with one old boy returning, they also then signed former defender Peter Hartley to the end of the season, bringing him back from a spell in Indian football playing for Jamshedpur.
Shortly after, and possibly in a more significant move, they signed full-back Daniel Dodds from Middlesbrough on a permanent contract. Details of the contract have not been released, so it is unknown whether a fee was involved, and it was a similar story when they snapped up Brentford B defender Edon Prutti on another permanent contract.
Earlier this week they made their fifth signing, taking Polish U21 goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk on loan from Leicester City for the remainder of the season. Stolarczyk has had some senior experience at Dunfermline, as well as another loan spell at Fleetwood earlier this season, and is expected to provide competition to incumbent Ben Killip for the matchday jersey. And just yesterday they picked up their sixth addition to the squad, with midfielder Tayt Trusty arriving on loan from Blackpool.
Hartlepool are currently five points below the U’s, and just one place above the relegation zone. With an even 50 against, they have the worst goals conceded record in League 2, and one of the worst throughout the entire Football League, so it probably comes as no surprise that almost all of their additions to the squad are at the back, though losing existing loanee defender Rollin Menayese with an ankle fracture probably didn’t help.
Match of the Day Colchester United v Torquay United 22nd May 1998 Nationwide Football League Division 3 Play-off Final (Tier 4) Attendance 19,486
Match of the Day for this blog, and the random memorabilia match selector has finally managed to pick another of our Wembley appearances, as the U’s faced Torquay United in the Division 3 play-off final. Thanks to a meaningless international friendly for England against torture monkeys Saudi Arabia, our second appearance at Wembley was switched to the Friday evening. Bad enough for the U’s, but probably more so for those travelling up from Devon, and although the attendance was pretty good approaching 20k (with probably 13k supporting the U’s), you can’t help thinking it might have been nearer double that for a Saturday afternoon.
Living in Salisbury at the time, it was a fairly straightforward trip for me on the train, and for this match I was accompanied by my colleague and friend Phil Harding (he of Time Team fame). Back then, our company used a local car hire firm for vehicles based on an industrial estate in town near the station. As was often the case at the end of a week, we had a vehicle that needed to be returned to the car hire depot, so I was more than willing to volunteer, leaving me with the short walk to the station to meet Phil.
Imagine, therefore, my surprise when a car pulled up alongside me on the short walk with what appeared to be a father and son, both wearing U’s shirts and offering me (in my U’s shirt) a lift to Wembley! A pretty surreal moment, given we were in an industrial estate in deepest Wiltshire, but a very generous offer nonetheless. I thanked them and politely explained I was meeting a friend for the train journey, and we parted ways with the customary brotherhood of Colchester United acknowledgement of “Up the U’s!”.
I have previously featured the play-off semi-final 1st leg defeat at Underhill in MOY#17, including Guy Branston’s Sean Devine red card skullduggery, giving the U’s enough of an advantage in the second leg to win 3-1 at Layer Road. There has also been reference (in TUR#14) to the potentially more significant last game of the season at Doncaster, as the U’s confirmed their place in the play-offs and Rovers dropped out of the league, coffin and all.
This was Steve Wignall’s second visit to the Twin Towers with the U’s, after narrowly losing the Auto Windscreens Shield Final to Carlisle on penalties the previous season, and his side lined up that evening:
1….Carl Emberson 2….Joe Dunne 3….Simon Betts 4….Aaron Skelton (13. Karl Duguid 82’) 5….David Greene 6….David Gregory 7….Richard Wilkins 8….Paul Buckle 9….Mark Sale 10..Neil Gregory (12. Tony Lock 70’) 11..Steve Forbes
Although the U’s had finished top of the play-off group, albeit only on goal difference from Torquay United, it was the Gulls who dominated the game from the outset, with diminutive striker Rodney Jack in particular causing no end of problems for the U’s. Annoyingly, former U’s player Paul Gibbs was also having a good game, and we were left somewhat hanging on in the opening stages.
Just before the 20 minute mark it looked like the pressure had finally paid off, when Andy McFarlane hammered home for Torquay, but to huge sighs of relief from the Faithful, the linesman flagged it for offside. Fortunately, that gave the U’s the kick up the backside they needed, and within three minutes we were ahead. Some decent play down the wing saw Steve Forbes loft the ball into the box, where it struck the arm of Jon Gittens. Although we howled for the penalty, I confess it looked a soft decision, but weren’t we delighted when the referee gave it.
Up stepped David Gregory. Greggors was never a natural penalty taker, in the team at the time it was usually down to Skelts or Betts to take spot-kicks. But at some point during the season the decision had been made that David Gregory would take our penalties, something he’d only had to do once previously, and that in the play-off semi-final second leg against Barnet. But he didn’t shirk from the task, and although it wasn’t the cleanest of strikes, his effort just snuck in off the inside of the post with goalkeeper Matt Gregg sent the wrong way, and the Faithful erupted in celebration.
With our tails up, Torquay were in damage limitation mode desperately defending to avoid a second and probably killer goal before half-time. They managed it too, although brother Neil Gregory should have scored after being found unmarked in the Torquay penalty area, but his shot went wide. In fact, Torquay probably had the best chance to score, just before half-time, but bizarrely a shot on goal was inadvertently blocked on our goal line by Gulls player Jamie Robinson, and from three yards out Jon Gittens managed to scoop the rebound up an over the bar — phew!
Into the second half, and early on Simon Betts rasped a decent effort that squirmed under the dive of Matt Gregg but spun wide of the post, followed shortly by Steve Forbes being denied by three Torquay players marking him just as he was about to pull the trigger. But, inexorably, once again it became Torquay dominating proceedings, with Gibbs, Gittens and Jack all going close.
However, the clearest chance of another goal fell to the U’s, with Paul Gibbs clearly bringing down David Gregory in the box. Whether he was balancing up from what he probably knew was a soft decision in the first half, this time referee Mick Fletcher refused the appeals of 13,000 men, women and children of Essex.
With 20 minutes to go, and just after Tony Lock had replaced Neil Gregory, Emberson pulled off a stunning save to push Andy Gurney’s goal bound shot around the post, and with barely ten minutes to go, Mark Sale’s header from a Joe Dunne cross was straight at Gregg. With less than ten minutes to go, Wignall brought on Karl Duguid for Aaron Skelton, and with added bite in the midfield the U’s comfortably saw out the remaining minutes to clinch promotion back to Division 2.
Colchester United 1 (David Gregory 22’p) Torquay United 0
After the disappointment of missing out on promotion the previous season, ironically probably undone by our cup run to the Auto Windscreens Wembley final against Carlisle, it was a just reward for the U’s. Steve Wignall acknowledged that in order to survive in the higher division we’d have to strengthen, but that didn’t really matter for the Faithful, as we celebrated like maniacs into the night.
Up the U’s!
There’s a very grainy YouTube video showing a few of the key moments available:
…or if you have the stamina, you can even watch the entire game here:
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