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The U’sual Ramblings #29, and still Ben Garner is looking for his first victory as U’s Head Coach. One might argue he really should have had it at Valley Parade on his debut, but two late goals denied him even a point. Ironically, two late goals at Brisbane Road last Saturday earned the U’s the point that at a minimum they deserved, and that really did feel like a victory in that context. Sadly, some of the gloss was taken off of that sensational comeback by moronic chants about the late Justin Edinburgh from a tiny minority of U’s supporters. I’m not sure the club will ever be able to positively identify the culprits and give them the bans they deserve, but when your club hits national headlines for all the wrong reasons, it’s a(nother) black day for Colchester United Football Club.
The world outside U’s World Amongst the myriad of voices speaking out in protest over Suella Braverman’s Illegal Migration Bill (aka ‘Stop the Boats’), the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has voiced its profound concerns. The UNHCR have accused the government of essentially extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the UK, this on the back of Braverman admitting that the bill was “more than 50%” likely to break human rights laws. The bill, which gives the government the right to criminalise, detain and deport asylum seekers, would be a “clear breach of the refugee convention” according to the UNHCR.
Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak is facing strong opposition from within his own party over the bill, though sadly, not necessarily always on human rights grounds. About 60 Conservative MPs actually want the bill made harsher, and are expecting to back an amendment that will block judges from granting injunctions to stop migrants being deported. To be fair, there are also many senior Conservative ministers (allegedly including a former party leader) who are demanding legal safe routes and support for victims of modern slavery before they support the bill. All in all, Sunak and Braverman thankfully face a tough challenge getting the bill passed without serious amendment, with one Tory insider stating “unless the home secretary makes a generous offer at the dispatch box, we won’t consider putting our toys back inside the box”. Sadly, even with amendments the bill will still be one of the most inhumane pieces of modern-day UK legislation. But, it’ll certainly serve its purpose for the government by distracting voters away from very genuine problems in society by pointing and screaming “LOOK! Brown people in boats!”.
Political unrest is not of course restricted to our shores, with French President Emmanuel Macron cancelling at short notice the state visit of Charles III, as his own country is gripped by civil unrest including violent clashes over his plans to try and force through pension reforms. The King is apparently disappointed, as he saw it as an opportunity to try and rebuild post-Brexit relations with our neighbours across the Channel. Yeah, good luck with that Charlie…
In Trump world, the indictment I thought might come last week has yet to arrive, but the net around the former president grows ever tighter by the day. Not surprisingly, all of this is being played out against a background of increasingly shrill and desperate ‘truths’ from Trump on his social media platform. These include “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”, disturbingly resonating with his “Be There. Will be Wild!” and “fight like hell!” messaging ahead of the Jan 6th insurrection. However, protests or not, Trump will be indicted before too long, though sadly his arrest won’t be anything like the excellent photoshopped images that briefly during the week had some convinced they were real.
Top photoshopping there!
In more positive news, Thursday night saw England made a positive start to their Euro 2024 qualification campaign, beating Italy 2-1 in Naples with first half goals from Declan Rice and a penalty from Harry Kane. If the first half was all about the patient passing game espoused by our very own Ben Garner, the second half, which saw Italy pull one back through debutant Mateo Retegui, was very much out of the Wayne Brown playbook. However, a wins a win in a qualification tournament, and in netting his penalty Harry Kane moved ahead of Wayne Rooney as the record England goal scorer with 54 to his name. Some might say it perhaps buries the ghost of his World Cup quarter-final miss against France, but I think there’s a way to go before he does that. Perhaps, though, he can at least continue the attempt tomorrow evening, when England return to Wembley to face Ukraine in their second match of the qualification campaign?
U’s World After Frank and the club agreed to cancel his contract by mutual consent, it was heartening to read that the big fella has already earned himself a new short-term contract, signing up with Torquay United to the end of the season on National League deadline day. Frank will of course be joining former teammate Tom Lapslie down in Devon, and with nine games to go until the end of the season, I sincerely hope it works out for both him and the Gulls as they fight to avoid relegation.
After being called up on international duty for his 50th cap in New Zealand’s friendly against China, Tommy Smith managed 63 minutes before being given a straight red for a professional foul, bringing down Wu Lei when he was through on goal. Still, sometimes players do have to take one for the team, and I suppose it might be of some solace that the All Whites still held on for a 0-0 draw. At 4am tomorrow UK time, the two sides play again in another friendly — though sadly, for you Tommy the international break is over. FIFA guidelines where red cards in friendlies are concerned state if the next match was a genuine competitive match, Tommy Smith would be eligible to play, but not if the next match is another friendly. Sadly, no chance even with that of Tommy being on a plane back to the UK in time to face t’other Whites.
Other than that, not too much else to report on for the U’s this week, other than a handful of defeats for our development teams. Last Saturday our U18 Professional Development League side were battered 5-0 by Posh, followed on Tuesday by the U21s losing 2-1 to Millwall (played at Maldon & Tiptree), and then on Thursday (also at Maldon & Tiptree) the U21s lost 2-1 again, this time against Watford.
As for today in the EFL, the big match to look out for is Rochdale’s trip to Crawley, whilst Hartlepool face last week’s opponents and league leaders Leyton Orient. It goes without saying that I hope our late equaliser from Chilvers has sufficiently incensed the O’s that they take their revenge out on Hartlepool big time. As for Crawley v Rochdale — I guess most would take a draw, with both teams dropping two points. That certainly wouldn’t be a disaster, but for me a Rochdale win would be even better. They’re already doomed, three points won’t change that, but if the U’s can put enough distance between themselves and Creepy ahead of our visit on 18th April to make the outcome less critical, then I’ll be happy. Realistically, back-to-back home wins over Tranmere today and Newport County on April Fool’s Day really ought to see the U’s more or less safe from relegation.
Fingers crossed…
Stat attack I’ve already covered a stat attack on Tranmere Rovers, albeit way back in October 2021 (WSC#09) ahead of our 2-0 defeat at Prenton Park. However, since then we won in March 2022, so that’s at least a positive I guess. Our head to head record is still pretty even at home, but with 11 victories, nine draws and 11 defeats in 31 attempts at Layer Road and latterly the JobServe, it could be argued the pendulum has swung slightly in our favour?
For the benefit of LeadBelly, no harm in sticking up the photo of Tranmere supporters HMHB one more time
As far as the 25th of March is concerned, we have played 19 times over the years on this day. Since Ted Davis’s U’s beat Newport County Reserves 2-1 at Somerton Park way back in 1939, we’ve won 6, drawn 6 and lost 7. It is, however, worth noting that four of those six victories on March 25th have been in the most recent six occasions we’ve played on this day.
Our best March 25th performance on paper will be a rare Kevin Keen victory, beating Doncaster Rovers 4-1 at the JobServe in 2016, though probably a more impressive result in reality will be Parky’s 3-0 victory over Peterborough United at London Road in 2005. Incidentally, both of those were Good Friday games.
On the flipside, Joe Dunne’s U’s were beaten 4-2 by Wolves at Molineux in 2014, with the next worse result being a modest 2-0 defeat under Steve Wignall against Scarborough in 1995. If you want to narrow the search down to just home fixtures on a Saturday that fall on March 25th, then there’s only four matches, of which the U’s have won three, our solitary home defeat being that Scarborough game.
Match of the Day Colchester United v Tranmere Rovers 26th March 2022 Sky Bet Football League 2 (Tier 4) Attendance 2,459
Courtesy of ColuData
Match of the Day for this blog, and it’s a special, going back almost exactly a year to our previous home game against the Super Whites at the JobServe. I wasn’t at this one, so I have reproduced ColuData’s image of the programme cover above. However, thanks to that weekend, like this, being an international fixture weekend, I was able to watch the iFollow match stream. By coincidence, that evening England would beat Switzerland 2-1 at Wembley, also with a Harry Kane penalty.
At the time, Tranmere were very much in the hunt for at least the play-offs in 5th place, level on points with Northampton and Bristol Rovers and only kept out of the automatic promotion places on goal difference by a single goal. The U’s were more concerned with their own fate at the other end of the table. In a position not too dissimilar to today unfortunately, the U’s were in 20th place, 8 points clear of a relegation zone at the time occupied by Oldham and Scunthorpe (the latter already looking doomed).
Hayden Mullins had been relieved of his second spell as the U’s manager in January, so for this game we were in our third spell with Wayne Brown at the helm. He hadn’t been too badly, and although not pulling fully clear of relegation worries, he had at least been keeping the U’s treading water. His U’s lined up that afternoon:
There were two changes from our 1-0 home defeat against Forest Green Rovers the previous Tuesday (our Game for Ukraine game). Tom Eastman was dropped to the bench in favour of Tom Dallison, whilst with Tyreik Wright away with the Republic of Ireland U21s, his place was taken by Luke Hannant.
Despite the chasm between the two sides in terms of league position, the U’s definitely started the brighter of the two sides, and on 14 minutes went agonisingly close to taking the lead. Running onto a deft lob from midfield, Hannant powered into the box and deftly lobbed over the onrushing goalkeeper Joe Murphy, only to see his effort drift agonisingly wide of the far post.
A few minutes later we were denied what looked like a clear penalty from the comfort of my Wiltshire kitchen, as Cameron Coxe drove into the penalty area only to be chopped down by Calum MacDonald. However, with the benefit of laser vision that mere mortals are not equipped with, referee Carl Brook deemed the contact had come millimetres outside the area and only awarded a free-kick — which needless to say we wasted…
Already with the feel like it might turn out to be another one of those days, the U’s ran a bit out of steam, allowing Tranmere to get back into a game that for the first 20 minutes or so they were only spectators. Latching on to a misplaced pass up the Tranmere right, Elliott Nevitt did well to control the long clearance up field and slicing through the backline with ease fired thankfully straight at Shamal George. Sham could only parry the fierce effort, which was then mis-controlled by Dallison, and the U’s were fortunate that there were no Tranmere players within reach to capitalise on Nevitt’s follow-up effort drilled across the face of what would have been an empty net.
A few minutes later, a quickly taken free-kick caught the U’s napping, with Kane Hemmings getting in behind the defence for a one-on-one with Sham. Sham got down well to palm the attempt away to the feet of Dallison, who fortunately in this instance made no mistake with his clearance. By half-time, Tranmere were already showing why they were where they were, and sadly by the end of the half, so were the U’s
Into the second half, and although there was little if any meaningful action in the opening exchanges, within eight minutes of the restart Wayne Brown had decided things needed to change, replacing Akinde with Alan Judge — perhaps banking on a set-piece being our only likely outlet for a goal that afternoon? Chilvers almost broke the deadlock in his inimitable style, breaking into the box past two challenges before seeing his effort deflected wide for a corner.
However, the real hero, and for the third time of asking, was Shamal George, who pulled off a stunning world class fingertip safe to deny what otherwise looked a certain goal from Nevitt. Not long after that, Tranmere centre-back Tom Davies found himself completely unmarked from a lofted deep cross into the box, but fortunately steered his header just wide of the upright, in this instance with Sham helpless to do anything about it.
With 12 minutes to go Eastman got back onto the pitch, replacing his replacement Dallison, but with chances at a premium now, and the clock running down, it was all about whether we could hold onto the point. The last throw of the dice in that regard was Wayne Brown bringing on Junior Tchamadeu for Luke Hannant with a minutes to go.
And then, in the fifth minute of injury time, a miracle happened…
With seconds to go, a thrown-in on the halfway line was booted forward by substitute Tom Eastman. Substitute Alan Judge refused to give up on it and managed somehow to hook what looked to be a certain goal-kick back over his shoulder, and into the path of substitute Junior Tchamadeu. Junior steadied himself, watched the flight carefully, and slammed a perfect side-foot volley over the despairing dive of Murphy and into the back of the net!
The JobServe erupted, my Wiltshire kitchen erupted, I’m sure kitchens and living rooms all over the world erupted, what a sensational way to score your first goal in professional football, snatching all three points at the death.
Colchester United 1 (Junior Tchamadeu 90+5’) Tranmere Rovers 0
Despite Junior’s wondergoal, the Man of the Match award went to Shamal George. The U’s would go on to win four of our last seven matches, lifting us well clear of relegation and into 15th place. The setback was felt keenly by Tranmere, who finished the season poorly (by their standards), two points outside the play-off zone.
At the bottom, Oldham and Scunthorpe could do nothing to avoid their inevitable fate, and were relegated to the National League. It is a sobering thought that today Oldham are limping along in midtable, whilst poor old Scunthorpe are facing the very real prospect of back-to-back relegations down into the National League North.
There’s a highlights reel on YouTube which is worth a watch if you want to remind yourself of Junior’s technical expertise.
There’s also an excellent vlog by vlogger Lauren Baker, who a few weeks ago was named as the U’s Community Champion in December. I’ve started the video just before the goal and celebrations, but it’s worth playing the whole episode.
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