27 May 2005

As I write this, the temperature is reaching 14/5/88 proportions, the cricket season is well and truly under way, and I've realised that I haven't updated for a while. So...

By now you should all know who we're playing next season. Some intriguing ones, not least the trips to Essex. Get your tetanus jabs now. As a lot of the Essex ones are nowhere near the train station, it might be a good idea to start saving up for a new motor, or get used to coach travel. Somehow, I think Maldon Town on a wet Tuesday in November could be a litmus test for our collective commitment.

There are some more local games as well. H&R seems a goodun, though you'll probably need to park a little way out, like Merton Park, to stand a hope of getting a space. Hendon will be a good revenge mission, Slough need a spanking as well. And Fisher as well, though it's a shame they aren't back at Rotherhithe this season. Leyton isn't too bad to get to, or Harrow Boro. And when we go to Redbridge it will be like the old days of going to West Ham, though hopefully without the threat of being sold jellied eels or offensive weapons.

And how could we forget Worthing? Confused? Well, remember Withdean 2000? You know, they were quite a big team in the CCL. Anyway, they were run by a guy called Alan Pook, who if I recall correctly didn't seem to like us too much. In fact, here's a nugget from the W2K report from August 2003 (and it's not in the archive, but that will be rectified when I get round to it) :

Fight night: Towards the end, there was a rather public scuffle involving two of our more pugalistically minded supporters. Some punching and a flooring (with W2K style kicking) but it all passed off peacefully. Rather strangely, one of those breaking up the fight was a Mr T Walgaar. How the mighty have, er, fallen.

Now, my memory is a little bit hazy on this, but I seem to remember Pook - or one of his henchmen - being involved in this above fight. In fact, I remember reading that he indeed started it. Anyway, Pook is now at ..... Worthing. In fact, he's the first team manager. So while seeing Worthing may bring images of tacky seaside resorts and retirement homes to the casual Womble, it's really like an old reunion....

Oh, and Bromley and W&H are with us. Can't have everything I suppose.

Also up are the long awaited pre-season friendlies. Couple of things. Firstly, you may note that Bognor is a rather stupid 12.30pm kickoff. Apparently, it's because they're doublebooked with a wedding or something - non league football, can't beat it - though it puzzles me why they can't do both at the same time. Perhaps we can get Joe Sheerin to conduct the ceremony? He certainly won't be playing...

Looking at the list, apart from possibly Aldershot and Crawley, there aren't many games this time that jump out at you and smack you in the face. While we know that PSFs are really supposed to be about giving the squad a run-out, it would be nice to have at least one game that gets the juices running. Last year we had Brentford away and, if memory serves me right, Watford at KM. This pre-season is quite dull by comparison. I don't expect Chelski or Arse to come down, but I really hope that we tried to get at least a QPR or Palace team down, especially considering the informal links between us and the two sides.

The obligatory Ashford Town (Mx) seems quite a nice Saturday afternoon, certainly for some plane spotting, but the Ks game could cause a little bit of ill feeling. Especially if Ks really haven't paid their rent for this year. The very fact that some people are even talking about boycotting this game should be a sign that a small-but-growing percentage of our fanbase are getting a bit fed up with acting the benevolent landlord.

OK, Ks have been pretty much rogered from behind sans vaseline by Khosla, and it may be too soon to start turning the screw on them, but if nothing has been rectified by this time next season, we should tell them to fuck off. Seriously. Given the choice, I would rather we play somebody like Sutton instead, even if it's because they're a higher level and I do genuinely believe our recent success has come through high class pre-season preparation. It's not AFCW's fault that Ks are fucked, so I don't see why we should be Florence Nightingale with them.

Elsewhere, some players have come in and some have left. You know who they are, but I don't know what they look like half the time so I won't bother expanding :) We have thankfully been spared the Princess Diana-esque blubfest this year, like what we saw over Kevin Cooper's departure*, there is now an acceptance that no player stays forever at AFCW. With regards Bolger, he was one of the now tiny band of players at AFCW who were there in the first season. It's only really Matt E who is likely to be playing regularly for the club now. The CCL seems a lifetime away.

* - incidentally, Mr Cooper was seen at the Horsham v Bromley playoff with none other than the Eames clan. Feel free to spend the summer fleshing out your favourite conspiracy theory. Or was that last season's task?

One final thing, tomorrow is the three year anniversary of THAT decision. I was going to write an article on it like I have done for the last two years, but I won't. Instead, I'll just point you to an irony that came within the last couple of days. It comes from the gob of former BBC MOTD roundup guy and opportunist tosspot FA Executive Director David Davis about Liverpool's CL pariticpation next season. Even if you've read it before, read it again.

"We think there should be a place for Liverpool in next season's Champions League for sporting reasons and for the wider interests of European football."

Somehow, it is impossible to make a further comment...

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4 May 2005

Well, it took 120 minutes and some iffy moments, but once again, we stood tall. We are now Ryman One Champions AND Surrey Senior Cup winners to boot. It may not sound a lot, but consider we've beaten Kingstonian, Sutton United and Crystal Palace to win this tournament, it's not that small an achievement.

I know I've said a lot recently that games seem to sum up our season, but Swans 1 Lead Pellets 2 was in many ways the definitive. Good start, iffy middle, struggled a little bit with fatigue and thinking it could all go pearshaped before finishing the strongest I've seen us for a while. QED.

The game? Well, we went 1-0 up thanks to a wonder strike by Smeltz. The way he got mobbed by almost everyone when he scored shows that perhaps he's settled a bit more now. Certainly hope so, anyway. Then W&H came back, and to be honest I thought they were going to score. That said, they got a penalty - wouldn't say it was dubious, but I'm sure I saw John Fashanu running away from the ground very quickly when they got it. Which they scored. And we snarled.

Second half? Dunno, it seemed to be a bit, well, strange. Certainly can't remember many shots on target, anyway. We seemed to lack that bite that we haven't needed to have all season. Either that or everyone was too busy trying to find out what was going on at Anfield...

When that result came through, and chants of "Bye Bye Chelsea" and "Liverpool" were being sung by some, we seemed to relax a lot more. Seriously. The game went to extra time and things just seemed different. Did DA's ET talk give out the Liverpool score and said "right, you know the result now, start playing"? I think we should be told.

Suddenly, we looked rejuvinated, finding holes in their defence, and RB eventually netted following a little bit of scrambled pinball. At least, that what it appeared like. To say I haven't seen emotion like that all season is an understatement : when you get DN running the entire length of the pitch - no exaggeration - to join in the celebration, you know it means something. Dunno what though, either it's a last victory salute as this team may be broken up for the RP, or the foundations of the new lean, mean, fighting machine they call AFCW.

As the W&H support buggered off - more on them below - and some buggered onto the pitch, they thought it was all over. It was when RB scored, certainly.

So, for the last time this season..

Plus points: Ah, who cares?

Minus points: Ditto.

The referee's a..... : Owing to the libel and slander laws of this country, I will offer no comment.

Them: Ah, W&H fans - couple of boasts beforehand that they'd take 300 and outsing us (and people call us arrogant). Seems like 150 (if that) turned up, the rest stayed at home as they couldn't get tickets for Anfield. Liked to mouth off beforehand about 4-0 and MK - the sign of part-time supporters everywhere - and then bitched about the stewarding when they got intimidated by the size of the crowd. Welcome to AFCW's world, amateurs. Oh, and special mention to the 10 year old who yelled "See you at the station". Obviously wanted an adult to help him back to Woking's mainline.

The team? Quite strong, difficult opponents (some last night reckoned it was one of our hardest games in three years), can't remember the last time an opposition got so many bookings. Lose marks for giving it the big one when they scored - no doubt the hardman act would quickly disappear if somebody threw something on the pitch (players do generally act the untouchable when they're behind a barrier and a few stewards). Still, it appeared that at the end, they didn't quite get the nice reception that NGU got last year..

Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) Getting more for this game than last year's cup final. Even so, considering Woking's ground holds between 6-7k, 3800 looked a little understated. (2) Speaking of which - who's dumb idea was it to have kick-off at 7.30? The fact the game got delayed to 7.45 isn't exactly unexpected. (3) The programme had us playing in blue and red. (4) The amount of flags - looked like a Co Meath contingent in a GAA All-Ireland final.

Rivals watch: Nope, not a Big Tissue special, but who we're (likely) to be playing next season. So here we go - Billericay lost 2-0 to Leyton in the RP playoffs. That's Billericay, full time team losing 2-0 to distinctly amateur Leyton. So with them and the likelyhood of another moneyed team - Fisher - could make life interesting for us next season. Don't be surprised to see us forced to splash the cash. As for who could be going up with us, the playoff final is Horsham v Bromley. Horsham beat Cray 3-1 AET and Bromley beat the Met on pens. A trip down to West Sussex on Saturday does have a degree of temptation..

Anything else? Yeah. So much for the "no pitch invasion" pleas. Bit disappointing, especially as the intention was so that *everyone* could see the trophy presented, but it seemed inevitable. Especially as it apparently wasn't totally spontaneous (IYSWIM). Quite a few singing "Off, off off" in the big stand before the stewards decided to give up and open the gates. Next time we're in such a situation, we'll either need a few more stewards or face alternative arrangements. What was wrong with last year's in-the-stand presentation?

Hello mum: Special mention to the certain AFCW fan who kept checking the Liverpool v Chelski (ha ha) score every two minutes. Not only ramming their mobile bill skywards but also made me for a time forget there was a game going on in front of me...

So, was it worth it? What do you think?

In a nutshell: Mine's another double.

And finally: This site will now obviously be a little bit dormant, though as/when stuff happens, something will appear. It's my aim to do semi-regular updates anyway, so don't remove this site from your bookmarks just yet. Now, why is my webspace provider not answering any of my emails...?