Ah, that's a bit better. Shame that Lea and Perrins 1 Lidl Own Brand 3 wasn't a league game, as right now we'll be talking about when, not if, we go top again, how they might as well give us the title now, and how the last few weeks have been all but a temporary blip on our path towards inevitable greatness.

Probably.

Actually, all sneering aside, this was worth the 3 hour journey, 2c temperature, overpriced service stations and suffering BBC WM. At least it didn't snow. It was certainly nice to go to this venue again (probably for the last ever time) and get that horrible league game out of our system.

I don't know why, but we looked a lot more relaxed yesterday. Last week at Welling we were apparently feeling sorry for ourselves. Here, we weren't. And boy, it showed. I honestly can't remember the last time our defence - our defence - looking as solid as it did. OK, we let in a stupid goal, but it is illegal for us to ever keep a clean sheet. There was precious little fannying about when it wasn't needed, a determination to actually get the ball away instead of letting it reside in our area. When we opened the scoring, I just didn't think we'd lose after that. Seriously.

And here's my dilemma this morning. I want to bask in the glow of this performance, yet it's tempered by it "only" being the FA Trophy. Yeah, I know I said "only" in quotation marks, and if we got offered at least the semi final in it this season we'd take it with as many gripping limbs as possible. But if I'm being honest, inbetween thoughts of Finn's intelligent play, Belal's firepower, the way that Inns, JG and Judge seemed to work together, and even some pretty decent enough passing, every so often a little dissenting spark in my cognitive regions kept popping up like a party-pooping squeak - "three points"......

The problem for us this season is that our aims have changed PDQ. In the beginning we were happy to consolidate this season, maybe outside the playoff positions. Since our start, we now find ourselves in fifth place and we'd consider it a failure if we finished that low. The Wycombe game was great for the club, but I can't help thinking TB especially would have preferred it not to have buggered up the Chelmsford and Welling games. And now, we have another weekend without a league game.

In other words, our aim this season is promotion - and not through the bloody playoffs this time.

Now, I'm greedy enough to want both a decent FAT run and promotion. How fucking kewl would it be if one week we secured promotion at KM in the playoff final (Chelmsford will win the title this season, you watch) and then the next week go to Wembley and cause a shock by not conceding a stupid goal? Realistically though, going up this season is our main aim. Go in the Conf, and FAT/FAC runs really will be what they were intended for. Yet it's a sad state of modern football that we get to play Conf sides in the next round and all I'm thinking about is how it will affect our league campaign.

I suppose really our ideal draw on Monday will be Crawley. It'll be a decent turnout, especially away, it'll keep the AFCW beancounters happy, and in all likelyhood we'll get stuffed. Leaving us with a taste of Conf level and a renewed determination to get up there. Without looking at the results from yesterday, what's the betting we get a Ryman side at KM with 1300 people bothering to watch us labour to a 2-1 victory?

Enough cynicism. This was a good performance, certainly the best I've seen for a good few weeks. If the FAT this season brings us one good non-monetary side effect, it'll be the likes of Belal stepping up to the plate. He's a player who won't ever dislodge DK or JM, but as last year proved we certainly need somebody who is prepared to sit on the bench just in case. In a way, we did ourselves a major dis-service going out of the Setanta Shield and the LSC (we can't count the FAC), because the likes of Belal won't get many more opportunities to start. He's given TB a headache now, but as they say in clicheland it's a good headache to have.

Actually, going against everything I've said above, we probably needed this game without the additional pressure of nabbing three points. If we can overcome the curse of the Beavers next week thanks to the renewed confidence I saw yesterday, then it'll certainly be worth it. Christ, we even managed to win in the jinxed yellow kit.............

 

Plus points: A win. Good solid performace. Defence playing well. Belal. Finn. Godfrey. Going for the third goal at 2-1 up. Renewed seriousness. Never really looking likely to lose it.

Minus points: Another shit goal conceded. Not being a league game.

The referee's a....: He was all right as it goes. Interesting to note that he was from Staffordshire, and his linos were from Castle Bromwich and somewhere else up that region, which would have written this particular section by itself had we lost....

Them: Did this lot really put three past us in 20 minutes last time here? We really must have been shit that day. And their goal yesterday was only because we went to sleep yet again. Still amazes me why they put them in the BSS, because it's a sod of a way to go - you know you're too far north when you see signs for Wolverhampton and think it's only down the road. A classic ground (ie old). Good to see their hardcore army snuggle up near us in the second half, do the usual crappy chants and slink off remarkably quickly a good few minutes before the end. Funny that.

Point to ponder: Was it me or did we just look fresher without DK and JM? No, I'm not advocating dumping both of them, and they're far and away the best two strikers at the club, but it won't hurt either us or themselves if Belal and Godfrey are hanging around like a fart in an airing cupboard. At times, I think we've put waaaay too much expectation on our first choice strike duo, and it just doesn't happen every week. Imagine if we were forced into playing them again yesterday.....

Three's a crowd: 895. Or was it 855? Couldn't make out their PA, and I was sitting about 10 yards away from him. Considering nobody was going to trudge up to this one we still put in a respectable enough 350 (at most) ourselves. What it does show is that our more-or-less-guaranteed-to-travel-wherever support is better than a fair few league sides that I've seen (hello Bury and Macclesfield). If we go up and we get Barrow in the evening in December, it does suggest that enough people will make the journey. Though knowing our perverse nature, such a fixture will be one of our best turnouts of the season.

Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) WDON technical problems aside, I can't remember a day recently that was so hassle-free. Even the drive from and to SW19 Towers (M40, M42, M5 etc) was hassle free. Enjoy these small victories, you'll end up in a huge traffic jam one day. (2) Speaking of WDON, it really did feel like a 1970s/80s European game from East Europe, right down to sharing a phone for commentary and the rusting factory behind one of the terraces. No gangs of leather-jacketed skinheads outside though, although that could just be the sort of games I go to. (3) The PA bloke putting an announcement up for a lost hot water bottle. Non league, eh? (4) Why is the local "big" team Birmingham City? Admittedly, my geography of the West Midlands isn't the greatest, but it really is the dominant pro club in Worcester if the shirts are anything to go by. Not Wolves, not the Baggies, and no Villa to be seen anywhere. Perhaps they once chased some away fans from New Street a little bit too far...

Anything else? I do enjoy going to Worcester, and I've worked out why. It's the nearest we've got to WFC-style away trips since 2002. Maybe it's because the area around their ground reminds me a bit of Highfield Road, or maybe having to leave home before 10.30am to stand a chance of getting there before 3pm? Either way, yesterday reminded me of trips to Coventry (especially), to Villa, even to that game against Walsall in that season. Especially the ones where we win. Yeah, I know I said "only" the FAT, but yesterday just reconfirmed the difference between ourselves and the bulk of non-league culture. We know the glow you get from a long journey where you've won, because we've done it so many times as a fanbase. Trips to Ramsgutter never quite had that same feel, did it?

So, was it worth it? Guess so.

In a nutshell: Now, let's do this in the league...

---

17 November 2008

By the sounds of it, there wasn't too much to get excited by the Welling game (Greg V's report is below). Being ahead twice then, er, not being does suck the big one, but I suppose we didn't lose away for once.

One thought that has occured to me. It does seem that with all the cups we're in, our league campaign is more stop-start than an Austin Ambassador. This Saturday, we're at Worcester in the FAT, and if we win that it'll be yet more Saturdays without a league game at KM. By the time we face the Beavers at the end of this month, it will only have been our third Saturday league game at KM in something like eight weeks. And we only had one more league game full stop in that period.

OK, you shouldn't complain really, it's not like the league will tell us that we will have to forfeit them for having too many cup runs. And in many ways, cup runs may be our best hope this season. As Wycombe showed, they're tense affairs but they're also fun. For about the last six years we've been so focused and so intense that we're due a season where the league doesn't matter quite so much and our highlights will be a good couple of games against league and Conf outfits.

After the game, I noted some seriously minded discussions that it would be better if we didn't go up this season, because of the increased travelling costs, likelyhood of a major overhaul of our financing and our defence being wank. There's arguments for and against that, if truth be told. I don't think TB or the AFCW top brass will want to be in this division if we can help it, yet my source at Welling on Saturday suggested that we might need a season-long breather, if that makes sense.

Me? Unlike Turdeyland I wouldn't be upset if we were in the CS again next season. Though if we go out on Saturday...

 

Turning on the car radio as I set of for Park View Road on Saturday, I was treated to The Doors singing ‘Strange Days’ and as it turned out, it probably summed up Wings 2 Rubettes 2.

The beginning of the week started with our first ever televised match in front of the ‘Santana’ cameras and although it was universally agreed that off the pitch the experience was a great success for the club, the performance by the team on the pitch was, as my old form tutor would have summed up, “Showed great potential but was let down through a basic lack of concentration”. And so it was back to the league and the two questions on everyone’s lips was how would we perform after our cup exit and could we improve on our faltering away performances?        

TB quoted on the OS this week that he, SC and SB got the players together not only to review their achievements so far this year; the play off final win, the excellent start to this years campaign and the cup run to our first ever appearance in the 1^st round proper but also to set out a target for the next 6 weeks. It is likely that he would have been looking to gain 9 or 10 points from the next 4 games to stay in contention with our main rivals. Following this performance, I’m not sure whether he will look at it as 2 points dropped or 1 point gained.       

Three changes at the back from Monday’s line up saw the inconsistent Leberl dropped for Judge, Inns made way for Goodliffe and Hussey rightly regained his left back position from Haswell. Despite leading twice from a well taken volley by Main and an OG following a Hussey free kick, we were once again undone by poor defending from set pieces and two poached goals from Teddy Charlie Sherringham.       

The first half saw us run the show, score 2 and create enough chances to go in 3 ahead. I’m sure most of us thought that we would come out in the 2^nd half, contain them comfortably and score a couple more for good measure. We didn’t. They scored, and at the final whistle we were fortunate to leave with a point, such was Wellings 2^nd half domination.       

 It left me wondering how the hell the same squad of players can play some fantastic free flowing football at home but away, turn out the most mediocre football since the DA era? It’s clear that there aren’t many teams to fear in the BSS but at the moment we definitely seem to be suffering from travel sickness and I’m not sure what the fuck is going to turn it around?        

Stats show that in 4 of the last 5 away games, we’ve conceded 2 or more goals and TB needs to seriously rethink how he’s going to set the team up away from home. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want us to go backwards by playing ugly football in order to achieve results but at times yesterday you could almost sense that there was no belief. Even going 1-0 and then 2-1 up, the body language of some players was evident. Sam Hatton once again flattered to deceive spending much of the afternoon wandering around in the middle of the park making little effort. Kennedy, so effective earlier in the season seemed out of sorts and Goodliffe seriously off the pace.  

In the managers programme notes there were two interesting comments made which struck a cord. “Playing as a team is going to win championships or get us in the play-offs which is where we want to be. People are saying that AFC Wimbledon are the benchmark for the league so we’ll put ourselves up against it and see what we can do.”      
Might be worth TB writing that up on his tactic board before every game as a reminder about what it’s going to take to make it into the Conference next year. 

Plus points: another Garrard MOM performance, Keds working his bollocks off as usual, Mains volley and not conceding a 3^rd goal 

Minus points: Looking shaky at the back, defending set pieces and not scoring a 3^rd goal
 
The referees a…: Well actually one of the better men in black we’ve seen this season. Mr Lee Venamore (of Maidstone) was very inconspicuous in the first half and made a point of talking to players with a calming influence instead of flashing cards as seems to be the fashion with other BSS refs. In fact the bookings he did make were all warranted. In particular, Davis’ s deliberate handball which led to Wellings second equalizer followed at least one talking to. TB had no choice but to preserve our 11 men status by replacing him shortly after his handball offence. He did seem to get more picky in the 2^nd half but to be fair we did ourselves no favour with some of the clumsy challenges we made. 

Them: I’d often driven past Wellings Ground when I worked in Eltham 3 years ago and wondered how long it would be before we played them in the league so I was kind of looking forward to my visit to DA16. The ground was originally home to Bexley United and apparently, when Bexley folded, the ground remained empty for a season while the local council offered any local team wishing to play there to put their name forward. Four teams did and it was Welling Utd who was successful.        

Three sides of the ground are original with the quirky dugouts set into the small main stand. Land on the other side was sold to develop an all weather hockey/5-a-side pitches and the development included the erection of a small modern stand which is in keeping with the rest of the ground.       

 I spoke to a couple of 16yr old fans before the game (both of whom admitted to being first and foremost Charlton fans but alternating their Saturdays to support Welling). What impressed me most was their understanding of football franchising and our reasons for opposing the move to MK. “You’re all the real Wimbledon fans aren’t you” said one. Nuff said. A real friendly bunch on the whole with a real sense of humour.

Point to ponder: Walking away from the game feeling like shit only to get home and see the other results. Got me thinking, this league is there for the taking. It needs someone to take it by the scruff of the neck and stamp its authority, so why not us? Any team finding some sort of consistency (home and away) could piss this league. How about it TB? 

Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) Noticeable lack of half time entertainment. No music played over the PA (although judging by the quality of the system it probably wouldn’t have been heard anyway). (2) The gun shop opposite the ground, handily placed close to the east end heartland.  

Anything else? A noticeable lack of atmosphere in the ground. Was it me or was it just flat? There was certainly very little singing and a general ‘FA cup hangover’ feeling. Dave Anderson getting a bit of ribbing in the programme for his poor use of diction in his NLT column. What? DA having a language problem? I’ll hear none of it! Welling fielding a player who would not have been out of place in a Jackie Chan film; one Sanchez Ming  

Was it worth it?: If we win the league by 1 point, yes 

In a nutshell: Strange days in deed.

---

11 November 2008

Ouch.

What to make of Boys 1 Men 4? Just hope we sounded good on telly and the great viewing public treated it as their first taste of the "new" Wimbledon. And ignore the result and the performance.

I'm writing this in a weird sense of euphoria and despair. More the latter than the former after I walked out of the ground. Did we let ourselves down? If we're talking about the team, yes. This was always going to be a tough one, but as usual we happily gifted the ball away and you can guess the rest. I think the expression is "clinical". There's no use pretending otherwise - we have real problems keeping clean sheets and we have done since day one this season. Only now, it's gotten chronic. This could have been at least 1-6, which in truth would have seriously knocked the stuffing out for the rest of our season. At times in the first half, we really did get the piss taken out of us.

Not for the first time, Micky Haswell proved to be a weak link. His confidence has really slumped since he failed his trial with Brighton. I don't know why TB puts him out as the secret weapon against the bigger sides. He did it for Chelmsford last season and we all know what happened. Hussey hasn't done much wrong and yet gets to sit out the biggest game of the season? Go figure. I do believe TB doesn't help himself going for the "shock" selection - it always backfires and does reflect badly on him as a manager.

Kennedy? Earlier this week he was making noises about AFCW being a stepping stone towards the Premiership. Hmm. Reserves beckon, methinks.I could mention how poor Main was, or how annoying it was that Finn was late so we couldn't start him etc etc. But we learnt a harsh and painful lesson here - we are playing Conference South because that's how good we are. We often wonder to ourselves how our players aren't getting picked up by bigger sides. We know why now.

Yet again, we just make it so fucking easy for teams don't we? Right now, our defence and midfield spits in our face every time we go 2-0 or (more usually) 3-0 in quick succession. We might have had a chance against Wycombe if we kept it to 0-0 at half time, or even just 0-1 down, but when it's 0-2, you ain't really got much hope. As usual, we rely far, far too much on JM and DK to dig us out of our own hole that we love digging for ourselves. Do we need a radical overhaul? Do we drop the undroppable? I can fully understand TB not going down the route he did last year, when he employed half of non-league football, but amongst all the glee (off field) that last night gave us, he must be wondering where to go from here...

I wrote all that last night, yet this morning I saw this gem in the Telegraph

"So much has been achieved so quickly at AFC Wimbledon that you almost expect them to compete on equal terms with a League 2 powerhouse like Wycombe. It was a fanciful notion – Peter Taylor’s team putting the minnows firmly in their place. "

OK, I don't feel the need to take everything I crossed out above back - I certainly think Haswell is more of a liabilty than Hussey. But somehow, those bon mots make a world of sense right now. And in a way, suggests a victory far bigger than the one Wycombe should have had last night.

Think about it - we started from literally nothing six years ago. We were placed in the lowest league we could justifiably get put in, and now six years later we're moaning because we're not top in the Conference South and a professional outfit that hasn't lost in the league all season gave us a footballing lesson? Setanta called us "naive", apparently, and couple with that opening salvo above does give a realistic if somewhat cool-headed description of last night.

Maybe the players froze? Wouldn't be the first time it's happened though. Those with long memories may remember the first time Liverpool came to Plough Lane, which was remarkably similar to last night. In fact, there was a TV clip at the time of Harry giving a team talk before the game, saying something like "don't stand about and watch the game, you can watch yourselves on telly this evening". Plus ca change, as they say in Germany.

This is all big learning curve stuff, and we learnt many valuable lessons last night. This is what it's like to play league football - how much time did we have on the ball compared to the vast, vast majority of CS games? As it stands, we might be ready to move up to Conference level (though with our defending....) but it just confirms everything SW19 has been saying since 2002 : we are going to need a lot more investment if we want to make that next step up. Those league players won't come cheap.

In fact, how many of our players would get into a league side? I don't just mean on last night's performance, I meant in general. Our players are in the CS because that's about their level. If you've ever wondered why JM and others have never been snapped up as pros, we found out why last night. There's no shame in that gulf in class, but I'm just pissed off that we made a hard task impossible.

It's a shame that our usual ineptness overshadowed what was a damn good performance off the field. Maybe that's a good sign after all? This should be our cup final, but it felt more like another stepping stone back to where we want to be. Did it really feel like we'd be lucky to ever get this sort of occasion again? Don't get me wrong, it was a big deal - in fact, a massive deal - but this was more of a taster of things hopefully to come.

Last night we felt far, far more comfortable watching what we were watching, even when we went 0-2. This is how the majority of our fans started watching football - against a league side. I know plenty of us tried to kid ourselves that playing at Hastings, or Farnham, or W&H was somehow "real". But last night, this was "us". Ignore the shitness of play - I got home last night and read our report on Ceefax. This morning, a few of the dailies have our game up. At some point, I'll watch the DVD recording just to see how bad we were at the back. And you know what? I don't consider that a big deal. Usually if you support our level of club, you would collect everything in sight and the club would probably make a DVD of the performance. Ourselves on the other hand are talking about the best way to bridge that gap, and how to plan for the next big game at KM.

The singing rocked, the flags looked good on the glimpse I saw on the big screen, we looked like a surrogate league club (off the field) rather than a non-league side. One hopes it impressed Setanta enough to come down to KM again for a Conf South match (though in current form, is that such a good idea?). See, we've waited a good six years for this. Or to be more accurate, seven (if like me you don't remember the 2001/02 season on-field stuff at all). Last night, we wanted to prove to everyone that we're not a flash in the pan, that this is a club with vibrancy.

Put the Wycombe team in AFCW shirts and you'll have a side that matches the club. At time of writing I haven't heard of many problems with regards organisation. This in a crowd of 4500+ (with segregation, lest we forget) in a ground that isn't really suitable for crowds of that size. To me, it seemed very well handled and certainly not as unpleasant to be in as Torquay was. The more we handle these big games the better we'll get at them

And this is my suggestion for what to do with the money we got out of this - renovate the ground.

Why? As I suggested above, we'll need to have a serious review of the way the club funds itself when we have to start getting better players in. That will take a lot of planning, even if we remain part time (a la Burton Albion). But as the old adage goes, you can't go wrong with bricks and mortar. Playing staff come and go, but being held back in a (let's be honest) inadequate stadium forever remains unless you do something about it.

Bitter experience should tell us what happens when your ground doesn't progress as quickly as the club/team. Two sides of the ground are done already, so it's not like a total revamp of the stadium. We might not get a better chance to do it anyway. As this game proved, give people a reason to be interested and they'll turn up. I don't just mean the regulars, I mean the casuals. The ones who went to watch WFC yet just can't bring themselves to watch even CS level football week in, week out. Get in the Conf (yes, I know...) and play the ex-league sides and watch the interest go up. By that stage, we'll need all the capacity we can get.

We've come a helluva long way in six years, so who knows what the next 72 months will bring? That's all in the future now, and it's back to reality on Saturday. Our away form is shit right now, and we need to at least draw that game. Though a 4-0 stuffing will do us more good. All this talk of playing the likes of Wycombe or any other league/Conf side will mean jack shit if we can't start putting the likes of Welling to their death beds. The hard stuff starts now......

 

Plus points: The club turned up

Minus points: The team didn't.

The referee's a....: He wasn't going to give us much, was he? If he'd seen that foul in the buildup for the third goal, then things might have been different etc etc. Think we found similar with Torquay last season, where the ref there was laughing and smiling (knowingly?) with the higher division side....

Them: OK, maybe I'm being too harsh on ourselves - don't be surprised if they're playing Franchise in a league game next season. Only unbeaten side in the entire pro-leagues, and it showed. It's no exaggeration to say they're the best ever side played against in the AFCW era. They were clinical finishers, and they knew exactly how to close us down and make us look, well, amateur. Saw them getting off the coach and they looked massive. Men against boys, indeed. Their fans are league fans (and I mean that in a good way), they certainly don't have the chip on their shoulder or Big Day Out mentality that we see most weeks. Mind you, they did look pretty apprehensive walking around beforehand...

Point to ponder: I was covering the Harlow v Macclesfield game on Saturday, and the same thought I had then re-occured to me last night. Has the gap between our level (and below) and League Two got bigger? On Saturday, I saw a Macc side that was about 20th in the old fourth division rather easily over-powering their lower league opponents. Wycombe clearly put us in our place. There have been very few shocks in the first round this season, and remember how many BSS sides went out at the first hurdle. I think by and large that due to the trickle-down effect of the Prem (ie the better English players are having to play at lower levels) is causing a real gap. And does prove that to cause an upset, you really need to be on top of your game that day and the league side to underestimate you...

Three's a crowd: 4528. Not to be sniffed at, is it? That's more than the opening game of 2002 (vs Chipstead, with 4142) and only just shy of the RPV record (4560) where there was literally no segregation. Good job we extended the Strank Stand, eh? Got to say, it was pretty good standing in the TE last night. And this from a self-confessed hater of crowded spaces.

Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) That car on fire in the car park before the game. Hope it wasn't one of our players. Would explain a lot if so. (2) Setanta had about 60 odd people doing the game. I know there are cameramen, producers, presenters, riggers, technicians etc, but what do the rest do? Look after that blonde touchline reporter? (3) The way we quickly adapted back to a "normal" league setup ground wise (ie separate entrances for stands, no changing ends at HT, bars shut at HT etc). Further proof that we just can't ever be non-league fans. Culturally this is a lifetime away from what Welling will be on Saturday.

Anything else? Yeah. Credit where it's due, WUP was quite good. I think it's because it was more focused (ie concentrating on that FAC tie in 2001) and it was far stronger a publication as a result. In the past, I've felt it's pointless them publishing at times because they really had much to say and was just a load of half-baked filler. Publishing for the sake of publishing is a killer. As I know myself all too well, it can be very difficult at times to write about leagues/teams that you don't really know much about and in truth wouldn't care about if we weren't directly involved with them. Even writing about Chelmsford's funding/obsession with our crowds, or Bromley's chavviness, or H&R's voodoo over us or whoever becomes quite dull after a while.

Yet WUP produced a fair amount of material because it had something to work with. As their editorial said, we hate non-league as an AFCW fan, but writing a zillion pages saying so must drive the reader to move to Bridgend and find a rope. It can mention the Wycombe game because it's something we remember. It means something to us, probably even more than most of our achievements in six years. No, I'm not saying that what AFCW has done since 2002 has been shit, far from it. But subconsciously, we can motivate ourselves against people like Wycombe because we can identify with them. If that makes sense. People say to us to enjoy non-league while we're in it. I honestly don't believe we can, not fully anyway, and since last night that's become even harder...

WFC used to have about six fanzines at one time, because we were the victims of some serious shit in the press and elsewhere, so we needed an outlet to strike back. Now, there's only WUP printed (plus the guestbook), but only this place and Big Tissue that does anything more beyond the stats/player of the weekend type stuff. And I have to say, it's difficult to churn out stuff weekly when you're repeating exactly the same stuff, and dealing with oppositions that you don't culturally have much in common with. Maybe if we start playing the likes of Oxford, Torquay, Wrexham regularly, that old league mentality will kick in again and motivate people to start doing more fanzines/websites? Last night could have an effect on us far beyond a TV screening and some dough in the bank....

Was it worth it? Yes. Lessons are always worth it in the end.

In a nutshell: In the wider interests of football.

---

2 November 2008

It always happens doesn't it? The week before a massive game in a major cup always makes us produce some right shit. Before we KOed Aldershot, we managed to lose 3-0 at Rickay. Last year, the buildup to the Torquay game gave us some of the worst stuff I can remember.

And now, Claret 3 Cheap Plonk 2.

Let's be honest here - all I needed for this pile of whale wank that was called my Saturday to be completed was to have skidded off the M25 and killed on the central reservation. It was cold, soaking, out and out miserable. And I haven't started on the weather yet. This was a reminder of how shit the whole football experience can be - the first half in particular was almost as though we had gone back into RP mode. Seriously. We had no clue how to cope with the conditions, their first goal was clearly down to us dreaming of Monday week, and at times we looked shambolic.

OK, we did pressurise them with quite a few (poorly delivered) corners after the break, but as usual we decided to gift the opposition two quick goals leaving us trying to climb a mountain having shot both our legs off. Worcester, anyone? Yes, yes, I know we fought back quite well, and had we had another couple of minutes we might have snatched the not-really-deserved point. But when the much-maligned Sam Hatton managed to put the ball over the bar from a yard out (no exaggeration) you just knew.....

Why is our away form so fucking shit right now? We failed to do ourselves justice yet again yesterday, and by the sounds of it Maidstone was laboured to say the least. Dover? Skin of our teeth that was. Bedford? Threw that away. Nuff sed about Worcester, and it all seemed to start about H&Y time. And this is why we can forget promotion to the Conf this season - we make Sarah Palin look well travelled.

So, why is this so? One theory I heard was that TB doesn't want to alter things too much after last year's conveyor belt approach. Which is commendable, except that we now haven't won away in the league since Braintree. That's early September. Yes, I know we've been distracted with the FAC, but for a team and club that likes to claim it's pushing for promotion this season, that's pretty shite. Try backing words up with action every once in a while.

Certainly Finn and Kennedy looked like they were dragging us down yesterday. Perhaps we're about to discover that this really is a consolidation season? It's not what the management have planned, nor is it what the fans want to believe, but there's something wrong somewhere. Even more annoyingly, we're a totally different animal at home - some of the play on our own turf wants to make you believe that league football is just around the corner.

Which frightens the fuck out of me, if truth be told. We're starting to rely on our home form, because we just can't do it on the road. What if we start blipping at KM? Our next league game there is against H&R, who could play a whole group of invalids against us and still manage to come away with the three points. Start losing confidence at home and I shudder to think what will happen to us.

Somebody commented to me yesterday that it'll be better to get Wycombe out of the way and lose. You can't really argue with that point right now - I'm pretty sure without next Monday on the horizon, we would have at least drawn this game. We saw it blatantly this week - who here really paid any attention to this game before 3pm yesterday? Or in the case of our defence, 3.02pm..

An FAC run will do us good if we decide that we won't go up this season. Monday week will be different to what we've gotten used to in the AFCW era, but no less enjoyable. If we win that, and draw another good tie, the frenzy will almost be of Franchise proportions. Which will be great for the coffers and for our ego. But it will coincide with a shit run in the league, it always does. In fact, how many non-league sides really have a good FAC run and do well in the league? Only one I can think of were Yeading in RP days.

Anyway, in the grand scheme of things yesterday was an annoyance but nothing we haven't dealt with before. I could go on about our need to pick up our league form, how dropping points yesterday isn't the end of the world etc etc, but I won't. Nobody will be paying attention to the league this next eight days, so why should I?

Plus points: At least we fought back to a goal deficit.

Minus points: Everything else.

The referee's a....: Which one? The one in the beginning who was picky but who cried off halfway during the game? Reportedly had flu, though was taken away in an ambulance afterwards. Cue standing about in the cold and heavy rain wondering what the fuck was going on. Though I doubt I was the only one hoping that the game would be called off by that stage. Anyway, about 10 minutes later, up popped a spare ref with a local lad holding the flag. Unlike others I don't think he was particularly biased, just outright shit. The new and slightly better ref had to keep over-ruling him anyway. And some people say non league football is better to be involved with.

Them: While they'll happily mouth off about this performance and result, I don't think they were quite the side they were last season. Can certainly see how people like Bishop's Stortford take points off them there, put it that way. All of which makes our performance even harder to take. They do the gamesmanship far better than we do, and their set pieces put ours to shame, and there proved the difference. Doubt if they'll run away with it this season. Said it before and will say it again about them - they're the new Grays. Certainly their ground will scupper their progress, and it's interesting to note that a good third of those there last year decided not to bother yesterday...

Point to ponder: Is there one? Seriously, this result will largely be forgotten by about this time tomorrow. Even the OS hasn't bothered to put much up on it (yes, I know...), instead reminding us that tix sales for Joe Q Public have been suspended so ST holders don't dip out. Christ, if AFCW has already forgotten yesterday, why should anyone else continue to talk about it?

Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) The weather. Seriously, that's not normal. So much for global warming, eh? Or "climate change" as they call it now. We've had climate change now for millions of years - it's called fronts. Or isobars. Or technical terms like "seasons". (2) The car journey back. Evil. (3) No West Ham/Spurz flags on their over-priced catering vans this time. Just as well really, if the biggest cheer there yesterday was Stoke beating Arse.

Anything else? Not really. Best forgotten, this one.

So, was it worth it? Fuck right off

In a nutshell: Wycombe better be worth it now....