Football Thoughts From a Real Fan in 2005-6 season

Swindon Town V Brentford

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 22:20:30 +0200

This is the friday night before the game. Brentford are third and playing awfully. Swindon are in desperate trouble and if we beat them and Yoevil win then they are relegated. What I do not like however is the cost of entry to Swindon, a mere £23 if you want to sit in a covered stand, a little less if you sit in the open stand behind the goal that resembles a wind tunnel

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Brentford

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:21:04 +0200

As a Brentford fan of over 40 years I have never felt so despondent as watching them of late. Sure we are third in the table. But the negativity of the play is excruciating. Last saturday we were 1-0 up from around the 60th minute thanks to a penalty. We were defending the last 30 minutes as if it were the last 30 seconds. Passing backwards at each opportunity. Resultingly the final result was 1-1. People praise Martin Allen as if he is some god like figure. In fact of late he is displaying arrogance that defies belief. There are no explanations nor comments on the Brentford website about when and why we lose.

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Canvey Island

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:43:39 +0100

Park Lane

Sometimes one gets lucky with a ground being open and friendly faces encouraging photographs. Today was special in that the light was perfect. The ground itself is easy to find. Just get within 6 miles of Canvey Island and the signs direct you straight there. If you get lost and have Sat Nav then the postcode is SS8 7PX.
The ground seems to have been built in the middle of a residential area but instead of being tightly hemmed in on all sides there is a reasonable amount of parking right outside. Try as I might I cannot find anything about the ground capacity but would guess at 4,500.
Behind one goal there is a large open terrace reminiscent of league grounds in time gone by but looking like it was built yesterday. A low long seater stand runs along the whole of one side of the pitch. On the opposite side are two smaller covered stands with low open terracing behind the other goal. All in all rather a decent ground and what is more a conference ground with some character. On two sides of the ground houses are fairly close to the action and have decent views on match day.

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Brentford vs Nottingham Forest

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 00:47:37 +0100

Brentford have the opportunity to make amends for their miserable defeat at Southend with a midweek game against Nottingham Forest. The visitors are not having a good season and are in no way guaranteed even a play off position. This is despite having Gary Megson at the helm as manager and seemingly buckets of money to spend on players. Recent purchases include the best striker in League 2, Nathan Tyson from Wycombe Wanderers for £750,000 and possibly the second best striker in the same division, Grant Holt from Rochdale for £300,000. Martin Allen is nothing if not predictable and makes changes from Saturday which not for the first time confuses the Bees fans. Stuart Nelson is dropped and replaced by George Bankole the 36-year old goalkeeping coach. The midfield consists of the dreadful Newman, Gayle, Tabb and Rankin. Thus Brooker and Tillen also appear to have been dropped. What is the current defence of O’Connor, Frampton, Turner and Sodje continue as does the forward line of Campbell and Owusu. Despite this game becoming a midweek fixture due to its postponement and Bees 3rd round FA Cup tie, a huge number of Forest fans find the time to attend and boost the crowd to almost 9000. The game is a cracking game of football and played not unlike a cup tie. Forest take the lead rather fortuitously in the 2nd minute. Bankole having emerged to punch the ball clear on the edge of the box is deemed to have made some contact with the ball outside the area. The resulting free kick hits the back of the net with a wicked deflection off a Brentford defender. After that the game is end to end stuff. To give Bankole credit he makes 2 very good saves and commits no more faux pas (if he did for the free kick as Bees fans in that vicinity provided their unbiased vocal views to the linesman as to a different opinion). The referee is dire and would have completely lost control of the game if it had been an aggressive match. He did manage to book at least 6 players including the Forest defender Julian Barnett whom he booked again and sent off midway through the first half. The game though was never a dirty affair though Forest were guilty of a series of professional fouls when it suited their cause. Bees equalised before half time through a short range knock in from Campbell and then battered the Forest defence most of the second half. A winning goal from either team though did not come and a final result of 1-1 flattered Forest. This was a decent performance by Bees and suggests that despite their failings a play off position is a reasonable aim whereas automatic promotion seems a long way distant. Newman was yet again the worst player on the pitch, totally ineffective in all that he did, which was not a lot. He did manage to commit the first foul of the game after 20 seconds! Gayle seemed tired and a little slow. Midfield is where Brentford have problems.

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The Northern League is the second oldest League in the World. But what are the clubs grounds like?

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 00:45:03 +0100

A working trip to Darlington and Newcastle gives me the excuse to visit a clutch of Northern League clubs. This league is allegedly the second oldest in the world. The geography of the league suggests that local derbies are the norm.
Marske united have a small ground on the edges of this coastal town. Even with a map downloaded from the website of the club (that is impressive) one needs either satellite navigation or orienteering skills to find the entrance. The reason being that the ground is surrounded on 2 sides by houses such that where the ground stops the gardens begin. The prospect of having a football ground complete with high netting fences to catch the many wayward balls at the bottom of the garden is a two edged sword. The ground itself is a simple affair. A small yellow coloured stand dominates because there is nothing else. The pitch is surrounded by railings and behind these grass areas on which to stand. A few miles up the A1M motorway lays Chester-le-street the home of the local side the “Cestrians” who play at Moor Park. Finding this ground is virtually impossible without instructions from the website. Essentially one drives along the town bypass road until a pub “The Chester Moor” is spotted on one side of the road. One then has to pull into the pub car park to find the ground which is adjacent. I have no idea of crowd sizes for home games here but imagine that even filling the car park and the little access road and the spaces at the end of that road, behind the main stand, would not allow 100 cars. Otherwise one is left with the prospect of parking on a bust dual carriageway. Logic suggests an average crowd of below 100 hardy souls. The ground itself from the outside seems a little unkempt. The sign stating that this is Moor Park and the club was founded in 1972 is almost unreadable with most writing washed away. The social club behind the goal looks a derelict building and the rear of the terracing fence has clearly also seen better times. The conundrum though is that once inside the ground is a fabulous and atmospheric place. A decent sized main stand provides seating for maybe 100. The majority of the ground is uncovered terracing. Opposite the main stand is a small covered stand that runs about half the length of the pitch but with room maybe for spectators to stand 2-3 deep at most and is really a metal fence with an overhang attached. Behind the far goal is essentially uncovered terrace with a small overhang at the rear providing a semblance of cover and the other goal is open terrace with a very small overhang to the fence. The” covered” terrace is a decent sized stand behind the goal that is covered with slippery leaves. What makes the atmosphere is the backdrop to the ground with trees surrounding the ground on all sides and indeed there is a small forest on one side. The third Northern League ground to be captured in this particular ground fest is that of Darlington Railway. Yet again a club website gives simple instructions as to where the ground is. The ground lies essentially in amongst a residential area and look fairly new. A new looking wooden fence separates the ground from the road. Immediately inside the ground there is a small covered seater stand behind the nearest goal that has a mixture of brightly coloured seats with no more than 50 capacity. The remainder of the ground is uncovered and is essentially the same as most grounds in for example the Combined Counties League. Railings separate pitch from spectators and there are paving stones that create space to stand all around the pitch. The ground has of course houses visible on all sides. In reality a pleasant functional ground but with little novel atmosphere with an impression given of having been built recently.

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Alloa Athletc vs Forfar

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 23:31:12 +0100

Scottish football is for some unfathomable reason subtly different from the fare offered south of the border. For work related reasons being in Scotland on 14th January means two things. Firstly no possibility of attending Southend versus Brentford and secondly a choice of which Scottish game to see. Geographical reasons suggested two options. East Stirling, consistently the worst side in Scotland were at home to Montrose and Alloa Athletic, very much bottom of division 2 were entertaining Forfar Athletic. Never having been inside Recreation Park in Alloa made the choice an easy one. Scottish football is somehow real and connected with reality. The football is fierce and competitive and the result always matters.
Arriving at the ground at 1pm allowed the option to see if the ground was open and get some photographs before the game. Outside the ground was a pleasant and helpful man who introduced himself as Robert Wilson the safety officer. Not only did he allow me to wander around the ground and take a decent set of photographs but also insisted that I should see the dressing rooms and the boardroom. There must be something about Scottish football and dressing rooms. There was a procession of folk in and out of the boardroom taking a look at the huge table in the centre of the room covered in thick glass and the trophy cabinet with a few treasures within. The only other occasion that this has been offered to me was at Queen of the South, the club in Dumfries. A dressing room looks like another except here there was a huge bowl of bananas next to the goalkeeper’s shirts as a nutritional snack! The next encouraging aspect to Alloa was the presence of a MacDonald’s within 200 yards of the ground!
The ground is one of the more charismatic grounds that I have photographed. What dominates the ground is not the main stand. This modern building essentially has seating that is above the dressing room complex below. There are not so many seats maybe as few as 300. The striking feature is the huge banked terrace opposite. This has some cover at the rear but the majority is uncovered. Behind one goal is a little terracing that has been cut out of the grass banks whereas behind the other goal is terracing that has recently had a small stand built and which the programme informs us has added substantially to the noise levels and the atmosphere. In short I like this ground but why it only has a capacity of just under 4000 is curious. There are two sets of turnstiles open and I would have been the first paying customer to enter the turnstiles designated for away fans. A price of £10 gains admission for an adult and £5 for children. This also is somewhat confusing. Why not charge a minimal amount for children? They are the future of all football clubs and in particular clubs that rely on truly local support such as Alloa Athletic. During the game behind the open terraced end there are a group of around half a dozen rather rascally children, around 10 or 11 years old, who have climbed some structure on the wasteland behind to view the game through the netting that is designed to stop a thousand footballs from ending up in the gardens of houses behind. One of these children somehow gets in midway through the second half and is watching behind the goal for a while before a couple ( not one) of stewards descends upon them and silently removes them gently out of the exit gate in the corner. Does the club not want new fans? Clearly they do not have the money to pay the entrance fees but it might have been a harmless option to allow this youngster to remain in the ground. I do not suppose that the chorus of “run Ricky run…..” from his friends was a helpful addition. There is no segregation in the ground for most matches and no more than 30 Forfar fans were visibly present on the terraces. A club that is nicknamed the “Loons” had a moderately sedate bunch of fans.
Alloa are not having a successful season. They are very much bottom of Division 2 and have won 2 games in the league all season the last home victory coming back on August 6th versus Peterhead and this is in fact their only home victory. Recent league omens are also not good. Prior to this match Alloa have lost their last 10 league games, in six of these games they have conceded 4 goals, in three games three goals and two in the other. Despite this awful season crowds have held up remarkably well. The crowd for that Peterhead game earlier in the season was 507 and this matched today’s attendance of 575. Needless to say the manager’s role changed hands 2 weeks ago and this game represents the first league game that Alan Maitland has been in charge. The programme also reports that other members of the coaching side have left the club as has the Chairman. So change is afoot. Somewhat surprisingly though Alloa drew 1-1 last Saturday with the Scottish Premier side Livingston ( a surprise in itself ) and then won the replay midweek 2-1 at Livingston so there was a positive air around the ground and as Robert Wilson told me “ this is a game that we must get something out of and we might”.
I love watching football from open terraces and this was a fiercely fought game. There were few cynical fouls or challenges and when bad tackles happened they were just that “bad tackles” due to ability and not predetermination. In truth neither side looked classy. Forfar indeed looked like a side third from bottom ( so 8th in a division of only 10 teams to put it into perspective ) who had scored points from 7 of their 19 games, 6 wins and a draw but whom had only managed 26 goals. There were a few chances throughout the game which was played to the beautiful backdrop of mountains, sunshine and mostly clear skies until dusk and darkness arrived towards the end. On a lucky day Alloa might have taken a lead from a desperate goalmouth scramble in the second half but it was not to be. James Evans the Alloa goalkeeper presumably had his share of the half time bananas making a couple of decent saves in the second half, one exceptional one saving with his legs in the style of the old Peter Schmeichel ( recently sacked from his BBC pundits role for not “coming to the point quickly”!). Few individual players caught the eye with the exception of Jose Quitongo, a short black player with dreadlocks who arrived midway through the second half and made things happen. He took on defenders and generally unsettled the Forfar defence. Anything good from Alloa emanated from Jose. The crowd clearly also like him judging by the roars of approval to his entrance to the fray. Luck however was not with Alloa and Forfar scored the only goal in the 87th minute to win the game somewhat fortuitously. A superb curling shot from Charles Connelly beating Evans from most of 30 yards. This defeat almost ensures relegation for Alloa even at this early stage of the season with Forfar third from bottom now 12 points clear and Alloa having only 15 games remaining to save themselves. What might be a better bet is on Alloa gaining promotion next season at the first attempt.
There were a lot of good things about this game that did not necessitate that one watched a feast of skilful football. Not least the good humour of the crowd but also that scrawling through the players names there were few whom were not Scottish. None of this foreign player nonsense on the day when Arsenal beat Middlesbrough 7-0 without a goal being scored by a British player. Where else are you going to find a linesman by the name of Charles Bee? This was an excellent football experience and I have growing suspicion that I would rather be at games such as this than watching glorified nonsense in the Premier League or the Championship. This was honest football and that made the lack of genuine quality quite alright. I hope to be back here again soon. Portends are not good for Alloa in the next few weeks as their next 3 games are against the top three sides whom in total have only lost 10 games this season. Alloa alone have already lost 15.

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Walton and Hersham

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 00:45:16 +0100

For various reasons bordering on the sensible having woken this morning in time I deicided to give the Brentford away trip to Bradford a miss. Instead I headed the few miles down the road to see Walton vs Windsor. Walton are having a good first season in the Rymans premier and before this game sit in 8th place and have some expectations of being involved in the end of season play-offs. I dont have a view on this as I neither know the rules nor even know if the rules have been created. Last season the various leagues seemed to make up the rules about which teams were eligible as they went along. In contrast Windsor, whose president is the duke of edinburgh ( not present today!) leading to the obligatory jokes about the Windosr catering ( such as serving only King Prawns and Pheasant kebabs ) are having a most miserable season. They have only won twice all season and are looking confidently at relegation with only Redbridge below them who have won exactly one game. The Windsor manager is Dave Carroll, ex of wycombe in the era when they first gained their league status. Indeed around that time for a few seasons I rather confusingly had season tickets at Adams Park ( before it became the Causeway Stadium ) as well as Brentford.
A decent crowd arrived of 220, about double the average. Plenty of families with their children. For a wizened adult like myself an £8 fee gained admission, for children £4 sufficed.
The first half was a dull affair mostly. Windsor played without too much confidence and little obvious motivation. .During the game Walton managed to gift Windsor more goals than they had scored in their previous 8 games. The first one arrived midway through the first half courtesy of a ridiculously given away penalty from Lee Allum. Walton equlaised before half time and took control of the game in the second half to lead 3-1 with 15 minutes remaining.Robert Traynor the ex-Brentford junior scored one goal and was man of the match. They then gifted Windsor their second goal with an own goal. A decent cross was turned in by a defender aghast to see the ball trickling towards the goalline and over. In between time the Walton goalkeeper Ricky Perks, was not having a comfortable day and looked less than convincing. A 3-2 win for Walton thus being made more difficult than in reality it really was.Dave Carroll looked emotivated and not far from chronically depresed throughout the game. Standing in the obligatory box he said little often retreating to the sanctuary of the dug out. If a managers role is to motivate his players then he fails miserably on this parameter.In the last 15 minutes Windsor played some decent football and on a lucky day might have equalised. Frankly they looked like a side doomed to relegation. Windsor have played 10 home games this season with an average crowd of 266 ( in comparison the Walton average is 173 ). This statistic hides one salient fact that they have already played AFC Wimbledon at home and Walton have not. The lowest Windsor crowd is 86 for a league game and the highest 1,012. Have a guess whom the visitors were for the larger crowd? Wimbledon tend to bring along at least 1000 fans and thus boost the average by over 50 fans a game.The other bad news for Windsor was that Redbridge who are the only club below them chose this afternoon to beat Margate 3-1 and record their second win of the season. The other game of note in the Rymans Premier was at Chelmsford where the home side beat their near neighbours and before today tenants, Billericay town , 2-1 in the first game at their new stadium in front of an amzing crowd of 2,998. I can be fairly confident that neither of these two sides will see crowds that sized unless AFC Wimbledon come to town in a meaningful game. As an endnote on that point AFC may well get promotion to the Nationwide Conference South this season whereas MK Dons (AKA Wimbledon or Franchise FC) are prime candidates for relegation to League 2 making only two divisions difference between the two sides. I for one would love to be there when they first play each other!

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Redditch United

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:33:25 +0100

The latest addition to my stable of grounds

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Real Football

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:30:48 +0100

As a football fan I get frustrated by the lack of real news about real football. Real people dont earn £30,000 a week they earn it each year. A single weeks salary of an alleged premiership player could fund a whole non-league club for a season if not longer.
Currently I am writing a book about what I see and feel this season , 2005-6, whilst following Brentford. I would see 1-2 games each week. This BLOG will be the book. I also run a fans website of photos of football grounds, around 300 grounds in fact with all photos taken by myself. So do log on and see if you agree or disagree with my views about both Brentford and football in general. www.footballgroundz.co.uk

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