BURNHAM 0 ASHFORD TOWN 0
From Your Milton Keynes correspondent
Today is Groundhog Day. Yes, really ! February the 2nd. It’s a fairly
obscure tradition in the United States; at least it was until it was made
famous by the Hollywood film of the same name, starring Bill Murray. It’s a
cracking film. It’s about a TV weatherman who gets stuck in a strange sort of
time warp, in which the same day – Groundhog Day – is repeated over and over
again. No matter what he does, the “next” day he wakes up and it’s February the
2nd all over again, with the same sequence of events about to
unfold. Eventually, he uses this to his advantage, as he learns that, no matter
what he does – he can drive off a cliff, insult his best friend, make a
complete arse of himself – the slate is soon wiped clean, as the whole day
starts again when he next awakes. Initially, though, the experience takes the
form of a recurring nightmare, as he struggles to understand what is happening,
and tries, unsuccessfully, to break the cycle.
I don’t know why I mention all this. Maybe it’s
something to do with being an Ashford Town supporter, and being able to
identify with recurring nightmares.
We can’t really say that now, though, can we ? Now that the team’s moving up the division,
and we’re seeing off Premier Division leaders and Conference teams. It’s
actually nice to see Tim Thorogood being positively hailed on the Club Message
Board, instead of being slagged off all the time as “Tim Nogood” etc..
Personally, I think all this praise is premature – I mean, apart from raising
the team to mid-table respectability, leading us to the semi-finals of the Kent
Senior Cup and the quarter-finals of the Doc Martens League Cup, establishing
strength in depth at the Club with U-15, U-18 and reserve team levels, turning
what was the marshiest ground in the Southern League into, apparently, one of
the best playing surfaces, and establishing a sensible management structure off
the pitch, WHAT has Tim Thorogood EVER done for this Club ? Oh, I nearly forgot – he saved Ashford Town
from impending ruin, and has put the Club on a sound financial footing !
It’s nice to note that there seems to be a genuine
air of optimism about the Club now, although I think that the suggestion of one
Message Board regular that we could achieve a top six position by the end of
the season (take a pace forward, Mr Hickey !) is a little rich. (It’s actually
totally absurd, but I don’t want to be too insulting to someone I’ve never met
!). In fact, I reckon there’s a far greater probability that we’ll finish in
the BOTTOM six. It’s not that we’re not playing well – six wins in the last
seven matches can’t be sneezed at – but the teams below us have plenty of games
in hand, and, (has anybody else noticed ?), all of the teams in the bottom third
of the table seem to be playing OK, and all are picking up points.
But let’s be scientific about this. Using the
Current Form tables, which express teams’ performance over their previous eight
league games in terms of the PERCENTAGE of points they’ve gained, we can
predict each team’s points total at the end of the season on the assumption
that they maintain their current form. (For the record, these percentages range
from Grantham’s 87.5%, to Banbury’s 20.83%). Ignoring today’s matches, these
are the key predictions, using this method,
TOP
Grantham 100
points
Hastings 91
Dorchester 82
Histon 81
BOTTOM
Sittingbourne 58
points
Tonbridge 53
Ashford 51
Burnham 49
Bashley 47
Banbury 45
Dartford 43
Corby 41
Rugby 40
Wisbech 40
St. Leonards 38
So on the basis of this evidence, there doesn’t
seem to be too much to worry about. I’m not totally convinced that we’re safe,
though, so I was hoping that we could get some points from today’s visit to
Burnham, a team level with us on points (having played four fewer games), but
which had only beaten us once in the last ten meetings.
We avoided the obvious pit-falls of turning up at
Burnham-on-sea or Burnham-on-Crouch, and arrived at the right Burnham (the one
in Buckinghamshire, which, confusingly, is near Burnham Beaches) in good time.
The ground was easy to find, situated on the edge of what is described as a
village (but which is really now more of an extension of Slough). There’s not a
great deal more that you can say about it, though – with respect to our
friendly hosts. It has just one fairly scruffy cowshed of a stand on one side,
with five rows of wooden planks as seats. An amusing touch, though, was that
the planks had small white marks painted on them to separate the different bum
spaces. On the opposite side of the pitch is a new estate of posh houses, with
the rest of the ground open, apart from the whitewashed, two-storey clubhouse
at one end. Adjacent to the clubhouse, which might look more at home at the
seaside, is a car park, with cars parked a few feet from the edge of the pitch.
(Seemed a bit dodgy, that – I certainly wouldn’t park my car there). The pitch
itself wasn’t much to write home about either, with several bare, muddy
patches. All in all, this did not appear to be a club that had a five-year plan
to achieve Conference status ! But I did
enjoy the way in which the man on the tanoy started to announce the teams,
“And today’s teams, as you’ll see from the
electronic scoreboard ….”
A glance through the list of Burnham’s home attendances
this season suggested that there wouldn’t be any shortage of elbow-room this
afternoon – the average crowd must be somewhere in the very low 100s, with the
season’s low so far being 95 (against Chatham) in the league, and 53 (against
St. Leonards) in the Doc Martens League Cup.
One pleasant surprise was that, in spite of the
howling gales blowing everywhere else, it was actually very mild inside the
ground, so the tatty little stand was certainly doing its job as a wind break.
It didn’t stop the weather from being very murky and overcast, though, and the
floodlights were on from the second minute.
There were no real surprises in Ashford’s team
news, except that Liam Hatch, newly enrolled as a loan signing from Gravesend,
started in the No.9 shirt, with the other new lad, Gavin Tomlin, on the bench.
In fact, the quality of our subs in this game – Tomlin was joined by Jeff Ross
and Chris Currie – is an indication of the depth that Tim Thorogood is now
building into the squad.
Actually, it’s not strictly accurate to say that
Rossy was on the bench, as he spent the first half watching the game from the
stand. If he did so in order to get a better view of what he expected to be a
wonderful spectacle, then he’s a pretty poor judge – this was quite simply an
awful game, and I don’t think that many of the sparse crowd would have argued
with that assessment. It was one of those games where nothing really happened
at either end, and whenever there was an attempt at goal, it turned out to be a
pretty poor effort. In many ways it was understandable that Burnham found
motivation hard to come by – firmly in mid-table, with their season already
effectively over – but for Ashford it was more of a case of players throughout
the team having a poor game, with control and general skill-levels being well
below par. It was difficult to believe that this was a team that had scored 22
goals in the previous seven games.
The goallessness (now there’s a word !) of the
first half was partly due to Tim’s fairly conservative formation – Adrian Stone
and Liam Hatch were the twin strikers up front, with Dave Hassett (our leading
goal scorer in recent games) tucking in on the right side of midfield,
alongside John Nolan, Ian Ross and Simon Elliott (another “striker”). Ian Gibbs
and Peter Mortley, both formerly of Tonbridge Angels, formed a formidable
barrier in the middle of the defence, with Stuart White at right back and Aaron
O’Leary, as usual, on the other side. I assume that John Whitehouse was playing
in goal, but, as he didn’t really have to make a save “in anger”, it was
difficult to tell.
Because of the nature of the first half, there was
plenty of time to have a chat with the manager, and, in fairness, Tim was
preaching the gospel of “keep it tight in the first half”, “they’re the home
side, so the onus is on them to come forward, not on us to make it easy for
them”, “keep a few clean sheets”, etc.. Still, I was soon casting my mind back
to the previous “worst game ever”, which, for me, was Corby Town away two
seasons ago – could this game compete with it in the Pantheon of Direness
?!
After thirty minutes it had all the hallmarks of a
stinker – not a shot on target from either side. The Ashford defence was able
to deal comfortably with anything that the home side, playing in their
Blackburn Rovers blue & white quarters, could muster, and our attacking
play was limited by the wide gap between the four in midfield and the front
two. I recorded just two half-chances for the boys worthy of note in the first
half, and both fell to John Nolan, (who otherwise had a fairly quiet time of it
- but no more so than anyone else). The first of these was just after the half
hour mark, when the “New Eelesy” curled a free kick straight into the arms of
the goalkeeper; then, after 39 minutes, an Ian Ross corner out on the right was
headed clear, and John’s speculative over-the-head lob landed on the top of the
Burnham net.
So nobody was particularly sorry to hear the
half-time whistle, and the format here is for the crowd to troop into the
clubhouse at the interval – nothing as rough & ready as an outdoor hot dog
stand ! And a very nice facility it is,
serving hot food, with a bar, with a telly on in the corner and the pleasant
click-click-click of dominoes. What throws you, of course, is that Doc Martens
League matches only have a ten minute break at half-time (instead of the
twenty-odd minutes that they have in the Premiership, in order to maximise the
amount of advertising revenue that they can squeeze in), so we hurried out for
the start of the second half, clutching our tea and chips.
As the Boss had hinted during the first half,
Ashford came out for the second period with a subtle change to the formation –
the Orange Man (Dave Hassett) was pushed up alongside Stone and Hatch, to make
a three-man forward line. There was also, for a time, some tangible injection
of urgency from our boys, with young Adrian Stone, who’s also been a regular on
the score-sheet recently, managing a low shot from distance, which Honey in the
Burnham goal saved by the foot of his left-hand post. This was within a minute
of the restart, and five minutes later, Liam Hatch did well to battle through
two Burnham tackles, only to blast his shot well over the bar.
In the 53rd minute it was Hatch again
who latched onto a good through-ball from John Nolan – he looked good as he
confidently carried the ball into the penalty area, but then looked pretty
stupid as he lost control and the ball ran behind for the goal kick. Tim and
Gary threw their hands in the air for the upteenth time in the afternoon.
Four minutes later, Nolan was again the supplier,
floating a quality cross over from the right, but Simon Elliott’s header was
from too far out, and never really looked like troubling the ‘keeper.
On the hour mark, Ashford made the first of their
three substitutions. Predictably, it was Jeff Ross who came on – the classic
tactical move of throwing on the wide man to open things up a little, and, in
Rossy’s case, to get some decent crosses in from the left. The surprise,
though, was that John Nolan was the one to come off. John was obviously a
little surprised himself, not to mention distinctly unimpressed, at being the
one to come off, as there was a little tantrum in the dug-out. (As he’s
performed heroically in midfield since the departure of Tony Eeles, I think we
can put it down to enthusiasm, and count his disappointment as a positive
thing).
With 68 minutes on the watch, it was the visitors
who again carved out a chance – John Whitehouse’s long clearance was latched
onto by the Orange Man, and when the ‘keeper came out to meet him the ball
broke to Adrian Stone, who wasted Ashford’s best chance of the match by slicing
the ball wide.
A minute later, there was some action at the other
end, when Burnham had a corner on the left. It appeared that a Burnham head
caused the ball to end up on the roof of the Ashford net, but another corner
was awarded, so, presumably, it came off one of our lads last. As so often this
afternoon, the second corner came to nothing.
With 15 minutes to go, Gavin Tomlin, a fresh
recruit from Tooting & Mitcham, came on as sub for Adrian Stone (also,
strangely, a former Tooting player), with the remit to sit in the “hole”,
behind Hatch and Orange Man. But a minute later, it was Burnham who had their
best chance of the game when substitute Micky Durkin burst clear of the Ashford
defence, with just John Whitehouse to beat, but scuffed his goal attempt well
wide.
After 79 minutes, it was the Greens on the attack
again, in the shape of 19 year-old Hatch. He did well to beat two players, to
establish a good position on the right-hand edge of the Burnham box, but aimed
a tame shot straight at the ‘keeper, when he really should have put in a cross.
More endless grief for Mr Thorogood ! In
fact, both management teams were constantly unhappy with their team, with Blues
Manager Jimmy Greenwood moaning about the lack of effort and energy being shown
by his players; Tim certainly couldn’t knock our boys for lack of effort, but
the quality of the workmanship was pretty poor throughout.
In the last few minutes of the game, the tempo
picked up a little, as both teams thought that they might “nick it”, for an
undeserved, but no less welcome, three points, and it was Ashford who looked
most likely to be the thieves. On the 86 minute mark, the ball was played up to
Dave Hassett, who intelligently spread the ball wide to Stuart White, in space.
White, who had a particularly poor match – and you had to be poor to stand out
amongst this lot – carried the ball all the way to the edge of the Burnham
penalty area, seeming to be in two minds whether to pass or shoot. Eventually,
he took the wrong option, and curled a tame shot that was easily saved by the
‘keeper.
The replacement of Liam Hatch, who had started to look
a little limp and tired, with defender Chris Currie, after 88 minutes, seemed
to signal Tim Thorogood’s desire to just hang on for the point – but this
theory was soon disproved, when Currie took his place in the forward line for
the last few minutes.
For what it’s worth, the game ended with Ashford
actually exerting what could be described as sustained pressure on the home
defence, probing just outside the Burnham penalty area, with a little spell of
possession. This pressure almost paid off when a Dave Hassett cross found
Stuart White in the box, but the ball got stuck under Stuart’s feet, so he was
unable to redeem himself with a late winner.
At the end of the match, with both managers
trudging off to the dressing room, puttering away to themselves, I decided
that, yes, this was probably the worst match I’ve ever attended. The Corby game
was largely spoilt by a strong, swirling wind, and by the fact that we killed
the game early with two quick goals. Today there was no excuse provided by the
elements – the second half was played in fine, drifting drizzle, but they were
never difficult conditions in which to play football.
Looking on the bright side, it’s a point away from
home, and a point that our defence never really looked like giving away. The value
of that point was put into context when I arrived home about an hour later, to
find, on Ceefax, that Corby, Sittingbourne and Rugby had all lost today.
So, overall, things are looking fairly bright.
Although the boys failed to sparkle today, we’ve still got a good squad of
players here, and it’s February and we’re still in two cups. Seems every reason
to be optimistic really – except, of course, that we can’t be. Because today is
Groundhog Day, and we know that we’ll all wake up tomorrow morning, and we’ll
be back to Square One. The Manager will have resigned, the First Team squad
will have sloped off to Maidstone, or Folkestone, or somewhere, the Club will
be up to its eye-balls in debt, and no doubt our bloody pitch will be
waterlogged !
No comments:
Post a Comment