Croydon 2 Ashford Town 1
from Your Milton Keynes Correspondent
De Sade promised a radical solution to
recent ills, and a radical solution we have got – a new Manager (apparently) in
Frank Gill, and no fewer than eleven new players – and all under the supervision
of “Coach” Terry Fenwick. Whilst there has been no official word from the Club,
it would appear that El Tel is effectively fulfilling the role of Crisis
Consultant – taking over as Caretaker Boss, evaluating the current staff,
bringing in some new players and lining up a long-term successor. Whilst Terry
was very much in attendance today – dressed elegantly in a black suit – he
watched the game from the stand, whilst Frank Gill, who wasn’t mentioned in the
match programme, was the man in the dug-out.
It must be
said that Terry’s four games as Coach, leading up to this game, had seen a
significant improvement in results – six points from four unbeaten games,
following just one point from the previous six. Eye-witness accounts have so
far suggested that the new draft of players has improved the quality of the
squad. This has not been a great surprise, since Southall – the club that we
have raided - were 6th in the Combined Counties League, just one
level below Ryman Division One, so they’re clearly not mugs. Importantly, the
new intake has included Byron Glasgow, formerly of Reading, and a genuine
Midfield General, with the class and experience to sort us out in the middle of
the park.
The programme
tentatively billed this game as an early “six-pointer”. True, it was a match
between the two bottom teams, and whoever lost would be propping up the rest of
the division on Saturday night, but I’m not convinced that we’ll be scrapping
around at the lower end of the table come the end of the season. Croydon have
had a similar start to the season to us, with one win to their name, six goals
scored in ten games, and not having managed more than one goal in any match so
far. That’s not to say that they were expected to be complete push-overs,
though, as they’ve shown a marked improvement in the past week – their one win
was achieved last Saturday, away to Burgess Hill, and they weren’t disgraced in
losing 1-2 to Bromley on Wednesday. Both opponents are in the top four in the
league.
Croydon play
at the Croydon Sports Arena, a wide, open athletics stadium with a running
track around the pitch, in the same mould as Corby (don’t remind me !) and
Grantham. The one area of seating consists of one small stand, almost as tall
as it is wide, which is more reminiscent of Histon. The main pre-match
entertainment is the sight of the new red & white trams which pass by the
ground on the far side – hence the hosts’ nickname of “The Trams”, and the
Programme Editor’s battle cry of “ding ding, ding ding ……. Come on you Trams” !
By far the
best pre-match sight, though, was that of former captain Ian Ross having a
kick-about on the pitch whilst the team was warming up. Lest we forget, Rossi
broke his right leg in two places in the match against Newport, on the Isle of
Wight, last season, and it was sort of whispered that it would probably be the
end of his career, at the age of 27. It was great to see him involved again.
Other notable spectators, in the crowd of 74 – and that’s by no means
exceptionally low in this division – were John Whitehouse and Aaron O’Leary, so
you could almost say that our best three players today were in the stand. The
news on Aaron is that he is still struggling with a rib injury, and will be
missing for another couple of weeks yet; John at least has his foot out of
plaster, and seemed to be getting about the ground OK.
I promised
myself that this would be a fairly brief report, due to pressure of work at the
moment – normal service will be resumed for the next match report ! - but in
truth this was a fairly dire game, with few noteworthy incidents to describe.
We were at least lucky with the weather this afternoon; whilst everywhere else
was fairly wet and windy, it was a fairly mild, if breezy, day in South London.
This breeze
was behind Ashford during a first half in which their performance might be
described as patchy, at best. There were brief periods when the boys moved the
ball around slickly, to feet, orchestrated – as expected – by Byron Glasgow.
For the most part, however, Ashford’s play looked fairly static, and lacked
urgency. The formation looked quite flexible, alternating between 3-4-3 and
4-5-1. Leon Fisher was the spear-head with Joby wide on the right, and playing
more as a midfield player, and Leon Dussard, who looks a genuine left-winger,
doing a similar job on the left. Mostly we played with a back three of Tom
Adlington, Steve Mackenzie and Barry Gardner.
Barry has
recently been the subject of good reports in this more central defensive role,
but it was his error in being caught in posession right in front of goal which
gave The Trams (chortle) the lead. Home skipper Warren Burton found himself in
what was virtually a penalty-kick situation, and made no mistake in
side-footing the ball high to Will Toal’s left, into the corner of the net. 1-0
to Croydon, after only eight minutes.
The visitors
did try to hit back, two minutes later, with Leon Fisher dribbling the ball
towards the Croydon goal, surrounded by four defenders. One of these up-ended
him, for a free-kick right on the edge of the penalty area. The new on-field
Gaffer, Byron Glasgow, was the only man who was ever going to take this kick,
and his curling effort over the wall was well saved by John Odlum in goal.
The next clear
chance at either end didn’t come until the 29th minute, and came
from Leon Fisher robbing a home defender – with just one other defender to
beat, Fisher chipped the ball over the ‘keeper, but also comfortably over the
bar.
Four minutes
later we equalised. Again, we were awarded a free-kick right on the edge of the
Croydon box, this time just to the right of the “D”. On this occasion, Glasgow
showed a real touch of class, easily curling the ball into the far top corner.
Odlum never moved a muscle – not that there was any point. It was shades of
Rooney’s third goal at Old Trafford during the week ! If Byron can do that, then he’s sure to score
his fair share of goals at this level from midfield.
Croydon’s
winner came in the 40th minute, and there was an element of good
fortune (for the home side) about it. An attempted Ashford clearance from a
crowded goal mouth was charged down by the arm of No.9 Ashley Martin. The ball
sat up in front of the striker, and he wasted no time in thumping it into the
back of the net. In truth, it was very much ball-against-hand, so the referee
was never going to blow up for a hand-ball. What d’you know ! Croydon have scored a second goal for the
first time this season !
The second
half is barely worth commenting on, as it was very much two pretty poor teams
seemingly going through the motions, only creating one recognisable chance
between them – this fell to Leon Fisher (again), in the 74th minute,
when he picked up the ball just inside the area, jinked to his left and forced
Odlum into making a good save. Of course, Croydon could afford to just sit back
and play fairly conservatively, as they were 2-1 up and hoping for their second
victory of the season, but it was very disappointing that Ashford failed to put
the home side under any sort of pressure, and never looked like getting on top
of the game. Croydon were not bottom of the table this morning by accident –
they looked a fairly ordinary outfit – and Ashford will need to improve
dramatically on this performance if they’re going to take points from some of
the better teams, (let alone get anything from the forthcoming FA Trophy tie at
Bashley, which comes up next).
It’s as well
that we have quality to come back in, in the shape of Bower, Blackman, O’Brien,
O’Leary, Evans (who was an unused sub today) and Jones, since any notion of
simply transplanting Southall’s team, lock, stock & barrel, isn’t going to
give us the desired quality. There’s no doubt that Glasgow is the one gem.
Unfortunately, he played far too deep in the second half, mostly just in front
of the defence, to ever look like hurting the opposition – and nobody on the
bench had the presence of mind to push him forward and give the holding role to
someone else ! Leon Dussard, on the left
wing, obviously has ability, but things didn’t really happen for him today.
Leon Fisher looks a classy operator up front, but his energy and work-rate and
enthusiasm is probably the opposite to Joby’s – i.e. it don’t amount to much
! None of the other new lads stood out
at all.
Southall’s
reputation in the Combined Counties League is that they’re a dirty and cynical
team, with an appalling disciplinary record – and they were in hot water with
the League a few seasons back for this reason, so it’s not all hear-say – but
there was not a hint of this today. In fact, the opposite criticism is probably
more appropriate – this was a fairly passionless performance from a bunch of
talented, but barely inspired, young lads. I was particularly disappointed to
see the two Leons, Fisher and Dussard, who were both substituted, walk off to
the dressing-room with a silly smirk on their face just before the end. I would
hope that they wouldn’t get away with doing that at The Homelands after such a
poor performance.
So we’re rock
bottom of the league again, and, in spite of a recent revival, there’s no
certainty that the formula is quite right for future success either.
Nevertheless, I’m determined to end this truncated report on a hopeful and
optimistic note – the news from Rossi is that he’s ahead of schedule in his
recovery from the broken leg, and there seems every chance that we’ll see him
in action at some stage in the future. Realistically, we’re looking at the
2005-06 season, but it would be a major result to see him back.
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