George Piper Courier Cup

Sunday 25th July 2010
George Piper Courier Cup
Culverden Stadium, Tunbridge Wells
Admission: £5.00
Programme: £1.00
Attendance: 250
Match Rating: 2

A rare Sunday afternoon's football entertainment was provided by the second day of the revamped George Piper Courier Cup . In previous years, the cup has been contested as a one-off match between Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge Angels, who have traditionally sent their reserve team (which has usually been sufficient to win the Cup), and this year was no different. However, this year, Crowborough Athletic and Rusthall were also invited, with the format being two semi-finals on the Saturday with the final and third place play-off taking place on the Sunday. In the semi-finals, Tunbridge Wells beat Crowborough 3-0, with Rusthall beating Tonbridge on penalties after a 1-1 draw. There is no doubt that this competition added a welcome competitive edge to what would otherwise be meaningless pre-season friendly matches, with the four teams coming from a 7 mile radius of Tunbridge Wells, with therefore many connections between the clubs, yet coming from four different leagues - Tunbridge Wells from the Kent League, Rusthall from the Kent County League, Crowborough from the Sussex League, and Tonbridge Angels from the Ryman League - or perhaps more accurately considering the team they fielded, the Suburban League.

Culverden Stadium, which is located about a 20 minute walk from Tunbridge Wells train station, will always be one of my favourite grounds at County League level, with a pleasant enclosed feel to it surrounded as it is by trees and set in a completely peaceful location down a short track well away from roads and housing.An ageing stand runs along one length of the pitch, half of which provides seating, the other half terracing. Steps of terracing behind one of the goals provides an excellent vantage point, with hard standing around the rest of the pitch. Anyone who has been to the Culverden won't be surprised to hear that the pitch was in a dreadful state - rock hard, dusty, bobbly and with long dry grass making the roll of the bal unpredictable. Of course, the prolonged hot and dry weather has done the groundsman no favours. A colour programme was produced for the tournament providing good basic information on all four teams competing.

Crowborough Athletic 2 v 3 Tonbridge Angels
Third Place Play-off

The first game of the day was the third place play off, between Crowborough Athletic and the reserve team of Tonbridge Angels. With Crowborough fielding mostly a first team, they would have been expected to have been the stronger side, and indeed Crowborough for the most part dominated the first half and creating the better chances, although somehow Tonbridge went into the interval with a two goal lead. They soon made that three within minutes of the restart, and the game looked dead and buried, particularly with Crowborough players seeming to lose interest on a hot, muggy afternoon. However, they pulled a goal back with a fluke goal when a cross from out wide sailed over the keeper and into the net, and a close finish was ensured with 7 minutes remaining when Crowborough scored a second. Despite a couple of good chances to equalise, Tonbridge held on for the win and the rather hollow prize of claiming third place in the competition.

Tunbridge Wells 1 v 2 Rusthall
Final

After an hour's break came the final of the competition between the two senior clubs of Tunbridge Wells. With so many connections between the clubs, this was always likely to be a keenly fought affair, one for which Tunbridge Wells would have had to have been favourites, with the game being played at their home ground and being from a higher league - indeed, Rusthall play at intermediate level, but there was plenty of incentive for Rusthall to create an upset with several of their players having played for Tunbridge Wells, and their manager, John Ronaldson, played for Tunbridge Wells with distinction. During the first half, the superiority of Tunbridge Wells certainly showed as the spent most of the half in possession and had most of the chances, and it was something of a surprise that they only went into the break one goal to the good. The second half carried on in the same vein - whereas Rusthall played reasonably well, there seemed to be very little threat of getting back on level on terms until the 73rd minute with a slightly controversial goal, when just at the moment the Tunbridge Wells keeper caught the ball, the Rusthall forward headed the ball out oh his hands into the net. For me it was a good goal as the ball wasn't under the keeper's control, and it was refreshing to see, for once, the goalkeeper not get the benefit of the doubt. At this point the game completely transformed as Rusthall pushed for the winner, which they got ten minutes from time when a cross was emphatically headed home. Tunbridge Wells threated to score intermittently throughout the second half but Rusthall held on to huge cheers at the final whistle to claim the trophy and the local bragging rights.

This was an entertaining day's football, and a great way of adding a little competiveness and interest to pre-season games, and the warm weather certainly helped make the occasion even more enjoyable. Perhaps games with 30 minute halves might be a better system and fairer on the players considering the small squad sizes of the competing teams, and presuming the competition is repeated in future years, although Tonbridge Angels are potentially a big draw considering their Ryman League status, all the time they send reserve teams for the Cup, it would seem more worthwhile to invite another local team in their place, such as Sevenoaks or East Grinstead.


 

Chelmsford City 0 v 3 Bradford City

Saturday 24th July 2010
Pre-season Friendly
Melbourne Park, Chelmsford
Admission: £7.00
Programme: £1.50
Attendance:380
Match Rating: 3

The latest temptation to lead me away from my natural instinct to give pre-season matches a swerve was this interesting looking and slightly unusual match between Chelmsford City, of the Blue Square South, against Bradford City, of League 2. The fixture was made possible by Bradford's manager, Peter Taylor, taking the club back to his Essex roots, this game being the last of a short mini tour of Essex, and indeed, Taylor had a short spell with Chelmsford as player/coach.

Melbourne Park is a brisk half hour walk north westwards from Chelmsford train station, and is situated in a park area and adjacent to a sports centre. Whilst the ground is very spacious and excellently maintained, this ground is unremarkable with several detractions. As Melbourne Park doubles as an athletics stadium, there is a running track separating the pitch from the spectators, the view being particularly distant from the main stand. Covered seating is also available on the opposite side of the pitch, backing onto the wall of the sports centre. To further inhibit the generation of a good atmosphere, music is apparently not allowed to be played at Melbourne Park as a condition of the local Council allowing football to be played here. Having said all of that, at least Chelmsford are now able to play in their home town (interesting to note that Chelmsford is a town, not a city as the football club's name would suggest), something that their fans must have wondered would ever happen again during their nine years in exile at Maldon and later Billericay around the turn of the millennium.

Credit should go to Chelmsford for keeping admission prices at a reasonable £7 for today's game against attractive opponents, and therefore the low attendance (augmented by a fair sprinkling of Bradford supporters) was slightly disappointing. The programme was a huge disappointment, consisting of 24 pages of black and white print, much of which was taken up with advertising and for the most part devoid of interesting information. That would be fair enough for a pre-season publication if £1.50 were not being charged for it.

On another warm, muggy afternoon, Bradford started the match with pretty much their first team, and indeed, Chelmsford were completely outclassed in the first half, blown away by a display of hungry, aggressive football from Bradford. They took the lead on 12 minutes when Gareth Evans converted a penalty despite the Chelmsford keeper guessing the right way. On 26 minutes, they doubled their lead thanks to a wonderful goal, Gareth Evans again on the scoresheet with an emphatic scissor kick shot on the volley. Tom Adeyemi scored a third on 36 minutes when he broke clear of the defence and finished emphatically despite the keeper getting fingertips to the shot. One feared for Chelmsford at this stage, who were playing as poorly as Bradford were playing well. However, the second half saw no further addition to the scoreline, which was full of neat and tidy football but was essentially a predictably drab affair given that this was a friendly match with one team having raced into a convincing position. Chelmsford certainly played much better in the second half, keeping the ball well, passing more accurately and looked much stronger in defence.

Teams:

Chelmsford: James Pullen, 2 Anthony Cook, 3 Josh Brown, 4 Adam Tann, 5 Sami El-Abd, 6 Stephen Reed, 7 Matthew Lock, 8 John Martin, 9 Rob Edmans, 10 Ricky Modeste, 11 Alex Rhodes

12 Josh Llewellyn (On for Modeste, 75) 14 Elliott Babbs (On for Brown, 46) 14 Hasan Sulaiman (On for Rhodes, 47)

15 Tyrone Scarlett 16 Bobby Aisien (On for Cook, 74) 16 Mark Haines (On for El-Abd, 58) 17 Simon Thomas (On for Edmans, 46) 18 Javonne Malloy (On for Reed, 56) 19 Lewis Batchford (GK) 20 Ryan Batchford 21 Daniel Lopez

Bradford City: Lloyd Saxton (13), Simon Ramsden (C), Luke O’Brien, Lee Bullock, Zesh Rehman, Luke Oliver, Omar Daley (Lewis Hunt, 46), Tom Adeyemi (James O’Brien, 58), Gareth Evans (Chris Simm, 46), Scott Neilson (15), Robbie Threlfall. Unused Substitutes: Jon McLaughlin (GK), Jake Speight, Junior Lewis.

Calais Racing Union 0 v 4 Gillingham

Saturday 17th July 2010
Pre-season Friendly
Stade Julien Denis, Calais
Admission: €2.00
Programme: N/A
Attendance: 700 (estimate)
Match Rating: 3

For today's football action, I followed the well-trodden path of those seeking the "closest to home" taste of European football, to watch Gillingham's pre-season friendly in Calais. For many reasons, it was quite a surprise that this game even went ahead. When Gillingham made the trip to Calais last pre-season, the field of play apparently more resembled something of a warzone, with several Gillingham players picking up injuries having been on the receiving end of some crude lunges by Calais players and the then manager Mark Stimson vowed never to return - a change of manager since presumably made today's rematch possible. Furthermore, last month, Calais went into liquidation although they soon reformed, and surprisingly were allowed to remain in the same league as they played last season - the Championnat de France Amateur 2 (CFA2) - although they should have been promoted having been Champions last season. And finally, there was much confusion about when this game would actually kick off - Gillingham advertised 3pm right up to and including the day before the match, whilst Calais continually advertised a 5pm kick off. Gillingham claimed that they were unable to contact Calais officials on Friday afternoon to confirm the kick off time, and indeed the Gillingham team arrived well in advance of the 3pm kick off time that they were expecting, whilst the home team did not arrive at the stadium until 3.45. A quarter of an hour later and the match kicked off at 4pm, which meant that nearly all of the home support were streaming through the turnstiles at half-time, unaware of the very late change of kick-off time. A quite farcical situation.

Although Calais moved to the modern and impressive all-seater Stade de l'Epopee less than two years ago, this match was switched to the club's former home stadium (although it still hosts Calais' reserve team games), the ageing and somewhat delapidated Stade Julien Denis, which is located about a 40 minute walk from the ferry port, or 20 minutes' walk eastwards from the town centre. The stadium has one bench seated stand along one touchline, with covered shallow terracing along the other side, and with open terracing behind either goal. A major minus point of the stadium is high mesh fencing around the pitch The stadium has a very rundown look to it, not unreasonably considering it is no longer Calais' principal stadium, although one has the impression that this stadium would be more than adequate for the level that Calais's first team is now playing at. Indeed, the new 12,000 capacity Stade de l'Epopee is something of a white elephant in a regional amateur league and the stadium is quite a sad indication of how Calais' fortunes have nosedived in recent years - at the time the stadium was planned and built, Calais were in the third tier league Championnat National, looking upwards and looking to build on their famous Coupe de France final appearance at the turn of the century. Unsurprisingly, there was a large contingent of Gillingham fans making the short trip across the Channel, making the most of a novel day out following their team, easily outnumbering the home support and providing constant loud support of their team. Entrance was a bargain equivalent to £1.70, but amazingly the local fans even complained that that was too much - one wonders what they would make of comparable teams charging at least three times that even for friendlies in England! As is customary in France, no programmes were issued.

At the time this fixture was arranged, it would have been anticipated that this would be a close encounter between two seemingly evenly matched teams. However, with Calais having to build again from scratch, one feared that Calais would be of their depth against a professional outfit, and so it proved in the early stages, as Gillingham raced into a two goal lead within 7 minutes thanks to some shambolic defending, and a three goal lead with half an hour on the clock.The only real surprise was that Gillingham didn't score several more by half time, although Calais did have a shot acrobatically cleared off the line. Gillingham did manage to extend their lead to four within five minutes of the restart, however the remainder of the game was quite even, perhaps not surprisingly given the obligatory frequent substitutions, and Calais could consider themselves very unlucky to not get onto the scoresheet having had another shot blocked on the line and a rasping drive tipped onto the crossbar. Whilst today's game did not have the apparent nastiness of last year's encounter, the Calais players were still often guilty of cynical fouls, and the frequent pushing and shoving between individual players, as well as a mass brawl midway through the first half were of little surprise. Mention should be made of a truly dreadful performance by the referee, whose erratic performance led to him dishing out five yellow cards to Gillingham players, mostly for incredibly minor offences, and just two to Calais players, who merited them more with their aggressive approach - if yellow cards are merited at all in friendly matches in another issue.

So a comfortable victory for Gillingham, and although the quality of the opposition may have been something of a disappointment, this was surely a worthwhile exercise for Gillingham, with the squad benefitting from an excellent team bonding exercise and the fans being able to enjoy an altogether different day out following their team.
 

Teams:

Gillingham: Alan Julian (Lance Cronin 46), Barry Fuller (Nicky Southall 72), John Nutter (Danny Jackman 46), Tony Sinclair (Mark Bentley 46), Josh Gowling (Connor Essam 63), Kevin Maher (Jack Payne 46), Luke Rooney (Danny Spiller 46), Chris Palmer (Stanley Aborah 46), Stefan Payne, (Dennis Oli 20), Andy White (Cody McDonald 46), Andy Barcham (Curtis Weston 46).

Calais: Cedric Schille (Kevin Fontaine 46), Kilian Hurtel, Benoit Hakda (Jonathon Fromage 46), Judicael Briesmalien, Frederc Gaillard (Moke Kasima 62), Jean Deledeuil (Kevin Hochand 81), Mickael Turi ( Lucien Youanchi 55), Oliver Sboreni (Lorius Medy 46), Karim Krini (Gabriel Oudjani 46), Emmanuel Vasseur (Romain Blearard 52), Damien Becuwe.

AFC Wimbledon 2 v 0 Charlton Athletic

Saturday 10th July 2010
Pre-season Friendly
Kingsmeadow, Kingston upon Thames
Admission: £10.00
Programme: £2.00
Attendance: 1,417
Match Rating: 3

It's fair to say I'm not normally a fan of pre-season friendlies, and certainly not this early in pre-season, with players having only returned to training a few days previously and with even the World Cup final still yet to be played. However on a gloriously hot summer's day (bordering on being too hot admittedly with temperatures above 30c), an opportunity to visit a new ground that I have been wanting to visit for some time, and to watch Charlton without the usual feelings of depression, frustration and anger experienced during the league season, I decided to make the trip to south-west London for this pre-season friendly.

Kingsmeadow is located less than ten minutes walk from Norbiton train station and is quite a typical modern leading non-league stadium. Quite unremarkable, but well maintained. All four sides are covered, but with seating only available in one main stand along one of the touchlines. It is always difficult to judge a club's programme on a pre-season friendly edition, however today's edition, which covered three of their home pre-season friendlies was a good effort with a glossy hardened cover, with interesting features on past meetings between the clubs, and with the team line-ups containing most of the triallists for both of today's clubs, which I found quite unusual and impressive.

It would always be difficult to read too much into today's game. Charlton fielded two almost completely separate teams in each half. In the first half there were four triallists amongst a sprinkling of first team players, whilst the second half was almost entirely a run out for the youth/reserve team members. AFC Wimbledon also took the opportunity to field several triallists, the most exotic of which was a South Korean by the name of Tae Hun Kim, who apparently does not speak a word of English.

Charlton's team in the first half looked far stronger than that in the second half, and the game reflected this. Charlton looked quite lively in attack, with their triallist forward pairing of the Spaniard, Guillem Bauza and the Iceland international, Gunnar Thorvaldsson, combining reasonably well to fashion several good chances. AFC Wimbledon rarely ventured forward, although Jon Main had a chance acrobatically cleared off the line by Grant Basey after his shot was palmed into the air by the keeper Rob Elliott.

In the second half, Wimbledon took complete control of the game and did most of the attacking, and the surprisingly limp performance by the Charlton youngsters did not suggest they would be knocking on the door of the first team any time soon. Wimbledon opened the scoring on 50 minutes when Javon Molley thumped home after Elliott saved well from Ismail Yakubu's shot. Wimbledon almost doubled their lead moments later, when Lee Minshull headed onto the bar. Minshull would get on the scoresheet 8 minutes from time after a superb driving run from deep by Andre Blackman put the ball on a plate for Minshull. Charlton had a good chance at the death to get a consolation goal when the young Tamer Tuna couldn't control the ball sufficiently to get a convincing shot in on target.

So, Wimbledon earned a well deserved victory, although of course results mean almost nothing at this stage. On a day when it was bordering on being too hot to watch a game of football, well done to the players for playing, and at a decent pace, and all in all, this was one of the more enjoyable friendlies with a nice, relaxed atmosphere around the ground.

Teams:

Charlton (first half): Elliot; Solly, Basey, Jenkinson, Llera; Sawyer, McCormack, Semedo; Esajas, Bauza, Thorvaldsson.


Charlton (second half): Elliot (Kitteridge 67), Mulley, Basey (Carter 67), Mambo, Cousins; Wagstaff, Racon, Stavrinou, Davisson; Perkins, Tuna.

Wimbledon (first half): Turner, Jackson, Noone, Franks, Johnson; Moore, Hun Kim, Gregory, Yussuff, Kedwell, Main.

Wimbledon (second half): Brown, Hatton, S Moore, Yakubu, Harris, Blackman (Noone 89), Jones, Minshull, Nwokeji (Martin 67), Jolley, Molley.

Goals: Molloy 50, Minshull 82

Many Games Have I Seen "Oscars" Season 2009-2010

Best Game Seen:  
Yate Town 3 v 2 AFC Totton.
Runner Up: Tiptree United 4 v 3 Eton Manor

Dullest Game:
FK DAC Dunajska Streda 0 v 0 MFK Ruzemberok
Runner Up: Taunton Town 0 v 1 Yate Town

Most Picturesque Ground: Sligo Rovers. (Beautiful mountainous backdrop with cathedral also in close view)
Runner Up: Penrhiwceiber Rangers (In a lovely valley in the Welsh valleys)

Biggest Rip-off: RCD Espanyol (€45 for a seat in a corner for a very average top flight team...disgraceful!)

Best Value: Rotherfield (for being free and a very entertaining game at a scenic rural venue) 
Runner Up: Slovan Bratislava (this could be any of the Slovakian games - unbelievably cheap for top flight football in a country that qualified for the World Cup)

Biggest Surprise Result; US Marignane 1 v 0 SC Bastia
Runner Up: Espanyol 0 v 4 Racing Santander (at a time when Racing were adrift at the bottom of the table and hadn't won a game for two and a half months)

Best Atmosphere: SK Rapid Vienna

Worst View: East Stand, Easter Road, Hibernian. (Hardly any incline in the rows and television gantry getting in the way, very good thing that this stand has now been demolished)

Most One-Sided Game: Stansted 9 v 0 Tiptree United (Could have been several more but for fine goalkeeping by the Tiptree goalkeeper)

Coldest Game Watched: Waltham Forest v Maldon Town

Hottest Game: Portimonense v Freamunde
Runner Up: Norwich City v Charlton Athletic

Worst Conditions: Faversham Town v Beckenham Town (Heavy rain, driving winds and pitch a mudbath)

Ground With Most Character: St James Park, Exeter City (Lovely combination between old fashioned terracing and stand with modern stands.)

Ground with most surreal experience: Louletano 0 v 1 Uniao Madeira (only about 500 spectators in 30,000 capacity Algarve stadium situated in the middle of nowhere)

Best Programme - All Levels: Exeter City (Superb effort with abundance of info on both teams and the league in general)

Best Programme - Grass Roots: Penrhiwceiber Rangers (Excellent programme considering level club plays at)

Worst Programme: Beckenham Town (Did not produce - no excuse for senior club and apparently not the first time) and Ashford Town (Middlesex)