WUPBlog

The following supplied by Marden Womble: Away Travel Info – Chester Away 31/10 Before today virgin trains return was £66.00. This morning you can get a single to Chester for £11.00 out on the 11.10 arrives 13.12. Coming back is still £30.00 (on the 17.55) but £41.00 total is better than the £66.00 they quoted before. (Still more expensive than the £33.50 Barrow trip!)
It is also possible to do it for £24.80 – 14.80 Birmingham to Chester return and 2x£5.00 singles to Birmingham but these £5.00 fares are on slow trains and take 2.5 hours between London and Birmingham.
Hope this may be of help to anyone.

Get your limited edition* WUP whilst it’s frenzied, from the usual suspects, non-strategically positioned around Kingsmeadow!

Available for just one of your english pounds – no matchday experience is complete without it!

*(limited until the next print run)

As some of you have noticed, we have a new page up above (just next to the SHOP.

The idea is to try and match people with spare car space with those who require a lift from the different parts of the Country to and from our matches this season.

We have some long distance journeys this season and it’s not always easy for fellow supporters to get to London where the transport links are plentiful and competitively priced. For those and others, we have added a page to this Blog to try and give people a chance to save some money and reduce the Womble Carbon Footprint. Haydon will be proud of you all.

WUP requests YOUR assistance in producing the first issue of the unofficial AFCW fanzine for 2009-10 season.

The intention is to be on sale versus Luton but to make this happen, we need your articles, letters, pictures, jokes, crosswords emailed to content@wup.me.uk  preferably by the 1st of August at the latest. We have begun work on putting the issue together, so anything you can send us will be much appreciated as we attempt once again to generate cash for the club whilst offering a mouthpiece for the fans, and hopefully a variety of independent material worth reading for everybody! Help us produce a fanzine befitting the occasion when the Dons take on Luton – send your stuff in now!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/postye/

Whether or not you were able to attend the friendly matches against Ramsey and an Isle Of Man XI, click on the link to view Postye’s pictures of the weekend

Our friends at Oxhey Jets have a Cup Final next Friday, the 15th of May. I will be attending the match and would love to see a good number of our supporter making the trip to South Oxhey (near Watford) to show our appreciation to that friendly Club. We received the following message from Tony Eatough, on behalf of John Elliot.

“Jets won the toss so get to be the hosts for the final.
It is the Spartan Minerva South Midlands Floodlit Cup Final, Oxhey Jets vs Royston Town, kick off 7:30pm Friday 15th May at Oxhey Jets FC

It’s a big opportunity for Jets to end the season with a trophy.

Royston will be tough opposition as although they have been in Division One this year, while Jets are in the Premier League, they have had a lot of investment and ran away with the Division One Title totalling 103 points and having a goal difference of +108, and will be expected to be one of the top teams in the Premier next season.

Jets should have a strong side available for Friday so although the underdogs (Royston beat Jets in another cup 4-2 back in December) we will be looking to win the cup for the first time.

If you and any AFC Wimbledon fans are able to get to the game that would be great – it was really good to have some of you turn up for the semi-final against Wormley.

Directions to the Club: -

 Oxhey Jets are based at the Boundary Stadium, Altham Way, off Little Oxhey Lane, South Oxhey, WD19 6FW.

Directions are provided from M1 junction 5. Travellers arriving via the M25 are recommended to travel via the M1 to avoid central Watford, (If you use a sat nav it will probably give you a shortcut through watford)

Directions from M1:
M1 Junction 5 Onto A41 towards Harrow (south)
Turn right at first roundabout onto B462. You will go past the David Lloyd Tennis Club towards Bushey.
Continue along B462 until the option to fork left/right (Bushey train station will be in front of you).
Take the Left fork onto the A4008.
Stay on the A4008 for approximately 2 miles
Turn right at the traffic lights onto the B4542 Little Oxhey Lane (garden centre on the right).
Continue along the B4542 over the narrow bridge.
Take the first left into Altham Way. (on some maps this is still called Cherry Hills)
We are located behind the Swimming Pool with our own parking.

Travelling by train, nearest station is Carpenders Park Tube Station. It is about a 10-15 min walk.Come out of the station on the south Oxhey side, turn left past the Tesco Express and walk down the main road  about 400 yards until you come to a mini roundabout by the Dick Whittington pub. Turn left here into little oxhey lane, walk up past the row of shops and it is then about another 100 yards on the right.

For more info visit: multimap. Please note that Altham Way is a new road and that it still shows as Cherry Hills on street map.”

Now that the season is over, I thought I’d spend a Sunday afternoon summarising what the loyal band of raters has come up with this season. Luckily it is pretty much all the work I have to do as the system runs itself during the season.

As such it could support 100 or 300 adding their ratings just as easily as the 30 or so. Thus I’m appealing for a little help.

If you don’t currently contribute I’d be interested in why and whether there is anything that would change your mind.

If you do contribute I’d be keen to hear any ideas that would make it easier for you or for additional facilities you’d like to see.

afcw@foto.co.uk is the address to send any comments.

Individual Performances

First the ratings across the season, where Danny Kedwell is comfortably ahead of three centre halves led by Ben Judge. The top ten also contains a goalkeeper, a full back, another striker and three midfielders so a reasonable spread across the team.

Top Ten (minimum of 10 games)

The next table shows how often players have won man of the Match awards (individually or jointly) and the total number of votes for them over the season. Again Danny Kedwell is well ahead on both criteria but Kennedy Adjei appears from nowhere in the overall list into third in this category. Sam Hatton’s total of votes is a little suspect as he has a relative who comes on and votes for him in every match!

Man of the Match (minimum 3 Awards)

The best performance in a single match was locked up by Jon Main in the very first game of the season with the top 5 places being monopolised by the two strikers.

Best Individual Performances

Team Performances

The best team performance was judged as the dismantling of Braintree at Kingsmeadow, closely followed by the commanding home victory over Havant and Waterlooville.

Best Team Performances (Main Competitions)

No great surprise that the worst team performance was the dismal display at Uxbridge, though with hindsight maybe it was the most important result of the season. The top 5 is rounded out by three of our league defeats and the dire goalless draw at St. Albans City.

Worst Team Performances (Main Competitions)

Opposition Performances

Little surprise that the best opposition performance was that of Wycombe Wanderers, the only team from a higher league that we faced. A Ryman Premier team sneaked into third place behind Welling’s excellent performance at Kingsmeadow. Good to see that neither Eastleigh nor Hampton made the top 5 although Bromley’s performance at Kingsmeadow, rather than Hayes Lane, did.

Best Opposition (Main Competitions)

A little hard on Fisher Athletic and Bognor Regis Town who both had reasons for fielding weak teams but the table doesn’t lie. Uxbridge were one of the worst teams but still good enough to beat us.

Worst Opposition (Main Competitions)

Referees

Firstly thanks to Uncle Arthur and Paul Raymond for help in identifying referees. I can’t remember many of these performances which may reinforce the cliche about not noticing the good ones but Mr. Mason stands out for not falling for the usual Hampton tricks and his interesting approach to the treatment of injured players.

Best Referee

Mr. Knight heads the list of shame for his inability to handle drop balls and judge penalty appeals accurately.The referees for both Eastleigh games make up the numbers.

Worst Referee

A Trip Through History

The ratings system has now been running for three years so it is worth looking at this season in comparison to others. The first table looks at those who have achieved a rating of at least 7 across a season and Danny Kedwell has gone to the top of the tree with Ben Judge and Jason Goodliffe also joing the select role of honour.

Historic Ratings (minimum 7.00)

Still nobody approaching Andy Little’s goalkeeping exploits at Aldershot but Jon Main’s hat-trick at Newport slots him into third place. A good reminder to see Luke Garrard featuring in both tables and we must hope he recovers to show his form in the Blue Square Premier.

Historic Individual Performances (minimum 9.00)

Braintree and Havant come in as our best ever performances although I think maybe we underrated the Aldershot game at the time.

Historic Team Performances (minimum 8.00)

Source:

http://www.bluesqfootball.com/ Official Conference Premier site

http://www.confguide.com/ Conference Premier Guide

http://www.conferencegrounds.co.uk/ Conference Ground Guide

http://www.altyfans.co.uk/ Altrincham

http://www.tamworthfans.co.uk/Default.aspx?g=topics&f=1 Tamworth

http://www.poppynet.co.uk/ Kettering

http://www.harriers-online.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=1 Kidderminster Harriers

http://www.barrowafc.net/viewforum.php?f=2   Barrow AFC

http://www.ctfc.net/forum/ Crawley

http://eborosupporter.proboards.com/index.cgi? Eastbourne

http://www.phpbb88.com/rdfc/index.php?mforum=rdfc Rushden & Diamonds

http://www.redpassion.co.uk/forums/ Wrexham AFC

http://www.yorkcityfc.com/forum/index.php York City

http://forum.football.co.uk/forum-113.html Mansfield Town

http://www.loyalluton.com/index.php?option=com_weblinks&catid=31&Itemid=96 Luton Town

http://histonfootball.proboards.com/index.cgi  Histon

http://www.hayesandyeadingunitedfc.co.uk/HNY/index.php Hayes and Yeading

http://boards.footymad.net/forum.php?tno=117 Cambridge United

http://www.heedforums.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=5788123318becd0752f57aef8d6bb8c2 Gateshead

http://www.the-exiles.co.uk/ Newport County AFC

Darlington

Southport

Grimsby Town

Bath City

Fleetwood Town

Forest Green Rovers

AFC Wimbledon BSS Champions 2008-09

http://sw19s-army.derrymeeleen.com/news.htm SW19 Army summary

http://89.145.120.56/bsq/BROWN.mp3 Terry Brown interview

http://www.suttonguardian.co.uk/sport/4320592.We_ll_be_ready_for_the_Blue_Square_Premier_vows_Terry/  Sutton Guardian review

http://anonymousdon.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/all-over-now/ Anonymous Don blog/pics

http://www.stalbansreview.co.uk/sport/localsport/4320702.Beaten_Saints_are_perfect_party_guests/  St Albans Review

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_conf/8018657.stm BBC round up

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_conf/8018155.stm Further BBC coverage

http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=1327 200% blog

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/apr/28/afc-wimbledon-blue-square-conference-south-champions Guardian Blog

It feels like we’ve left non-league football behind already and are now in a proper league with proper stadia with the downside being segregation i.e being stuck in the shittiest part of the ground and not able to move round at half time with local hick police monitoring our every move.

For 7 years we’ve had to put up with the egos of Withdean, Walton and hersham, Eastleigh, Bromley and the like but for every one of those clubs there are 10 others where we were welcomed with open arms and not just because of the money we brought in but because most non-league folk do it for the love of their clubs and were genuinely pleased to accomodate us even if if it meant going way beyond the call of duty(think Angie Payne at Staines last year).

I can still recall with astonishment our 6th league game ever against Southall at Chalfont St Peter hearing some of the opposition players warming up before the game near us talking about what arrogant tossers we were, talk about judging us before we had barely played a game!! It seems we ruffled a few feathers in the cosy, smug world of non-league football where Darlogate proved beyong doubt you were supposed to put up and shut up however ridiculous the ruling because they had their way of doing things and how dare we object to it.

My first ever game was Wimbledon-Telford in September 1971 and non-league football was the norm for me in my formative years as it was for many others no doubt so we did object to being told we didn’t know what it was all about as we’d been there albeit some years previously and knew about FA Cup qualifying rounds and FA trophy ties.It’ll all be different from next season and although we’ll look back and probably romanticise the first 7 years(remember when Uxbridge did us a favour and knocked us out of the Trophy in the pissing rain? and such like)it feels like we’re back as a club. Charlie Koppel, Sam Hamman, various Norwegians, MK scum, you tried to kill us and make us watch Fulham but we refused.Wise men say etc……….

Source: