WUPBlog

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:

It took less than three minutes for the first act of simulation to take place, and with a different referee perhaps could have earned poor Louis Riddle a caution. I was expecting some theatrics from the Trumptonites today, but didn’t expect to have to make a note of it so quickly. I made more notes on this particular game than most Dons reports I write; so interesting were some of the goings on at the Beveree this afternoon.

Lets just say I wasn’t going that far out of my way to see one of our title rivals this afternoon. Lack of Oyster card meant I had to travel by train, leaving my house at 2.10pm and arriving at Beaver Central twenty minutes before kick-off. It gave me a chance to flick through their programme, noting that they gave up half a page to their chaplain and thinking of the outrage caused if we ever did the same.

Dodgy pitch!

It also gave me time aplenty to take a close up look at the notorious pitch. It looks patchy in places, and they’ve obviously let it grow in the corners, but apart from the goalmouths it doesn’t look too bad. However I’ll admit its probably worse if you had to run across it… all the same I’m not sure what a club like Trumpton could really do about it (if they wanted, the pitch is an obvious advantage considering their playing style).

On to the game, and the aforementioned gamesmanship by Keiran Knight led to a scrappy opening period, Hampton slightly on top, Braintree frequently losing possession due to the isolation of Gareth Williams and the static nature of his strike partner Danny Hockton. Despite this, the first half chance fell to Braintree’s Ryan Moran, his header blocked by the unwitting head of a Hampton player, falling safely to Lovett. The goalkeeper launched a huge ball downfield starting a promising break, brilliantly intercepted by Riddle, who sadly had to limp off before the half was out.

A rare first half pic of Braintree near the Hampton goal

Around ten minutes in, here we go again, a Hampton player goes down and stays there following a collision and ten players and the bench are at the referee in unison. Mr Young was having none of it, shouting clearly ‘Nothing there!’. John Scarborough went a bit too far and the official had a word. Of course this behaviour went on for the rest of the half. Nothing was too innocuous to stop Devonshire getting to his feet. Before the game I heard an older lady walking past me say she ‘stands by the dugout to hear Alan Devonshire swear’. They’re all evil at that place, evil I say!

Hampton took control from the half hour onwards. From one of McDonalds immense throws Hodges went close (before he too limped off replaced by Badoo), then a great run down the right flank by Harper saw his cross headed over at the far post by Francis Quarm. The goal was not long in coming though, volleyed in by Dean Wells in a similar situation to Alan Inns effort on Friday, minus the desperate defender on the line (minus any defenders in fact). The second came before half time; Knights mishit shot found its way through to Badoo, who stabbed the ball literally through Craig Holloway (or so it appeared where I was standing!). There was still time for Matthews to hit the post for Hampton after the ball fell to him following a spell of head tennis.

Stand?

Half time and Braintree looked a beaten team, which gave me 15 minutes to inspect the ‘new stand’. Its been dismantled and reassembled here after another club didn’t require its use any more, and it looks like it hasn’t been put together properly! Make sure you double check your tickets if your in the seating area as one section of seats featured Rows H, B, B and F! It was seriously wobbly with just me, heavy as I am, standing on it, there might need to be some kind of weight limit introduced for Dons fans next week!

Bought it off Ebay

The second half started much like the first, only featuring much fewer chances, making the game less of whatever spectacle it had been in the first half. Knight blazed over when clear down the right channel, and a corner headed goalwards was calmly headed away on the line by a Braintree defender. Which gave plenty of time for admiring my surroundings. A downpour had forced myself and a dozen or so Braintree fans into the new stand, and from the walkie talkies of two stewards could be heard ‘can you ask the people standing to sit down please?’ to huge guffaws from the travelling support as none of the seats in that section really looked that safe to sit on!

Spot the pitch

Apparently the temporary stand is only there until they get planning permission for a permanent structure that they will only build if they get promoted (this was an overhead conversation between two stewards who spent the rest of the half talking about Chelsea). I’m not sure what the rules are but it sounds like they have skirted them a bit, not that I blame them; Erik has said time and again we won’t spend money on large developments unless we have to.

Waiting for the ball to come down

With about a quarter hour to go, Braintree unexpectedly sprung to life. Gareth Williams (nicknamed Ginge by team-mates despite fellow redhead Chris Piper now being on the field) managed to wriggle past two defenders into the six-yard box before seeing his shot blocked. Then Billy Burgess got on the end of a free kick, his flicked header sailing wide. Braintree sensed blood and gave it everything on the slippery surface, but nothing was going their way.

Until Mickey Shinn picked the ball up thirty yards out, unleashed a low drive that beat Lovett all too easily, seeing the ball cannon off the post, hitting the rotund shot stoppers back before trickling over the line. The P.A. Announcer gave the goal to Shinn, perhaps only to spare Lovett’s embarrassment following his tame effort to save, but Shinn deserved his goal. He didn’t stop working for Braintree all afternoon and was perhaps the best player on the field.

Lovett on the other hand, is perhaps the biggest pain in the backside I’ve ever seen grace the wonderful position of goalkeeper. He spent the whole first half telling his bench (and thus the entire ground) that all the balls were ‘fucking flat’. He abused a linesman while taking a free kick, telling him he was in line with him despite clearly being ten yards in front of where the exasperated official was standing. Towards the end he started his party trick of letting through balls run to him, standing over it with his hands inches from the ball, waiting for the very last moment until the striker bore down on him before fielding the ball. Now during my playing days this tactic was called ‘running the clock’ and was a great way of eating up time when holding on to a lead. When Lovett does it he just looks an idiot…

Lovett also likes a bit of the rough stuff apparently. After colliding with the smallest player on the pitch, Lee Burns, he calmed tempers by calling him a ‘fucking midget’. He then bravely stood up to the Braintree man when Burns quite rightly questioned him about this, seconds after the final whistle. Lovett obviously hasn’t learned that picking out physical differences in opposition players doesn’t sit well when you have bloody great man boobs yourself.

All in Hampton probably deserved their win, a few Braintree players didn’t turn up for long periods of the game and when it finally clicked for them it was too little too late. Hampton will undoubtedly up their game next Saturday, but it could be academic by then, a defeat to Hayes and Yeading on Monday coupled with a Dons win will end their title hopes. Here’s hoping.

After a turgid display at St Albans where we couldn’t manage a shot on target during 90 minutes,  Terry Brown has given us a timely shot in the arm by signing Kezie Ibe, who of course scored the winner for Ch£lmsford at Kingsmeadow last season after coming off the bench. Let’s hope he can perform similar feats for the Dons and help drag us out of the mini slump we find ourselves in. Wimbledon have enjoyed a certain tradition of effective black forwards in the past and whilst nobody would question the positions of Main and Kedwell, it’s great to have another option at this stage, which might just be enough to kick us out of the recent malaise. Looking at his recent goalscoring record, it hasn’t got near to the strike rate he achieved whilst at Staines but he could well prove to be the player for the big occasion, and we have eight big occasions remaining which all seem to have the “cup final” factor about them!

Victory in our next two home matches would surely leave Hampton with an uphill task. It remains to be seen if latest midfield recruit Rob Saunders can be the missing catalyst in a position which some have identified as our weakest/most unsettled area all season. One thing is certain, whatever the final outcome of the season, changes in the engine room will be forthcoming. Just as DeBolla, Ferguson and Co. were jettisoned unceremoniously directly after securing our elevated status, Finn, Davis et al should be looking over their shoulders right about now.

It seems strange to talk of “problem areas” when you sit six points clear at the top of the league, in a season which has generally surpassed expectations, but such is the frenzied fascination we as a fanbase have, analysing the every move of both management and playing staff alike. Even stranger to use words like “slump” and “malaise” when we haven’t actually lost a game in ages! The truth is, we should have made 3 points safe early doors at Weston and didn’t, but travelling Dons did get the feeling that Pullen’s penalty save might be viewed later as a crucial factor in the title race.

Hampton are only going to benefit financially from the current tense table standings, with nervous Dons fans swelling their modest attendances. It’s a win win situation for them and for as long as their results hoodoo remains over us, the tension and pressure are all on our side.

Whilst namechecking the Beavers, I noted recently that a capacity online audience availed themselves of the online interactive matchday experience at www.wimbledonstadium.com on the occasion of their home match versus Newport. Can you imagine, 215 people “tuning in” for a non league match not involving their own team!

I’ve seen it written on many an opposition forum that the interactive online stadium and it’s associated Radio WDON commentary are  the envy of others and way above the normal provision of updates for non league (and some league) fans unable to attend the game. As someone who has only been able to scrape into double figures for physical match attendance this season, I’d like to say how grateful I am for this fantastic service, and to it’s creator Mike Arrowsmith – if there isn’t some sort of accolade heading your way come the end of the season, then there should be! You have given the exiles a platform to gather together and share the collective joys and frustrations of supporting the Dons, and offered an experience which really is second only to “being there”. I’d also like to thank Mikey T and Geoff Hawley for their sterling work in relaying the action and making sure we never miss a kick. To all the freeloaders out there, it really is more than worth a fiver for the virtual season ticket over the course of a season!It’s worth more than that just to be a part of the remaining fixtures of this season

Finally for now, we’ve been asked what the deadline is for the next WUP. The answer to that is, shower us with your submissions starting now, and we’ll be in a position to know when an issue launch is most viable!

Come on Dons, settle our blood pressure’s* presure down a bit today, please!

*Thank you Sally for the comment

One would argue that merging two distinct and proud Clubs would like to a large proud Club, correct? Not a chance. We have seen the Hayes & Not Yeding already this season and now we’ve been to Havant & Not Waterlooville. What a shame that 90 years of history gets gobbled up by the money men to feed their cruel hunger for a “redevelopment opportunity”. Next Dorchester & Weymouth?

Well, the day started with delays for those travelling via Clapham Junction as someone decided that it was a good idea to do a Superman impression and stop the express from Waterloo to Bournemouth. Sad and selfish, if you ask me.

The teams came out as we walked through the turnstiles and found out that programmes were sold out a good while earlier. Had they told the WUP that arrangements were to be of a Disney character type, we could have knocked a few extras for them. Most people expected us to have 1,000 travelling fans there and the estimation seemed to be just about right. We heard many of our supporters say that the queues for the bogs and burgers (don’t know if they were separate or the same) were very long so people were deciding to give it a miss. The burgers, I suppose.

The game was just that: a 0-0 draw. Neither team had the edge, neither team threatened with any incisiveness and neither team can claim an advantage. The bloke doing the Paul Ince impression wearing a head bandage did most of the work all day. Clearance after clearance, their defence seemed to have the measure of Terry Brown’s new found love for the long game. Tony Finn huffed and puffed but bring the back 4 line down. Godfrey tried on the right and also failed. Once he had a good chance when he controlled the ball, passed the defender, but the ensuing bobble ricocheted the ball out of play. I only remember the keeper making on save in the second half. A good attempt by Leberl from 20 yards out.

Good points: no apparent injuries Bad points: we look knackered – again.

Moment of comedy: the PA announced the away crowd as 801 set a ripple of laughter around us. Similar in value to Chelmsford’s 800 estimation when we played them earlies this season at Melbourne Park. For these people, none of our supporters entered via their side of the turnstiles or were sitting in the stands. Whatever fills their boots.

Excellent pre-match beer at The Old House at Home near the crossroads in the old side of town.

Our “bench warmer” has this time found the heat coming from a diferent source. Terry Brown was less then happy with Finn’s time-keeping skills, as reported in the Surrey Comet

http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/sport/4151988.Flying_Finn_is_fined_as_the_Dons_power_on/

How can a night get any better when at the chip bar the serving wench delivers a piece of comedy genius.

Paddy, myself and Bubble, queuing for some outrageously decent chips, were at the front of the queue. Paddy, being the generous lad he is, decided to fork out for two portions of chips. “two chips please”. In a superb piece of comic timing the serving wench thrusts in front of us a carton with two rather tasty looking chips. Absolute genius. She must have been waiting for that moment, but what a start to the night.

Worcester saucily came at us with gusto from the first moment. They didn’t create too many moments of real danger, but boy did they keep us from getting anywhere near their goal. I cant remember us leaving our half to be honest. Kedwell and Main looked as ineffective as they were on Saturday, whilst Worcester crashed into every player, winning the ball back and pressing us at any opportunity. Honestly, though, they never looked like scoring, their best chances would be from any mistakes but Little didn’t look like making one.

When we remembered that we could actually lose this game, we started to kick on, matched the midlanders and somehow got us a penalty. Ball in the box, Main was prevented from scoring, yellow card for defender. The keeper looked far too confident with his dancing on the line and he made a good save low to his left.

Second half Brown brought on Finn and it seemed he was playing a rather disjointed unbalanced left winger pushed forward as support for Kedwell and Main. But who needs balance when Finn caused untold damage. He was chaos for their defenders, he was a man possessed and ran around them like a dog on heat. This meant Kedwell and Main could join the game, but it was Inns who finally smashed in the first goal. We were dominant now and all the action was in front of the Tempest End. We collectively knew the goal was coming having seen chance after chance spurned. When it did come it was from a delightful corner which was saved on the goaline from (i think) Kedwell and that gave Inns the chance to rifle the ball home. Eat that. Everyone went fucking mental.

Soon after, ball down the left and Main made it two. Chaotic scenes behind the goal, bits of people flying around the place; glasses, watches, chips and mustaches all ended up where they shouldn’t have been. Crazy few minutes.

There were many chances spurned by the Dons with Main shooting after some sensational dummy twisting from the edge of the box, the ball rebounding off the post and Kedwells confused body not being able to turn correctly enough to hit it in from a yard out.

Kedwell should have scored when he was given the ball in the area in a stupid backpass. After a comedy double take he was squeezed out by some excellent defending.

Worcester are a decent side and they will trouble most sides with their high tempo pressing. But I like to think we rose to their challenge and beat them fairly. Sign of champions? Lets hope so.

Only sour note was Andy Little who injured his ankle after falling. No contact, just an unfortunate moment.

Must be said that for a midweek, Worcester fans turned up in good number and were a credit to their club.

We SOOOO got away with this one. On a beautiful afternoon (in comparison to the hideous weather we’ve endured recently) our unconvincing run continued with a very lucky win over a side who really are surprisingly struggling in the Conference South. Maybe this goes to show that if you have a couple of forwards who are prepared to work hard and take their chances, you can maintain a top position, over a solid side like Thurrock who were blunt up top.

And thats likely all the difference between the sides. An ability to take your chance when its there. Just before half time Thurrock squandered many chances in a decent spell.  Hitting over the bar and failing to connect in front of goal. Pullen scares the shit out of me, but he looks like  Oliver Kahn so that might work for us..  

They had one close call in the second half. AFCW looked disjointed without Dwane Lee, the forwards didn’t connect with the midfield and goodness knows what was happening on the left. Time after time the ball was passed out to the wing and there was nobody there. We rarely kept possession and Thurrock were getting the ball back into our defensive areas far too regularly.

To enter my book of cliches, a good manager proves himself by being able to change things. With the game looking like a comfortable 0-0 Terry made significant changes. Finn came on and caused problems. He held the ball for more than milliseconds and ran at the opposition. We started to get free kicks around the box and Sam Hatton rammed one home. What a free-kick it was. Using the wall and a cunning set of well placed deflections Sam used Pythagoras to negotiate his spherical friend over a flat footed and despairing keeper. The last part of the deflected lob was sheer perfection. If Ronaldo had done it, then we would be talking about it for weeks, but because it was Sam Hatton, it just looked like a spawny multi deflected effort.

They say you get luck when you are top, and we certainly are getting it. How fun it is, but the real luck that we seek is for Hampton & Richmond to start losing. They look ominous and I have to admit I think we are only keeping the seat warm for them.

(So, how many cliches was that????)