Crisp and Even

I hesitate to use the word 'crisp' in this posting but I needed something to typify the Walkers stadium and the fact that we suffered yet another draw against The Foxes. I use the word 'suffered' rather than any positive slant on the phrase like 'earned' or 'achieved' because it's the shared honours that has done most to frustrate our survival this season. Sixteen draws.
If only ...

Listening to the radio commentary I was full of hope until the commentator's curse reminded us in the 89th minute that we have a tendency to blow it late in the game. Well, it only took aout 30 seconds for that prophecy to come true. If league tables really do change in the middle of matches then for around 17 minutes we were off the bottom. The reality of it all of course is that we are heading full tilt towards a final day showdown at Scunthorpe where the loser rather perversely will be remembered more than the winner - hopefully.

In the meantime there are two final home matches in which we have the chance to reverse the results from the respective away games. I'm trying to put a positive spin on things here. The point is that every game provides a reason for wanting to win. In the case of the Ipswich game recently there wasn't any need for statistics. It was just the fact that we always need to beat them. Just in case the tractor boys across the border want to go on about the home win earlier in the season let's add it all up and show that in both our Championship seasons were have beaten them on aggregate - both times on away goals!

Oh, and just in case anyone's listening to this blog, here's a snippet from the end of match celebrations at the Ipswich game. This is what it's like when we win!

Reserves

Popped into the ground on Wednesday afternoon and caught the second half of the U's Reserves against MK Dons. Quite a spooky atmosphere with a crowd of around 50. Most of the noise was from the players themselves and you could hear every word out there on the green baize. It occurred to me that this game was a warm up for the first team encounter next season - especially now that it's official we are stepping down.

The lads came alive in the second half and won by a significant 4-2 margin. Some fine keeping by Cousins too. Seven of the U’s have first team experience in the Championship. It will be interesting to see which players from both teams are lining up against each other next season in League One. So, for the record (and I don't think you'll find this information in one place anywhere else on the web), the line ups were:

Colchester United Reserves:
Cousins, Speed, Balogh, Hammond, Nelson, McLeod, Guttridge, Watson, Wordsworth, Guy, Webb
Subs: Quintyn for Guy, Griffiths for Speed - Unused: Smelt, Oakley, Olusanya
Goalscorers: Guy (3), Guttridge

MK Dons Rerserves:
Fox, King, Collins, Shuter, Thorne, Flannighan, Farden, Delderfield, Powell, Ashraff, Roles
Subs: Dowling for Farden - Unused: Heald
Goalscorers: Powell, Ashraff

I’m glad I was there, I witnessed Kevin Watson challenging and winning a header. I’m sure it happened. At least I’m reasonably sure it happened. I might have been distracted at the time by a movement of a large proportion of the crowd (6 of them) from the Tiptree stand towards the Layer Road terraces.

I got the feeling that a lot of the people at the game wondered what they were doing here. I think most of them were secretly eyeing up potential salvage items. Working out what size of screwdriver to bring to the last game to loosen the seats. I hope no-one brings any WD40 along. The rust is just about the only thing keeping the stadium together.

Match 21 - Ipswich

There's been a lot of chat in the last week about season ticket prices. That's not really what I want to talk about here, except to say that perhaps we should pay for our tickets AFTER each match, and based on the result and team performance. In this case I would gladly have paid treble the normal price for the display we were given today.
All sing: "Oh what fun it was to see, Ipswich lose away".

It reminded me of last season when we felt invincible at home. What's more, a clean sheet for the second time this season. It's still more than 50 years since the tractor boys won at Layer Road (and they'll never do it again!). The biggest crowd of the season saw arguably the most important result. I can accept relegation, based on results over the whole season, but what I couldn't accept is losing to Ipswich twice in one campaign. The lads didn't disappoint me.

A solid and experienced central defensive display meant the full backs and keeper could get on with their jobs. The forwards played together, linked up and continually threatened the Ipswich end. Midfield bridged the gap and generally frustrated attempts to build against us. I had to admit today that we have a half decent team at last. Mind you, I'll stick with 'half' decent for now. Given time they could become a fully decent team. At last there's something worth building on.

It was significant for me today that several injuries showed where the weaknesses have been at times over the season. Did we miss Virgo and Platt? Not at all. Did we yearn for Sheringham? Not at all. That was an interesting diversion in the first half of the season and it might have come off, but sadly it didn't really work. It's ironic that Teddy was meant to draw in bigger crowds, and maybe draw some more players in our direction. Well we did get a lot of draws, but we needed wins. Did we need to use our substitutes today? Not at all. We didn't last season either, when incidentally we slaughtered the Suffolk side 1-0.

What was especially pleasing was that the majority of the crowd stayed to applaud the team off the pitch. Even better was the response of the travelling fans to the Ipswich team as they walked towards them to thank them for coming along - they didn't boo them, or jeer at their players, they just waved them away, ... priceless!

Talking of priceless, in our section today we got to discussing what parts of the ground we might want to salvage as souvenirs of Layer Road after the last match of the season. It didn't take long to decide that there probably isn't anything material worth having. What you can't put a price on, or replace, are the memories of beating Ipswich here twice in two years - and they couldn't get a goal past us in either of those two encounters.

Let's hope there's good news in the coming week about some realistic ticket prices for next season. (Oops, sorry, I said I didn't want to mention those!)