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.