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18 Feb 2012

Woking 1 Dartford 0

A top of the table clash in blue Square south meant a choice of game today was easy with Brentford not playing till monday night. Decent crowd of 2500 saw a tought game played mostly in drizzle but occasional downpours made conditions less than perfect. Woking is a nice place to watch a game. Entry is 12£, food is decent, certainly echelons above the rubbish served at Brentford. The last time I saw woking was the opening day of this season when they beat Sutton 5-0 at Sutton and it could have been far more, since then Woking have led the table and before todays game were 11 points clear of Dartford.

Woking scored early with a header from Trevor Inns and then mostly hung onto the lead. Dartford had a goal disaalowed for offside and contrived to miss at least 3 easy chances in the second half including missing ( well, hitting the post) when the keeper had been rounded. Both teams were actually good. Dartford played with more effort and were more physical, and maybe Woking had a little more style and skill. There would be no great surprise if Dartford also gained promotion and i would guess neither side would be the worst in the conference. The best player on the pitch was Kevin Betsy, who was making his second ( at least) debut for Woking. Good work rate, skilful. I have never been quite sure why he never made it at higher levels for any length of time and most recently was at Wycombe, maybe he is their loss?

Goal for Woking

Action Woking v Dartford

Rain at Kingfield

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged blue square south, burger, conference south, dartford, football, kingfield, rain, woking, woking v dartford | Leave a comment

10 Feb 2012

Why do Marriott hotels not give Wi-fi free? Selena Gomez

After 2 hours of an unspeakingly dreadful junior Disco, well for me not the children who shrieked their way through 2 hours of songs that bore no relationship to the term that I call music. A cold walk home. Whatever they say the temperature is it feels like minus 10. Most lower league football has been called off tomorrow so no Brentford and yet another game to re-arrange. All kind of dull really.

So todays rant must be against hotels and in particular the Marriott hotel in Leicester. This place is not cheap. In fact bed and breakfast is 149£/night. The pleasures of wi-fi are only available in the ” bar and restaurant” areas. Otherwise broadband costs 15£/night. This is roughly what virginMedia charge me for a whole month of excellent connection. They then charge 5£ for parking and there is no other option so really the overnight cost becomes £154. There finally is the option to eat in the bar area and a sandwich will cost around 8£ and a burger around 14£. These are disgraceful prices. No room was also available for me when I arrived past the check-in time to compound matters. The hotel is also souless and the staff look like a dose of ECT ar around 4000 volts might be needed. End of rant. But there again, things might get worse and they did. Do not ever be tempted to eat or stop at Newport Pagnell services. They are well beyond awful. Sausages and mash, served to me who eats football ground fare , were appalling, served on a cold plate, the food looked like it might have been cooked this week, possibly. A dreadful waste of 7£. I make all these points and for me the cost is borne by my employer, but I would never spend my own money at either of these two establishmnets again. No camera with me so an old photo to keep you going today. So to finish the evening some music from one of my more unexpected artists, Selena Gomez. Very underated.

Even the heat of a candle is welcome tonight

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged burger, football, leicester, marriott hotels, music, newport pagnell, sausages, selena gomez, services, snow, wi-fi | Leave a comment

28 Jan 2012

Brentford 5 Wycombe 2

Before today this season Brentford had played 27 games and had scored 33 goals. Not impressive and performances have not been scintillating. If one then excludes the first home game a 5-0 win over hapless Yoevil that comes down to 26 games and 28 goals. So before todays game most Bees fans would take scrappy 1-0 win. The reality was very different. From the word go it was clear that Wycombe were defensively the worst team seen at Griffin Park this season by a stretch. Brentford romped into a 3-0 lead by half time by playing really just average football. Decent running, passing and finishing in the box. Wycombe got a goal with almost the first touch of the second half, which some felt should have been disallowed for offside, including the linesman who had his flag up, but it seems overruled by the referee the goal stood. But Brentford carried on and in the end won easily with Gary Alexander scoring a decent hat-trick. his third goal a volley from an angle from a cross, needs to be viewed on BBC tonight. A decent bet on relegation for wycombe seems reasonable and a side bet that they will end up having conceded more goals than any other league 1 club is also on the cards. As we look tonight Wycombe are bottom having conceded 54 goals whereas Walsall who sit in the first place of safety 5th bottom have let in only 33 goals. Story told. One has to feel for Nikki Bull the ex-Bees keeper now at wycombe who posts on Twitter regularly. Tonight he reports being very low and shellshocked. The wycombe team and subs in fact included 5 ex-Bees, so maybe a learning to them.

Gary Alexander earlier this season with new headgear

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged alexander, brentford, brentfordfc, football, gary alexander, griffin park, league 1, wycombe, wycombe wanderers | Leave a comment

18 Jan 2012

Carshalton Athletic 3 Lincoln City 1

Without doubt one of the best games I have seen this season. Not the most exciting nor skilful but the workrate and belief of the Carshalton players that they could beat Lincoln from the Conference was there from the start. Lets be frank, Lincoln were appalling. Little or no skill and little perhaps none desire to win the game. The Ryman Premier league table will tell you that Carshalton are not the best side, a sort of mid-table berth but with a few bad results of late. Yet watching them one would imagine that they were Blue Square south level. They battled, they defended well and in fact nick Hamann their keeper did not make a save all night. All their goals were good. Paul Vines must be man of the match as he scored all of them and the thrid goal was an exquisite finish from a one on one. I am not sure where David Holdsworth can go from here. His players are either very poor or very disinterested, and tonight a cocktail of both.

The crowd of 488 was good and about double the recent home gates. The away support from lincoln was quiet and would fill a small minibus. This however was Carshalton’s night and they fully deserved it. In the next round they are away to either Newport county or Worksop and i would not bet against them winning that too. Highlights of the game? Josh Gowlings hair, David Holdsworth expressions, the look of absolute horror on the faces of the Lincoln city directors sitting in the back of the small main stand. They must wonder what next. Maybe I can give them some advice. Find 11 players who want to play football, put in 90 minutes of effort and play for the club. This is one night I am glad to be a Brentford fan and not a Lincoln city fan.

One exception and that is Josh Gowling. One notices him by the hair. He came on as a late secons half substitute but put more work in in a few minutes than most team mates had all game. He also played with a smile on his face, and he apologised to the away fans gathering like a small pack of vultures near the tunnel at the end when the players departed.

Action

Carshalton Attack as they did most of the game

Action

David Holdsworth, Lincoln city Manager

Carshalton attack

Striking for goal

Joe Anyon beaten by Paul vines penalty

The rustic surroundings of Carshalton

Consolation goal for Lincoln

shellshocked Lincoln directors and chairman

Paul Vines

Paul vines

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged carshalton, carshalton fc, FA, FA trophy, football, josh gowling, lincoln city fc, lincoln fc, murder, newport, paul vines, ryman league, worksop | Leave a comment

16 Jan 2012

1 Comment

Darlington Football Club RIP

What has happened at Darlington is tragic. I have always followed Darlington by default as until recently they often sat in the same league as my team Brentford. They had a perfectly good small league 2 ground that held at least 10,000 is my estimate. They then were built a huge ground seating 25,000 just off the A66 sort of in the middle of nowehere, decent stadium for sure, but never needed. Now it seems they will go into liquidation and at best emerge a few leagues below, with or without their huge ground. Tragedy and travesty. The last time I was at Darlington it was a happy day, Brentford won 3-0 to win promotion to league 1 a few years ago. Football needs to look at its soul. So much money goes into the top end that folks forget the real end. even today there are plenty of premiership footballers, not all even in the first-team, whose single salary for 2011-12 season would be enough to save Darlington. although recent crowds have been maybe less than 2,000, the original fan base in their old stadium Feethams, was around 4-5,000. These people deserve a football team and one can only hope that a pheonix club arises from the ashes in the manner that Chester city are also doing. There is little more to say than this is a really sad day .

For anyone who is interested here are photos of Feethams, Feethams after being disused and the new stadium. If anyone would like copies of any of these photos then contact me at

beesbeesbees@blueyonder.co.uk

Or have a look on my football website www.footballgroundz.co.uk

Main stand at Feethams in the old days

The other stand at Feethams

Feethams Disused

Feethams

New ground. The away end

New Ground

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged A 66, darlington, darlington fc, feethams, football, football club, premier league, UK

14 Jan 2012

Brentford 0 Walsall 0

This was the definition of a no-score draw on a cold day. Perhaps the only excitement for Brentford fans was the appearance of Simon moore in goal who made a great save and looked a n accomplished keeper. Otherwise awful. Team selection looked like it was done with a roulette wheel but the consistent result was that all the players signed by Uwe Rosler are worse than those departing. A very boring afternoon indeed.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged brentford, draw, football, walsall | Leave a comment

07 Jan 2012

Tooting and Mitcham 4 Billericay 2 Glenn Poole

Billericay slumped to only their fourth league defeat of the season with Tooting scoring 3 second half goals. At half time with Billericay leading 2-1 , despite tooting having taken the lead it seemed normal service was resumed in the Billlericay march to promotion. The billericay side were a big side in all ways, with comments coming from the Tooting fans along the lines of ” well at least your stomach was offside”. And tooting were mostly blown away in the first half. The second half was vastly different. Tooting played the football on the ground, certainly had the luck but just about deserved the win. I went to see Glen Poole play. He had a quiet game and was substituted midway in the second half. If I was a betting man I would still bet on Billericay to get promotion, maybe via the play-offs at worst . If I were Tooting, I may be looking for a new goalkeeper.

Billericay come close. This one was headed off the line

Handbags at two paces lead to yellow cards

Billericay defend

Glenn Poole

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged billericay, football, glenn poole, goals, tooting, tooting and mitcham fc | Leave a comment

10 Dec 2011

Brentford 2 Hartlepool 1

At last something to make the football part of the brain feel better. Last week Brentford against Wrexham were shameful frankly. Hence I refused to go to Barnet making my personal and quiet protest. Today was different. For 80 minutes this was a real 0-0 game and then suddently the last 10 minutes exploded making one wonder why this might not have happened in the first 10 minutes. Brentford got a lucky goal in that a decent lob should have been caught by the keeper but it seemed to drift over his head and into the net. 30 seconds later Hartlepool equlaised with a low shot from outside the box that maybe the keeper was slow going down to, but i would like to see that again. then another 30 seconds later a penalty for Brentford which Gary Alexander took, not a great penalty, was saved but the rebound came back to him and he pushed it into the net for 2-1. but this 10 minutes was frantic end to end stuff and more than made up the preceeding 80 minutes.