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Willand Rovers vs Bristol Manor Farm, Southern league South Div 1

Feisty and thoroughly enjoyable game which stayed just the right side of fair/legal at Willand’s Silver Street ground. BMF made all the running and missed some very presentable chances in the first 20 minutes with the closest being an acrobatic scissor kick which smacked off the crossbar. On 20 mins the home side took the lead with a goal out of nothing when a throw in from the left was carried forward and fed to ex MF striker Owen Howe, the MF defence considerately evaporated and Howe was left with a one on one with MF keeper which he duly buried. MF continued to create and pass up good chances so 1-0 to Rovers at the break. On the walk back to the dressing room, MF manager Lee Lashenko decided to unleash a torrent of rage at the ref for God only knows what and was rightfully shown a straight red for his troubles. Lashenko is a volatile lower leagues crackpot who had a 12 game touchline ban 2 years ago also for haranguing a ref and has clearly learned nothing from the experience. The ref did extremely well to stand his ground and not be overawed by the rant directed at him.

Second half started in similar vein to the first but a rare Willand break ended with pacy winger Dorothy scythed down on the edge of the box and any benefit of the doubt was only ever going to be shown to Willand after Lashenko’s tantrum. Howe duly despatched the resulting spot kick to give Rovers a two nil lead. Manor Farm rang the changes and switched to 4 up front In order to salvage something from the game. With 10 minutes to go big centre forward Dylan Tate latched onto a through ball and tucked a fine finish into the bottom right corner. Manor Farm threw the kitchen sink at Willand after that and just when it looked like the sands of time had run out for them Tate produced an exquisite finish from about 25 yards out into the top right corner to earn the visitors a deserved point.

Att 171. Admittance £10 (£8 concessions), on line programme only, £3 for decent pasty , £1 bargain ham and tomato roll £1.50 for a tea.

I didn’t think Silver Street was up to much with a hotch potch collection of small stands down one side and a roofed flat terrace behind one goal. My WHU friend liked it more than I did - mainly for the club house which is admittedly quite nice.

Enjoyable evening out in perfect weather for football - clear and barely a whisper of breeze if a touch fresh.

I would be very surprised if he didn’t Epping as previous behaviour should be taken into account. I genuinely couldn’t see why he was so upset - no obvious contentious decision and the ref was one of the better ones I’ve seen at that level. It’s a shame he is such a lunatic as he is a good manager. You don’t stay at one place for over 10 yrs without being good at your job. His current side play nice attacking football too with some good players for the league they are in.

Have to say that as a supporter I am no angel when it comes to yelling at refs, especially when they make an obvious error that could cost us the game. I’ll also try to get into the head of the lino nearest me to get a bit of an edge with decisions. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. As manager of a football club I do think a higher standard applies so they have to be a little bit better than us numpties on the terrace

I think in my younger days I would have been as guilty as anyone for abusing officials. I do remember chasing a lino round the pitch berating him at Braintree after a very controversial penalty was given against Rovers! But now I just find this sort of behaviour childish and embarrassing. Perhaps it's because I watch my football as a 'neutral' now. I don't get angry, aggressive, aggrieved. I just enjoy the football, ticking off new grounds... 
And as you say, managers should be held to a much higher account. Hence my revulsion at the hiring of Barton and the way he conducted himself.
That was the straw that broke the camels back with me. A year ago exactly. I've not gone back.

Oh and Ross Joyce the head of the clown school of refereeing deserves all the verbal abuse he gets because he is terrible and thinks the game is all about him

Dangerously close to paths crossing... I was 8 miles away in Bermondsey. Match report to follow...

Evesham United vs Malvern Town - Southern League Div 1 South at the Spiers and Hartwell stadium

Mediocre local derby with a very mundane first half with almost no talking points save for a disallowed offside goal for each sides. Both decisions looked pretty clear cut and were not contested by either side. Second half was an improvement and Malvern had a 10 minute purple patch just after the break when they scored twice in quick succession. Both goals came from the left hand side. First one was a good left foot finish into top left corner, second was s good finish into bottom right corner. After that Malvern were content to soak up Evesham pressure and hit them on the break. Home side created 3 decent chances leading to one routine and one decent save and a goal line clearance. Malvern were increasingly sitting deep but saw out the game with relative ease aside from the above chances. The main talking point came on 90 minutes. Ref awarded a free kick to Malvern and an Evesham sub runs in and boots the Malvern man to the ground off the ball and whilst his back is turned. It was the easiest red card you’ll ever see, but ref who had done well up to that point decides this piece of violent conduct was only worthy of a yellow. Final score 2-0 to Malvern which flattered them more than a bit. They were clinical in front of goal and defended slightly better than Evesham who will feel hard done by to take nothing from the game

Admittance £10 (£7 concessions), £3 for a sausage bap and £1.30 for a tea. £2 for a good printed programme which was deceptively thick because it is a double programme for this game and Evesham’s game against Willand. Ground is not up to much but is spacious and could be expanded. One decent seated stand along one side, covered terrace behind one goal and uncovered behind the other. Att an impressive 375. Evesham used their blue away kit again tonight but we clocked this unlike last week’s game at Thatcham

White Ensign 1 Benfleet 0 (Essex Senior League, tier 9).

Long trip to Great Wakering (north east of Southend) along the A127. White Ensign were formed in 1951, and are named after the British naval ensign of the same name, which is incorporated into the club's badge (wiki). They were all in red, vs Benfleet in light blue shirt, blue shorts. Sort of a local derby. One of those grounds where you go in through the turnstiles, but then have to exit again to get to the Clubhouse. White Ensign share with Great Wakering Rovers, who are also in the same league. As you enter there is a small covered stand to the right and a small covered terrace to the left where the dugouts are. Not a lot of cover, but no rain forecast. Very overcast.Felt a lot colder than the predicted 14c. Grass pitch in decent condition. 2pm kick off for no apparent reason.

1st half was only just under way when two players went up for a header, the Benfleet No.14 (Allen) caught Ensign defender (Legg) No.16 with his elbow. Not malicious. But Legg punched him in the face and a melee ensued. Fair play to Legg, he didn't make a meal of it. In the premiersh1t he would have gone down clutching his face and writhing in agony. He got straight up. Yellow card for Allen, red card for Legg. No dispute from either side. Details from the incident supplied by Legg's Dad, who my nephew was talking to later. Also according to my nephew the Ensign manager has a bit of a reputation for mouthing off. To be fair he didn't, even at the early sending off. 10 man Ensign put in a good shift for the remainder of the half and it didn't look like they were a man down. HT and out the turnstiles to the Clubhouse. A bit odd the bar. No sign of any Great Wakering Rovers or White Ensign memorabilia. No queue though, and that's important.
Second half surely Benfleet would make the extra man count. Around the 50 minute mark Ensign worked it down their right, decent ball into the box, and headed firmly home by No.4 Stevens-Brown. Game on. Rather than sit on their lead, 10 man Ensign continued to take the game to Benfleet. But Benfleet began to dominate as the game went on. All a bit rushed though, almost panicking with plenty of time to go. Hurried passes went straight off the pitch, long balls were comfortably dealt with by Ensign defence. Benfleet No.7 was probably their best player. Also comfortably the most frustrated, berating the management for substitutions made. He did provide the best moment of quality though - shooting from about 30 yards out, keeper well beaten, the ball smacking the upright. This reflected the rest of the game. Benfleet getting close, but not getting the goal they deserved. They were just not clinical enough in the final third. Last ditch tackles, balls flying over the bar, keeper making some decent saves. Ensign didn't tire. Benfleet probably could have done more to stretch the defence, but didn't use the flanks enough. All a bit narrow. The referee played a good 7-8 minutes of injury time for no apparent reason. Maybe he thought Benfleet deserved an equalizer. It never came. A feisty encounter that the officials did well to keep under control.

Entry: £10. That's a bit cheeky for the ESL. No paper programme (on-line available). 2 pints of Cruzcampo £10.
Attendance. Estimate 60-70. Will update later. Southend were hosting Charlton in the FA Cup, maybe that made a dent in the crowd.

International double header today across the bridge:

Pt1 -Baglan Dragons vs Newport City - Cymru South at the Evans Bevans playing fields sandwiched between the M4 and the main Cardiff to Swansea railway line. The ground isn’t much to write home about with two small seated stands on one side and a small but hospitable clubhouse. The club itself is very friendly to the point that the locals there offered to buy me a pint knowing I was from out of town. This is their second season at this level having been formed around the turn of the millennium.

The game was a reasonable watch between two mid-table teams with the second half better than the first. Dragons took the lead on 20 mins when Newport keeper had a moment he will want to forget and allowed home forward to nick the ball off him with a nutmeg and then roll it into an empty net. Dragons were the better side throughout and were bright going forward without really having much cutting edge. They were made to pay for this 5 mins from the interval when a break down the left ended with the ball at the feet of an unmarked midfielder who made no mistake.

Second half saw more goalmouth action and a couple of pinball moments for both sides which ultimately came to nothing through some dogged defending. Dragons restored their lead on the hour mark with a simple but effective goal. A quick ball down the left was knocked out of play and the resulting long throw was nodded on and then glanced over city keeper into top corner. They continued to have the better possession again without creating much and in added on time switched off and threw away 2 points. Quick break out of defence, right back outpaced and a deep cross which looked to be a poor one was rescued by City right winger and recycled. His cross was also poor but was hooked into the net by City CH from behind himself to give the visitors a point they did not deserve. Ref was very poor though for both teams dishing out more cards than Clinton’s - seemingly for every foul despite there not being a single bad challenge in the game.

Entrance a bargain £3. No programme either on line or paper. £2.50 for a decent meat pie (the club really need to get a pie oven as microwaved pies are a food crime) and £1.50 for a tea. Att 94. A club I wish well despite their horrible coloured home shirts

November 9th. FC Eisenhuttenstadt 3 Eintracht Miersdorf 1. (Landesliga Süd Brandenburg, Tier 7).
Cheap flight at a civilsed hour to Berlin, FEX to Ostkreuz, train to Frankfurt an der Oder, pop over the border for a beer in Poland, pick up train to Eisenhuttenstadt. Well, that was the plan. But was hopelessly lost trying to walk to the Polish border. Bahnofstrasse and Karl Marx Strasse, they are in Frankfurt, they are here - all looked good. Why were there no signs for Stubice (Poland)? People I asked looked confused. Eventually I showed google maps to a helpful German. "But you are in Furstenwalde, 30km from Poland. You need to get a train". As we Bristolians say, I felt like a "s**thead". Or a "sheisskopf" in this instance. Having alighted at the correct station, visited Poland, jumped back on the train and checked into the hotel in Eisenhuttentstadt for 8pm. Why Eisenhuttenstadt? They were members of the utterly bizarre DDR Oberliga, having got to the giddy heights of European football - playing Galatasaray in 1992 in the Cup winners Cup. (See a book called "The Turning Season" by Michael Wagg.) Formerly called Stalinstadt it was a 'new town' built in 1950 and housed a huge steel works. A very odd town. A huge dual carriageway runs through the centre of town. I think for Communist parades as a 'show of strength'. There is no traffic. There is very little sign of life anywhere. No bars. Very few shops apart from car dealerships and a barren modern outdoor complex. A little bit of the old DDR. Anyway, hotel was a 30 minute walk from the station. The stadium just a further 5 minutes away. 2pm kick off the next day.
The ground is just south of the steel works, now much smaller than in their heyday, and now owned by Arcellor. Not a lot of activity. The Sportanlagen Waldstraße has obviously seen better days. Crumbling terraces and a stand that was roped off. Boarded up buildings. All looked a bit sad. A trickle of people headed past the stadium to their current pitch. More crumbling terraces, just a lot smaller in size, trees surrounding the pitch. No cover anywhere. It was very cold, 3-4c with a breeze from the Polish border. It must be incredibly bleak mid-winter. A small pop-up beer & bratwurst van raised the spirits. Miersdorf are top, Eisenhuttenstadt mid-table. Miersdorf looked good in pre-game training. Eisenhuttenstadt did some poorly executed 'keepy uppy' and some stretching. Eisen in red, Miersdorf in white shirts, black shorts. An even opening 10 minutes or so. Eisen pressure led to a corner, delivered straight into the side netting. Oh dear. 5 minutes later the same player (No7) put a perfectly delivered corner into the box and it was firmly headed home unopposed (Seliger). Eisen celebrated like they'd just won the cup. Another 5 mins later an Eisen break, the forward Seelisch missed his footing, nearly fell over, the keeper came out rashly, and the ball was prodded home. More celebrations! Just before HT an Eisen corner and a carbon copy of the first goal TOR! (Kruger this time) 3-0.
HT Bratwurst und bier. Cheap and good. 2nd half Miersdorf looked the better side. Eisen resorting to plenty of 'row Z' clearances, but held firm. With time running out, and light fading, a decent move down the Miersdorf right, good cross, and headed home by the impressive No17 (Paul). More pressure, but too little too late. Eisen running out (just about) worthy winners. Disappointed by the lack of a shop and any merch, I asked a steward if he could help, luckily he spoke a bit of English. (Very few people spoke any English, my German is sub optimal). He gave me a lift in the Club minibus to the boarded up shop at the Sportanlagen Waldstraße, he opened it up, and I walked out with a couple of branded glasses and pendants. I wished him and Eisen good luck.
Could be some time before they play Galatasary again though.

Entry: 3 Euros. No programme, paper or otherwise. 3 biers, 9 Euros. 1 bratwurst, 2.5 Euros. It was a good, cheap, but very cold afternoon.
Attendance: Estimate 60-75.