The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Coalville Town on 31st March 2007 and v Westfields on 7th April 2007.
The
ongoing saga of one man’s season.
Wednesday
21st February – Tipton Town v Racing Club, Midland Alliance
Following our 4-0 victory over Biddulph the previous
week and given the fact that we led for most of our League Cup tie with Tipton
earlier this season, we went into this fixture with some optimism. Those of you
who have never visited Tipton’s Sports
Academy stadium may not
know that it’s an athletics stadium with a football pitch in the middle. The
pitch looks splendid; flat and reasonably grassy. However I do detest watching
my footie across an eight lane running track and, given that this is our fifth
visit to Tipton in less than eighteen months, I have to say that I’m getting
sick of the place. Another disappointing point to note is that, given their
League position, the Tipton footballing public aren’t being particularly
supportive of their team. Tonight’s official attendance of 98 must include
about 20 from Warwick.
If Racing Club were in second place we’d pull in 150 or so wouldn’t we?
The match starts in disastrous fashion for our boys
as they find themselves behind after only 6 minutes following an early goal
from Nicky “Wheel of Fortune” Campbell. Following this early upset we settled
into it and chances were few and far between for the rest of the first half.
That is until just before half-time when Tipton doubled their advantage. 2-0
down and enduring a game featuring little to hold the interest it was pretty
clear even at this point that this was not to be a happy night for Racing. To
my great surprise, with 15 minutes to go we pulled one back courtesy of another
one-on-one from Ubong who otherwise had a very quiet game. Could we pull off an
unlikely draw? Not on your life. Racing Club promptly collapsed and Tipton
turned the screw with goals in the 82nd, 85th and 86th
minutes to condemn Racing Club to a 5-1 defeat that you would never have
predicted after 80 minutes. In truth Tipton could have notched a couple more in
that final 10 minutes. We need to show a lot more backbone and resolve in
future games if we are to pull away from the dreaded drop zone.
Jose wasn’t in evidence at the Tipton match and we
learned the following day that he had decided to resign - not a great surprise
given the rumours of behind the scenes unrest over the previous couple of
weeks. For the average Racing Club supporter not in possession of the underlying
facts behind Jose’s resignation I must say that I found it somewhat bemusing.
OK so the pitch has been dreadful since the bad weather set in but that has
been the case every year at Racing Club since I’ve been coming. And Jose knew
what the budget situation was when he took the hot seat last summer so the fact
that we’ve been playing a team full of youngsters again is no surprise.
Personally I thought that Jose was doing OK in a very difficult situation but
he’s decided to walk away leaving the club in the lurch at the business end of
the season. When the going gets tough? Jose’s final record at Racing Club reads
as follows: Won 8 Drawn 7 Lost 16 Goals For 48 Goals Against 60: Not great but
not a disaster given the circumstances.
Saturday
24th February – Evesham United v Aylesbury United, Southern League Division 1 Midlands
Warwick’s
game away at Causeway bit the dust courtesy of the seemingly continuously
waterlogged pitch on the Saturday morning leaving me, not for the first time
this season, with the dilemma of which match to attend. In the end I decided to
travel to Worcester
City’s St George’s Lane to
see Evesham United in their new and hopefully temporary home take on Aylesbury
United. Robins v Ducks in the battle of the birds! Many of you will have
visited Evesham’s former Common
Road home over the years and possibly seen the
plans for Evesham’s new stadium in the club house. Well Evesham’s first team
have now vacated their Common Road
home but I’ve yet to see any evidence of the new ground taking shape. I do hope
that Evesham don’t get into the situation of being long-term wanderers looking
for their new home because whilst Worcester City is a lovely ground it’s obviously
not in Evesham and it cannot be a good situation for any club to be playing
your home games effectively at an away ground. Just ask Moor Green who,
following several arson attacks at their former Moorlands home, are now likely
to merge with their temporary landlords Solihull Borough and make the move to Damson Park
permanent. My guess at a new name for the merged outfit is SMoG…
The match was highly competitive and absorbing
throughout. Evesham, under the management of Paul West, resorted to the long
ball rather too readily and Aylesbury gradually asserted themselves, eventually
taking the lead before half time. In the second half Evesham made much greater
use of more ordinary passing and promptly scored shortly after the restart. The
Ducks however continued to look the better side and scored what I took to be
the winner on the hour mark. Credit to West’s side though as, following an
inspired substitution by the manager, super-sub Troy Wood on loan from Worcester earned his side
a share of the spoils with a second equalising goal with 10 minutes to go. Do
take the opportunity of visiting St
George’s Road if you get the chance. It’s one of
my favourite grounds in the Midlands. It feels
like a “proper” football ground and is something of a throwback to the 1950’s.
Saturday 3rd March – Buxton v Chorley, Unibond League
Division 1
Another week came and went. Racing Club’s midweek
home game was postponed due to waterlogging once again although this was no doubt
something of a relief for our new manager Bobby Hancocks as he sets about the
unenviable task of rescuing our season following Jose’s decision to throw in
the towel. For those of you who don’t go back a long way with Racing Club,
Hancocks played in Racing Club’s Midland Combination winning side of the
1980’s. Unbelievably Saturday’s scheduled game at home to Friar Lane & Epworth also gets
postponed thanks to a deluge late on Friday night. Given that Hampton Road now
seems to be permanently waterlogged I fully expect to see the Wildlife Trust
setting up a sanctuary for wildfowl any day soon as the geese and ducks will
obviously find it to their liking! I’m certainly getting plenty of
opportunities to add to my list of new grounds visited this season. Did you
know that between November 11th and March 3rd Racing Club
played a grand total of nine matches in four months? In the final eight weeks
of the season we will therefore be required to fit in nineteen games and so
it’s fingers crossed that there’ll be no player exodus following Jose out of
our club.
Anyway the opportunity to visit Buxton’s Silverlands
home is too good to miss. Managed by Nicky Law, Buxton lead Unibond League
Division 1 following their elevation last season from the North Counties East
League and look certainties for promotion again this time around. I would
thoroughly recommend a visit to Buxton which is just over 90 miles from Warwick, nestled in the
Derbyshire Dales or Peak District if you prefer. The scenery en route is
wonderful. We arrived in time to sample the delights of the local delicacy in
these parts that is pie, mushy peas and gravy, before witnessing Buxton setting
about their lowly visitors Chorley. Chorley belied their bottom two place in the table in the
first half but went in one behind at the break. The second half was another
story however as Buxton turned up the heat and Chorley
disintegrated finishing on the wrong end of a 4-0 score line. A special mention
here for a sublime performance from Buxton’s Paul Walker, the image of a young
Steve Claridge, who scored with two stunning strikes as well as laying on
another and finding time to hit both posts – in my view Walker is surely
destined for greater things.
Saturday
10th March – Biddulph Victoria v Racing Club, Midland Alliance
Surprise surprise Warwick followers! It’s Saturday and we have
a game to watch! It has the air of the first game of the season what with the
new management team, the preceding long period of inactivity and the improving
weather. Our longest away trip of the season in the league follows hard on the
heels of the disappointing late postponement of our scheduled game against
Oadby on Tuesday. Both sets of players and managers had wanted the game played
and it had passed inspection during the afternoon by a local official but,
rather sadly, the official on the night thought otherwise. I do hope that he
gets appointed for one of our inevitable Thursday night fixtures later this
season and that it is inconvenient for him!
After an 82 mile jaunt from Warwick we locate Biddulph’s home in
Knypersley and wait to discover the first line-up to be selected by our Bobby. Thankfully
it has a familiar look about with only three players starting for the first
time this season: new boys Phil Daly and Tom Leaver with the returning Stuart
Adamson making his only his 20th start for the club. Welcome one and
all! Sadly the match went downhill fairly quickly despite a bright start by our
boys. A couple of smart shots from the edge of the box by Matt Platt and we
found ourselves 2-0 and a player down going into the break as Lee Constable
failed to provide the captain’s example to the rest of our young side and got
himself sent off for a rash challenge after the ball had gone. The fact that he
had been angered by a similar wild challenge from his opponent seconds earlier
is a poor excuse. Worse was to come in the second half once again despite 100%
effort from almost everyone and the match finished 4-0 to Biddulph with Platt
completing his hat-trick and Victoria
having exacted full revenge for their own 4-0 reverse at Hampton Road the previous month. Let’s
hope that it was a bit of ring rustiness and that our young side have the
mettle for battle in the coming weeks.
Tuesday
13th March – Racing Club v Boldmere St Michaels, Midland Alliance
One
miracle follows another. We have a home game! More new faces too as Jacob
Sammonds and Damon Gariff make their first appearances for the club along with
a first start for our pocket dynamo Sam Manoochehri. Following our previous two
matches where we came off four goals worse than the opposition on each
occasion, Racing Club supporters had good reason to feel pessimistic at kick
off but, as the first half matured, we began looking like a genuine match for
the eighth placed Mikes. Nil-Nil at half time and we continued to give as good
as we got in the second half until Boldmere’s Mykel Beckley notched what turned
out to be the winner on 66 minutes to leave Warwick followers wishing for
goals. Overall the performance was miles better than the preceding Saturday but
our many games in hand need to yield points if we are to escape the clutches of
the drop zone.
Keep the faith!
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