The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Market Drayton Town on 21st October 2006.
The ongoing saga of one Racing Club fan’s season.
Monday 28th August – Stratford Town v. Racing Club, Midland Football Alliance
The late August Bank Holiday of late tends to herald a fixture for Racing Club against a local rival and this year it was to be Stratford Town, possibly for the last time at Masons Road. Now you would have thought that the short journey to Shakespeare’s hometown would be an uneventful affair but then you wouldn’t be taking into account the small matter of Bank Holiday traffic and the fact that the majority of the Racers side come from outside the town. I understand that the route into Stratford via Tiddington was pretty well gridlocked as was a section of the M42. This led to the majority of our side arriving well after the scheduled kick-off time and the referee having to delay the start until 3:30. Our boys were left with the minimum of warm up time and, perhaps not surprisingly, started the match sluggishly conceding early on to a smart effort by Stratford’s debutante Avun Jephcott (ex-Coventry City, Tamworth and Nuneaton Borough). In truth for most of the first half we just weren’t in it but immediately prior to half-time hot-shot Ubong Umotong scored a wonderful free-kick to level it. What’s that old adage about getting a goal just before half-time? Well if you don’t believe in old adages I should tell you that Stratford Town certainly would appear to do so. Former Racer Mark Faulds performed the scoring honours for Stratford in that longest of minutes, the forty-fifth – together with the ninetieth minute, the forty-fifth minute must be just about the most prolific as far as scoring goals is concerned. Sadly the second half produced nothing further to trouble the scorers and Racing Club were consigned to our second defeat of the season. Lesson Learned? We’d better set off for Bank Holiday fixtures at 9AM in future!
Saturday 2nd September – England v. Andorra, Euro 2008 Qualifier
Yet another of those fixture clashes that the FA, in their wisdom, inflict upon fans of Non-League football. Whilst Racing Club were making the trip to deepest darkest Hereford for the small matter of the FA Cup Preliminary Round tie against Westfield, I was heading North up the M6 to Old Trafford for England’s opening fixture against Andorra in the qualification group for Euro 2008. Switzerland and Austria are UEFA’s chosen hosts for this particular Euro footie-fest and yours truly is already salivating at the prospect of getting my hands on a cuckoo clock or two whilst taking in some top class international action during the summer after next. Andorra? You don’t know where that is? It nestles in the Pyrenees on the France-Spain border and is one of the smallest “countries” competing in the tournament. I think that Racing Club would have given Andorra a run for their money on this particular day but unfortunately our opponents were Westfield who didn’t need to run for their money - more of a walk in the rain actually as they trounced our boys 3-0 to earn themselves a trip to Belper in the FA Cup First Qualifying Round. Alas our FA Cup “run” was over for another year but at least we did finally manage to taste a victory for the first time this century. Next year it’ll be our turn in the First Round proper (please?).
And to those of you who trot out that over used line that there are no easy games in international football I give you Andorra. England were two-up after only 13 minutes and it quickly became a case of how many would we get. The plucky Andorreans went down injured on numerous occasions to the chagrin of the 56,290 in attendance but failed to waste enough time to prevent England from rattling in a few more. England’s keeper Paul Robinson didn’t have a save to make and could have made productive use of a pair of knitting needles and some wool during the match, such was the scale of his inactivity. It finished 5-0 with my favourite England player of the current crop, Peter Crouch, helping himself to a brace and in the process taking himself into double-figures in the scoring-stakes for the Three Lions. Prolific? Well yes actually. And to prove the point he notched another one the following Wednesday in Skopje against Macedonia. Crouchie’s now notched a total of 11 goals for the National side and has virtually a goal-a-game record if you take into account that a few of his appearances have been as a sub. That prompted one radio phone-in to speculate as to whether Crouchie could overtake Bobby Charlton’s all-time England scoring record – pardon me boys but that’s slightly premature don’t you think?
Tuesday 5th September – Racing Club v. Studley, Midland Football Alliance
For those of us who didn’t suffer the Racing Club performance at Westfields the previous Saturday, we wondered what all the fuss was about after the visit of Studley. Warwick traded early goals with our visitors and went in level at half-time. The second-half was a different matter entirely. Matthew Brown scored his second of the game on 48 and Matthew Graham made it 3-1 after 52 minutes but just as we started to get comfortable with our two-goal cushion, Studley pulled one back to make it a nail biting finale. We finally put Studley out of their misery with a late goal from substitute Sam Hanney and it finished 4-2. A convincing victory and a league record of 2-1-2 that left us sitting squarely in mid-table – some achievement for such a young side still being moulded into a team.
Sunday 10th September – Graham Street Prims v. Racing Club, FA Vase 1st Qualifying Round
If you didn’t know where Andorra was then you would have had no chance with our FA Vase opponents Graham Street Prims. Personally I’d never heard of them until we drew them in this season’s competition but a quick consultation with the Non-League Directory informed me that the Central Midlands Supreme Division side are based in the outskirts of Derby. Prims? The programme revealed that they were founded as a Primitive Methodist Church side but one is left to wonder why they are known as Prims rather than Primitives or Methodists. Annoyingly the game was switched to a Sunday because the Prims share a Sports ground with a cricket side that enjoys primacy over the facilities. So we were left to kick our heels on the Saturday and got as close as it is possible for Racing Club fans to get to the Premiership experience of no game on Saturday in favour of a game on the Lord’s day.
That particular Sunday was something of a scorcher and we arrived early to quench our thirst in the Social Club and inadvertently provided Racing Club line-up information to the spy from Atherstone Town who had failed to arrive in enough time to secure a programme (thankfully I obviously know bugger all about football matters as my information would prove to be useless to the Adders the following week!). The first-half saw Racing Club very much in the ascendancy but ended goalless, leaving us a little worried that one dopey error could cost us very dear. We wandered out for our half-time cuppa and almost walked into Jose’s half-time team talk that was being held al fresco on the grass outside the changing rooms. Jose wasn’t throwing teacups around however and his wise words provided just the spur that our boys needed for the second half. They proceeded to take their lower-league opponents apart in clinical fashion as first Ben Clay and then another was scored from a free kick apparently by Anthony Balcarres within 13 minutes of the restart. This latter goal was remarkable in that it was one of those free kicks that evades onrushing strikers and flailing defenders before nestling in the far corner much to everyone’s astonishment! It was time for U-Boat, our super sub (geddit?), to make his entrance. Ubong arrived with his periscope up and proceeded to help himself to a hat-trick with goals on 66, 78 and 80 minutes. He even managed to fail to convert a late one-on-one such was the Racing club superiority. Our five-nil away win had one or two loyal Racers scratching their heads as to whether they’d ever seen a bigger away win. We had secured our passage to the 2nd Qualifying Round to play another Central Midlands Supreme Division side, this time former FA Vase finalists Rainworth Miners Welfare.
Keep the faith!
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