Downwind of the Chicken Shed (Part 9)

The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Loughborough Dynamo on 9th December 2006.

The ongoing saga of one man’s season.

Saturday 23rd September – Rainworth Miner's Welfare v. Racing Club, FA Vase 2^nd Qualifying Round

Rainworth Miners’ Welfare (RMW). Racing Club were up against yet another triple-barrelled name following our FA Cup tie against Ford Sports Daventry and our FA Vase First Qualifying Round tie against Graham Street Prims. But whereas the Prims hadn’t won any of their opening Central Midlands League (Step 7) fixtures, Rainworth (pronounced “Wren’orth”) hadn’t lost any of theirs and therefore represented a much tougher challenge despite being officially two rungs further down the Non-League pyramid than our boys. For those of you stay at home types, you may not know the whereabouts of Rainworth. Nestled between Nottingham and Mansfield, as their name suggests, Rainworth is in the heart of the Nottinghamshire mining districts - I counted at least five other Miners Welfare clubs in their league – By jove the local derbies must be interesting in those parts!

RMW were celebrating a little bit of club history on the day we visited. It is 25 years since they embarked upon their run to the FA Vase Final and, in recognition, they had invited one or two members of that side back to savour past glories. The two old gents on the gate were a credit to their club, making strangers most welcome and encouraging us into the Social Club across the road (it would have been rude to refuse!). Rainworth have a rich Vase tradition and we realised that they weren’t going to roll over for our boys. The first half proved to be a poor one for our heroes as Rainworth spurned several good chances. Indeed Racing Club were lucky to go in all square at half-time. Sadly worse was to come. Given that we were in Nottinghamshire it was somehow appropriate that somebody by the name of Hood (Jordan though, not Robin) should steal from the Step 5 side and give to his own Step 7 outfit. The goal after 76 minutes, from fully thirty yards, sailed over Michael Balac’s outstretched hand and into the top left corner. Outrageous perhaps but, then again, RMW should probably have been leading by then anyway. Suddenly we stepped up a gear and began to look the part but, as is usually the case with these things, it was a case of too-little-too-late. So that’s the FA Vase over for another year. It’s just a Mickey Mouse competition isn’t it? No! Gutted was the right word for our feelings after this game and, given the super performance against Atherstone the previous week, we had gone from a huge high to an almighty low. Such is football I guess.

Saturday 30th September – Oxford United v. York City, Conference

Another Saturday and another opportunity for me to see my former League favourites York City, this time away at Oxford United’s Kassam Stadium. At least that’s what I think their stadium is called. It certainly was the Kassam last time I went there but, since then, Oxford have undergone a bit of a boardroom revolution and Mr Kassam has gone. The programme gave the club’s address as Grenoble Road so here’s an off the wall quiz question to flummox your mates with down the pub tonight i.e. Which Nationwide Conference side plays at Grenoble Road? If you’ve not been there before it’s worth the trip: a brand new all-seater stadium tucked away in a corner of a science park on the outskirts of Oxford. Be warned though that the traffic in the vicinity is poor so allow at least an hour and a half from Warwick to get there. The other thing to watch out for is the parking around the stadium. It is plentiful but, with only one way in and one way out, this becomes a post-match nightmare – I was still queuing to get out nearly an hour after a match and remember that this was the Conference and not the Premiership.

Oxford are once again under Jim Smith who is enjoying his second spell in charge following a purple patch in the 1980’s and are conference leaders. Play-off contenders York City, under the managership of Billy McEwan, rolled into town representing a major challenge to Oxford’s supremacy. This mouth-watering tie brought the Oxford football public out in numbers with a season’s best 6,602 squeezing into the Kassam. I say “squeezing in” but actually there was plenty of space available given that the Stadium was built for the upper echelons of the League even though it is actually only three-sided. There are no spectators behind one of the goals and it’s somewhat incongruously rounded off by the kind of wooden fence that you might have surrounding your garden. For the Oxford players therefore you might imagine that they would prefer to score at the other end but this seemed not to present a problem for Rob Duffy who slotted home on the quarter hour. Worse was to come for the Minstermen in the second half as Andy Burgess extended Oxford’s lead, this time in front of his own supporters. The match belonged to Oxford and York look destined for a long hard battle for a ticket to the Play-Offs and the opportunity to restore their rightful place in the League.

Meanwhile at Hampton Road, Racing Club were relinquishing our unbeaten home record under Jose in what was the sixth home game of the season. Up against Tipton Town, Warwick ended up getting turned over 0-2. Worse was to come the following Saturday with a rearranged game at Rocester on the same day that England were playing Macedonia (thank the lord that we won’t need to travel to Rocester on December 23^rd!). Injuries to our few senior players meant that the side had a distinctly youthful look. Sadly we ended up losing 3-0 to a lowly Rocester side that certainly isn’t used to the winning feeling following two dreadful seasons – indeed they would have gone down last season but for the reorganisation of Step 4 of the Non-League scene. The Rocester game represented Jose’s fifteenth in charge and, albeit a somewhat inconsistent experience, a review of the statistics of the first fifteen games in charge for the last three regimes reveals the following:

	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals	Goals	%
					For	Against	Success
Jose Ascensao	15	6	2	7	25	23	46.7%
Marcus Law	15	4	3	8	15	22	36.7%
Mick Wilson & Pete Beadle	15	1	3	11	10	37	16.7%

As you can see, Jose’s early Racing Club record stands up well in comparison to his recent predecessors. Good progress has been made in the circumstances and, whilst we may not get promotion this year, the foundations of an exciting future are being laid. Keep it going Racers!

Keep the faith!