The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Oadby Town on 14th September 2004.
And so the first day of the new season finally
arrives. At long last the tedium of mowing the lawn, painting garden fences,
barbeques, cricket and those
(important-preparation-but-essentially-meaningless) pre-season friendlies are
at an end and we are all ready to get down to the serious stuff. The
anticipation of the opening day game is like no other. The fixture list is a
blank canvas and we can dream, at least until the first 90 minutes are behind
us. This year, for the first time in my experience at least, Racing Club
Warwick supporters were able to dream, with some justification of a challenge
for the title or, at the very least, a high league placing.
14th August 2004 - Ludlow Town v. Racing Club Warwick
I reckon that I travelled the furthest of anyone to reach the first game of the season. My day began at 12:30AM in the Bulgarian resort of Sunny Beach with a coach ride to Burgas airport. A gruelling 3 hour flight later and I was at Birmingham International with the wife and 3 tired kids. After dropping them off at home and gaining a few brownie points by helping with the unpacking and so on I was ready for Ludlow. The trip to Ludlow is a picturesque one. Once past Kidderminster the countryside opens up and the rolling hills of Shropshire beckon with Clee Hill in the distance. Ludlow is one of the season’s longest trips but we made it in just over an hour and a half. Last season’s trip had seen us make a tour of the town in search of the elusive Coors Stadium. It hadn’t helped that I’d got directions to Ludlow’s former home. No such problems this year. Ludlow is a lovely place albeit seeming to be quite a long way from anywhere. I’m told that there are a number of good restaurants and antique shops but, not being in search of cordon bleu cooking or a second-hand ming, we gave them a miss this time.
Ludlow’s Coors Stadium is about as good as it gets at this level of football. A huge out of town site purchased with the proceeds of the sale of the old ground plus grants from a number of bodies including the Football Foundation, the Stadium features a two storey main stand with changing facilities below and a bar, ballroom and conference facilities above. The stand sits between two identical pitches with the only difference between the two appearing to be that one lacked perimeter advertising and enclosure. Whilst I was admiring the stadium from a first floor balcony, Peter Gwilliam, the Ludlow Town Chairman, proudly explained that the stadium had been used for FA representative matches including a disability international and identified the full extent of the site covering several acres.
A minor surprise for me was to discover that Ludlow had appointed former Colwyn Bay and Bristol City boss Jimmy Mullen as the new manager, and that he had drafted in one or two former Colwyn Bay players to supplement the squad. I was pleased to see that last season’s Ludlow keeper Martin Poole had retained his place – I see Martin as something of a throwback to the continental keepers of the mid 1970’s as he favours tight curly hair, a green jersey, long black shorts and large white Mickey Mouse gloves a la Sepp Maier or Jean-Marie Pfaff.
The match itself saw Racing dominate more-or-less throughout despite Ludlow taking the lead in the 19th minute due to a Racing defensive mix up. Parity was restored in the 28th minute with Racing’s opening goal of the season scored by Jack Cudworth and, 3 minutes later, Alan Ward made it 2-1 to Warwick with a cross-cum-shot that fooled everyone including the aforementioned Ludlow keeper. Not many players would have seen that opportunity Alan! The second half saw one further goal with Jack Cudworth going back to the top of the scoring charts with a near post header following fine work by brother Tom. 3-1 to Warwick and when was the last time that Racing enjoyed an opening day win? We were on our way!
Keep the faith!
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