The Hampton Roar (Christmas Special)

The following article did not appear in the programme for Racing Club Warwick due to postponements.

Welcome to today’s match and this seasonal instalment of the season’s diary by your favourite Racing Club correspondent.

Did you get the presents that you wanted yesterday?. My wife wanted diamonds this year, so I got her a pack of cards. She got her revenge however. She got me a watch that had insects instead of numbers and hands – I’ll always be able to tell when it’s fly past flea now! Even our dog got a present this year – we got him a mobile bone! Oh and apparently Sherlock Holmes wanted a yellow door this year. Watson wondered why and Holmes informed him that it was “Lemon entry my dear Watson”.

Did you enjoy your Christmas dinner yesterday? As usual I ate too much. Mind you we all did. Even the turkey was stuffed! My better half bought a huge turkey for our Christmas dinner. When I saw it I remarked that it must have cost a fortune but apparently she got it for a poultry amount. Quite a lot of people that I know decided to have duck this year instead of turkey. I suppose that Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a Christmas quacker would it? But at least turkey makes a change from Pizza doesn’t it? Mind you, I hear that Good King Wenceslas enjoys a good Pizza: Deep pan, crisp and even.

For the first time in three seasons Racing Club look forward to our festive fixtures without a match against our friends from that chicken farm near Whitnash. So it’s rivalries renewed against another of our near neighbours: Stratford Town who are currently riding high in the table and pushing for a promotion to the Southern League to go with their new ground at Tiddington (I’m already looking forward to our visitors renaming themselves Tiddington Town – you know it makes sense). If today’s game is only half as good as the one played earlier in the season then we should be in for a treat – OK I admit that that’s from a Racing Club point of view as I understand that Stratford supporters felt that their side played poorly. What I do know is that, despite losing 2-0, Warwick gave a good account of themselves such that it was impossible to tell which side was leading the table and which was in the bottom three for much of the game. What is certain is that today’s pitch will not be a patch on the billiard table surface that was served up for us by Stratford during their ground share with Solihull Moors.

The excellent surface was certainly conducive to getting it down and passing and, such was the confidence that we got from performing well against Stratford, our form has shown something of an upturn ever since. Our playing record in the ten league games before that Stratford game read:

Played 10 Won 2 Drawn 1 Lost 7 Goals For 17 Goals Against 29 Success Rate 25%

Whereas in the ten matches that followed it improved to read as follows:

Played 10 Won 4 Drawn 3 Lost 3 Goals For 16 Goals Against 18 Success Rate 55%

Over the last five seasons honours between Warwick and Stratford have been pretty even with five wins each and not a draw in sight. Now that I’ve said that you just know what’s going to happen today don’t you?

Date		Competition					Attendance
6-Oct-2007	A	Midland Football Alliance	L	0	-	2	157
21-Apr-2007	H	Midland Football Alliance	L	1	-	4	140
28-Aug-2006	A	Midland Football Alliance	L	1	-	2	155
2-Jan-2006	H	Midland Football Alliance	W	2	-	1	182
13-Sep-2005	A	Midland Football Alliance	W	2	-	1	122
19-Apr-2005	H	Midland Football Alliance	W	2	-	1	112
28-Mar-2005	A	Midland Football Alliance	L	1	-	2	173
1-Feb-2005	A	League Cup 3rd Round	W	3	-	1	125
27-Mar-2004	H	Midland Football Alliance	W	2	-	1
25-Aug-2003	A	Midland Football Alliance	L	1	-	2

And now, what about some ghosts of Christmases past? The table below shows our Christmas to New Year’s Day results over the last few years. As you can see, we haven’t been over-endowed with festive fixtures in recent times, in part due to the weather at this time of year. There were no games at all in 2004 and it was an achievement that the game against Leamington even went ahead in 2006. Indeed, the chances are that you’ll be reading this article in March or April due to yet another festive postponement. I must say that I’m a little surprised that today’s opponents Stratford don’t feature in the list at all – I don’t know about you but my perception is that we always used to play Stratford at this time of year until Leamington arrived on the scene. That game back against local rivals Rugby United in 2000 holds some significance for yours truly – it was the first Racing Club fixture that I ever attended – a victory complete with a very youthful Ben Foster between the sticks and I was hooked! Pity me please. And then there was Boxing Day 2005 when we broke the League attendance record in our home game against Leamington – rumour has it that one or two Brakes fans managed to sneak in that day too! Happy days for the coffers if not for points.

Date		Opponents	Competition					Attendance
26-Dec-2000	A	Rugby United	Dr Martens League Western Division	W	2	-	1	322
29-Dec-2001	H	Gloucester City	Dr Martens League Western Division	D	0	-	0	130
26-Dec-2002	A	Solihull Borough	Dr Martens League Western Division	L	0	-	4
28- Dec-2002	H	Cleveden Town	Dr Martens League Western Division	D	2	-	2	105
27-Dec-2003	H	Bridgnorth Town	Midland Football Alliance	D	0	-	0
26-Dec-2005	H	Leamington	Midland Football Alliance	L	0	-	1	1,280
31-Dec-2005	A	Westfields	Midland Football Alliance	W	1	-	0	65
26-Dec-2006	H	Leamington	Midland Football Alliance	L	0	-	3	800
1-Jan-2007	A	Studley	Midland Football Alliance	L	0	-	3	73

And finally may I wish all loyal readers the compliments of the season. Here’s to 2008 and a brighter future!

Keep the faith!