The Hampton Roar (Part 14)

 

The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Stratford Town on 26th December 2007.

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

Saturday 8th December – Milton Keynes Dons v Accrington Stanley, League 2

Racing Club’s fixtures are rearranged for some reason or another and we find ourselves rescheduled to make our longest trip of the season to Biddulph in the Potteries in December instead of an early January jaunt. The trouble is that the heavens decide to open on Friday morning and, come Saturday, every Midland Alliance game is a washout. This leaves me with my bad weather luxury of a decision as to which game to attend instead. During the summer, two of the current top 92 clubs moved homes and, as a fully fledged 92 Club member, I simply have to visit the new grounds of both Shrewsbury Town and MK Dons before the end of the season. As luck would have it today, MK Dons are at home to Accrington Stanley (I can hear all you Milk Marketing Board fans chorusing “Who are they? Exactly!” right now), and Milton Keynes is a comfortable hour’s drive from Warwick down the M40 and through Buckingham.

Now, in common with the majority of true lovers of the game, I have my reservations about watching MK Dons at all. They are the club that was allowed by the FA to be treated like a US-style franchise and was plucked from its roots in South London and transplanted into city-without-a-club Milton Keynes. Pretty well all links with the former Wimbledon Football Club have gradually been jettisoned, partly to appease the fans of the original club who formed AFC Wimbledon rather than making the trek to the south Midlands and partly to build a brand new Milton Keynes identity. The club badge features the year “2004” rather prominently and there is no clue in the programme that this was once a club that won the FA Cup as recently as the 1980’s – this piece of history has rightfully been handed over to AFC Wimbledon instead. With the club now playing in black and white rather than the Dons’ former colours of dark blue and yellow, just about the only clue as to the original identity of the MK Dons is their name itself. One wonders how long it will be before the Dons element of their name is ditched too. Perhaps that’ll be for the best.

So MK Dons have had a rough ride to date. The question is: is it time to forgive and forget? Chairman Pete Winkleman seems to have done everything that the disgruntled fans (is there such a thing as being “gruntled”?) of supporter-owned AFC Wimbledon have asked of him and, with the MK Dons playing in their new all-seater stadium home this season, he has ensured that the investment has been put in place to give Milton Keynes a club that the city can be proud of, something that you just couldn’t imagine ever happening to the old club in South London. The new ground, named rather irritatingly as “stadiummk”, is impressive albeit, like many other new grounds that I have visited, it isn’t finished. It’s a two-tier affair but, to date, only the lower tier’s executive boxes and seats have been installed. At present there’s no particular need to hurry and complete the available capacity because this is League 2 and the league-leading Dons are attracting less than 7,000 at present (not bad for a brand new club though). The programme contained pictures of the Queen opening the stadium the previous week and one wonders what she made of being asked to officially open a building that was clearly not completed – no doubt Prince Phillip will have made one of his thoughtful remarks: “Be ruddy nice when it’s finished!” or something similar.

Whatever the shortcomings of the stadium, the same cannot be said of the team under the management of “the Guv’nor” Paul Ince, recently passed over in favour of Paul Jewell for the vacant Derby County job but surely destined for higher things soon (unless there really is some form of racial prejudice that stops Chairmen from appointing a coloured manager?). The Dons completely outclassed mid-table Accrington and were 3-0 up after only half an hour. In the end they won it 5-0 and had taken their foot off the gas well before the end. The performance was as classy as I have ever seen in the bottom tier of the Football League and I will be amazed, based on this performance, if the Dons are not promoted come May. Try as I might to hate the Dons I have to concede that I found their play to be very attractive and (whisper it quietly) I wouldn’t mind seeing them again. Quick nurse! The restraints!

Saturday 15th December – Racing Club Warwick v Stapenhill, Midland Alliance

Following the previous blank Saturday, this one needed an early pitch inspection to confirm that our match could go ahead. The pitch was a tad firm in places but the decision to proceed was clearly the right one. At kick off, Stapenhill were one of only two teams below us and were without an away point all season having racked up some big reverses along the way. However, earlier in the season you may recall that we went to Stapenhill and lost 1-0 there in the league although this was compensated for by our big 0-4 win at their place in the League Cup. Nevertheless, and for something of a change, this was one game that the Warwick supporters expected our boys to win.

You can imagine the disappointment therefore that we felt going in goalless at half time having totally dominated proceedings, having hit the post twice and had a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside when, in my humble opinion, the two players coming in at the far post did not touch the ball until it was over the goal line. It could have been 6-1 at half time and it is always troubling when you dominate to that extent but can’t turn the chances into goals. As if to prove my point, Stapenhill scored straight after half time from a free kick that was drilled straight past Scott Handley after 49 minutes. What could have been a potential disaster was turned around within a manner of seconds however as Matty Blair equalised within a minute. There were plenty more goals to come! First Steffan McGrath scored after 62 minutes followed by yet another Howell-er after 64. Surely we were now safe? Sadly not as now it was Stapenhill’s turn to go up the other end and score straight away. A shaky 3-2 became a more solid 4-2 five minutes later following a powerful Levi Bailey header. Home and dry now? This is Racing Club that we’re talking about here folks! On 89 minutes Stapenhill scored their third to setup a nervous last few minutes. Thankfully super-sub Neil Stacey was on hand to fire in Racing Club’s fifth to put the game to bed although the churlish amongst us made the point that he could have had a hat-trick in the last 15 minutes.

So 5-3 (and it could have been 13-4!) and the Saturday night tables looked the best that they have for a long time with our boys having moved out of the trap door positions and into a lofty 18^th place, our highest position since the early days of the season. We’re now at the half way point of our season having played 21 of our 42 games. The trouble is that we’ve played more games than every other side in the division so we’re more-or-less bound to get pulled back down into the mire as other teams catch up. Looking on the bright side though, 22 points from 21 games has us on course to pick up 44 points by the end of the season which would be 6 better than last time around and would surely be enough to ensure safety. Given our wretched start to the season and our promising form of recent weeks (11 points out of 18), we really should do a lot better than 44 points in any case. So it’s over to you Bobby.

Keep the faith!