The Hampton Roar (Part 20)

 

The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Rocester on 16th February 2008.

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

Tuesday 5th February – Burnham v AFC Hayes, Southern League Division 1 South & West

Yet another Tuesday night that finds me working away from home and I decide to take in a non league game with the bonus of a new ground. Burnham? Well have you ever heard of it? I must say that I didn’t have a clue where it was until doing a bit of match selection research. In fact Burnham’s not very far from Junction 7 of the M4 near Slough and they do have something of a pedigree having been FA Vase Semi Finalists and reaching the FA Cup First Round proper in recent years. Burnham’s vampire friendly home, “The Gore” was a hugely pleasant surprise and had a shiny brand new feel to it. The handsome main stand was apparently funded by sales of part of the club’s land for housing and contained club house, changing rooms and facilities for Directors and officials. The opposite side offered shallow standing cover for the supporters as well as home and away dugouts.

Unbeknown to me, tonight’s match had been in doubt before kick off and the barmaid in the clubhouse warned that there were standing puddles on the pitch. Sure enough it was wet but the gateman took my money (£8 does seem steep when compared to our one-league-lower Club’s admission price) because the referee had passed the pitch as playable and at least the rain has stopped. Burnham’s opponents tonight are AFC Hayes who, just to be clear, are nothing whatsoever to do with the Hayes FC that merged in the summer with Yeading to form new super-club Hayes & Yeading United. This particular Hayes were formerly known as Brook House until last summer and appear to have took the opportunity of Hayes FC giving up their name in order to offer a better indication of their location. Within 40 seconds of this match Burnham take the lead and I wonder whether the difficult conditions will produce a goal feast. The ball either skids or sticks in a rather unpredictable way and sliding tackles appear to be the order of the day. The players make the best of it and the first half flies by with the mud larks providing entertaining fare for the few punters who have bothered to turn up. But as we disappear for our half time cuppa, the rain begins again and, by the time we return, it has turned into a deluge with thunder and forked lightning to boot. As the teams return for the second half, the referee takes a long look at the place where the pitch used to be, now a quagmire, and calls the whole thing off. Certainly it was the right decision but a disappointment nonetheless.

Wednesday 6th February – England v Switzerland, Friendly

This is the dawning of the age of Capello. By rights England should be looking forward to playing one or two matches in Switzerland at this summer’s European Championships but, instead, will have to make do with meeting the one of the joint hosts and dreaming about what might have been had we not been guided by the Wally with the Brolly in that debacle in the final Qualifier at home to the Croats. But now it’s fabulous Fabio and his backroom Mafia so let’s look forward to the World Cup 2010 in South Africa with fresh hope. The media were in their usual majestic form in the lead up to the match. Does anybody find interviews with players who proclaim that they are “enjoying the new training sessions” and are “anxious to learn” even remotely interesting? Would they say anything else? They’re hardly going to say that the new man is a Muppet and that life under McLaren was better are they? I was amused as to how much attention and column inches were dedicated to a few disciplinary rules implemented by Mr Capello. It was as if, by banning flip flops and mobile phones in the dining room, England’s master plan has been revealed. Surely now it’s only a matter of time before the World Cup comes home?

I had bought my ticket for this match (£40 if you please) in the hope of seeing King David of Beverley Hills winning his 100^th cap. Fabio however instantly set about showing who is boss by declaring that Beckham was not match fit and so would not be selected. I had understood that Becks has been training with Arsenal during the US close season to maintain his fitness and so he could surely have stood up to a final five minute swan song as a late substitute but sadly it’s not to be. I wonder if Becks rues that occasion when he got himself deliberately booked whilst on England duty just so as to be suspended for the next fixture thereby ensuring his availability for more important games ahead? Anyway, perhaps there’s no place for sentiment in football for, as one punter remarked, “Does Capello know that poor old Gary Lineker only needs two more goals to break Bobby Charlton’s record?”

Graham Taylor speaks a lot of sense of Five Live and I was amused by his opinion that the so called gentlemen of the press would immediately have the knives out for Capello if he had the temerity to select a starting eleven that was different to the one paraded by the print media on the morning of the match. Apparently, in the absence of a published selection from Fabio, they had decided that the bibs in one of the final training session were a give away as to Fabio’s thinking. How wrong they were and I do wonder whether they appreciated being made to look like fools for having such certainty as to the line-up. Luckily for Fabio, there was never really any question of England succumbing to the Swiss – they are just inside the top 50 in FIFA’s rankings – and despite a rather experimental line-up England simply didn’t ever really look to be in danger. A rather dull and tentative first half eventually saw Tottenham’s Jermaine Jenas notch his first full International goal. As always for a Friendly International the second period was spoiled by the large number of substitutions made (England 4 Switzerland 6) but this is still some way short of the number of subs that was customary in similar matches under Sven. One of the Swiss subs was responsible for their surprise equaliser but England’s supremacy was restored by yet another goal from super-sub Shaun Wright-Phillips and the Three Lions had secured their first victory under the new regime. The World Cup’s as good as ours isn’t it?

Keep the faith!