The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Coventry Sphinx on 9th October 2007.
Welcome
to today’s match and the latest instalment of the season’s diary by your
favourite Racing Club correspondent.
Saturday
1st September – Coalville Town v Racing Club Warwick, Midland Alliance
Fresh
off the back of three defeats we travelled more in hope than expectancy. This
game was a rearranged fixture pulled forward from later in the season due to FA
Cup Extra Preliminary Round exits by both clubs. Speaking to Boss Bobby before
the game I told him that we could expect almost anything from the game and, as
it tuned out, I reckon that was what we got. It was good to see one of my
personal favourite Racers of recent times, Jermaine Gordon. Jam, as he was known
in these parts, spent much of his time injured or suspended whilst with us and
was one of those strikers who hustled and bustled without scoring loads but
when he did notch a goal it always seemed to be important. Against Coalville it
made a pleasant change for Racing Club to be well matched with our opponents
and both sides huffed and puffed throughout the first half without creating too
much. This was my first opportunity to see Martin Thompson in a Racing Club
shirt and he acquitted himself well proving to be a thorn in the side of
Coalville’s defence and Carl Lawrence in particular all afternoon. It was
interesting to watch the duel between the pair of them with both giving as good
as they got albeit I think that Lawrence was outfoxed on more than one occasion
and resorted to some tasty challenges to try to keep Thompson subdued. After
half an hour Thompson (aka Clunesy to his mates – I’ll leave you to work out
why) surged into the box from wide and struck one of those low hard crosses
that defenders hate – the Ravens Andy Crabtree must have really hated it as he
applied a wonderful finishing touch past Scottish goalkeeper-in-need-of-sub-titles
Daniel Handley into his own net. We were leading and we even managed to protect
our lead until the half time whistle although I felt that our lead was a little
fortunate both due to the nature of our goal and Coalville’s woeful heading
ability when facing our goal.
Coalville
came out for the second half with much more purpose and proceeded to camp out
in our half for most of the second half. The Racers defended stoutly but the
pressure was building and centre-half Lawrence
stole forward to equalise for our hosts on the hour mark. Worse was to come as
super-sub Rob Johnson showed his team mates how to take a chance with two more
goals on 69 and 86 minutes. It was no consolation that Bobby had picked Johnson
out before the match as someone that he was interested in! We were down but not
out and Ryan Robbins pulled out a late consolation prize in the 90th
minute following a blatant shove on the defender which the officials didn’t spot!
It’s a good job that, as requested, I respect the officials because otherwise I
might have wanted to moan about a number of wrong decisions and blatant fouls
that went unpunished – but I wouldn’t do that would I? God bless the men in
black! We wouldn’t have a game without them would we? I was amused the
following day when the Midland Alliance website credited Robbins’ goal to Tom
Farmer – Robbins was wearing a different shirt number to that noted on the team
sheet so the mistake was understandable but for those of us who recognise the
pair of them I think that it would have to be a very poor light indeed before
you would tend to confuse Tom and Ryan! It finished 3-2 and sadly we had got what
we deserved out of the game albeit following a much better performance. The
result dumped us into the bottom three and it looks increasingly like this will
be a tough season. But we’re up for the challenge aren’t we?
Tuesday
4th September – Racing Club Warwick v Alvechurch, Midland Alliance
Bobby’s
programme notes the following Saturday suggested that we should put this one behind
us as quickly as possible. If only it was that easy. This game was the stuff of
nightmares as local rivals Alvechurch came to Hampton Road and won 6-1 with Lee Chilton
helping himself to four thanks to some woeful defending. The strange thing
about this game was that I didn’t feel that man for man our boys were
particularly inferior to Alvechurch’s and indeed the match was competitive for
the first half an hour. But once Alvechurch got their noses in front there was
only going to be one winner and our tactics and organisation surely played a
large part in our downfall. Back to the drawing board please Bobby but good
luck too – we’re right behind you! The final half an hour was a sad affair as
the result already in no doubt when Alvechurch defender Leigh Clayton received
a very nasty injury that required a trip to hospital by ambulance I hope that
you have a very speedy recovery Leigh.
Wednesday
5th September – England v India, 6th One-Day International
I was up bright and early the following day to catch
the train from Leamington Station down to London
for the Sixth Nat West One-Day International (ODI) cricket match at the Oval. I
will choose watching football over cricket every time but as I hadn’t managed
to catch any of the Test Match action over the course of the summer, I found an
invite to an ODI impossible to resist. The first challenge to overcome was to
actually reach the Oval itself as the gentlemen of the RMT had decided to hold
a 72-hour strike which straddled this particular day. How kind of them to wait
until everyone’s summer holiday was over in order to ensure maximum disruption!
As it happened the RMT had decided to suspend their strike after only 24 hours
but the underground was still not back to normal I think due to the various
maintenance inspections not having been carried out. A brisk walk from
Marylebone to Baker Street
however and I was successfully onto the Bakerloo and Victoria lines and had
arrived at Vauxhall by 9:30. A five minute walk down to the Oval and there I
was tucking into bacon sandwiches courtesy of my hosts and watching the two
sides going through their warm-ups and stretching exercises well before 10AM.
The match “kicked off” (what is the cricket equivalent
other than “start of play”?) at 10:15 with England having won the toss and
deciding to bat first. I’d never been to an ODI before and so found the
comparison with Test cricket rather disturbing. For a start neither side wore
whites, instead opting for either light blue (India)
or dark blue (England)
pyjamas. There were also unfamiliar rules to absorb concerning the number of
fielders allowed in “the circle” and something called a Powerplay that I never
did fully grasp. The Duckworth-Lewis score was also displayed on the scoreboard
to guide both sides as to who would be declared the winner in the event of rain
(not that there was any chance of rain today – “Indian Summer” anyone?). My
prejudices were about to be blown away however. This match was an absolute
cracker.
England
elected to bat first and were immediately in trouble losing Cook for a duck
with the score at 0 for 1. England
then proceeded to press the self destruct button a further three times during
the innings in the form of run outs given against Kevin Pieterson, Captain
Collingwood and debutante Luke Wright. Pieterson’s run out was astonishing in
that his playing partner Owais Shah remained rooted within his crease with
Pieterson scrambling home at the same end. The view of my colleagues at the
time was that Shah should have lifted his bat thereby sacrificing his wicket to
preserve the greater prowess of Pieterson but he obviously knew better. Shah
went on to finish 107 not out ensuring that Pieterson could not complain too
loudly when Shah finally returned to the pavilion. New boys Wright and Shah
added 106 for the sixth wicket and another newcomer Dimitri Mascarenas (as the
song goes: Hey Ma(s)carena!) closed the innings with a truly astonishing five
sixes from the final over to leave England on a very secure looking
316. My Indian colleagues were already unfurling the white flag.
Not knowing too much about Indian run chases my
opinion was that there was no reason why India
could not overhaul England’s
total especially as England’s
run gathering had been relatively sedate for the first thirty overs. Ganguly
and the “little master” Tendulkar soon began to prove me correct as they put on
150 for the first wicket. Tendulkar finished on 94, falling once again to England’s
own Sikh Monty Panesar, to prove his position as one of the world’s all time
top batsmen. But once again this match proved to be a tale of unheralded
youngsters as Robin Uthappa scored two boundaries in the very last over of the
match to clinch an unlikely victory for the tourists. Real cricket aficionados
informed me afterwards that this game was one of the most dramatic ODIs that
there has ever been and I have to say that despite England’s defeat it was a real
pleasure to be there. The result made it 3-3 going into the final ODI at Lords
which England
eventually won to secure a first ODI series win on home soil for quite a few
years.
And finally here’s a tongue-in-cheek quiz question
for you. How
many Manchester United fans does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to
change the light bulb, one to buy the "1999 light bulb changing"
commemorative t-shirt and video, and one to drive the other two back to
Torquay.
Keep the faith!
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