The Raging Racer (Part 4)

 

The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Market Drayton Town on 30th September 2008.

Good to see you here at Townsend Meadow once again! Regular readers of this column are no doubt gagging for further tales of my football watching exploits that took place after our final home game of last season so here goes…

Saturday 10th May – Ebbsfleet United v Torquay United, FA Trophy Final

You’ve got to feel a little sorry for Torquay United. The Gulls, relegated from the Football League at the end of the previous season, were making a valiant attempt to secure promotion back at the first attempt plus had the chance of the Non League “Double” – promotion and the FA Trophy. They must be the Chelsea of Non League circles because it all came undone at the death. In the week prior to the Trophy Final they succumbed at home to local rivals Exeter City having done the hard part in winning the first leg away at the home of the Grecians. Now, in their only remaining chance of success, they blew it against Blue Square upstarts Ebbsfleet United (aka Gravesend & Northfleet). Torquay dominated the early exchanges with Fleet playing on the break. After the first fifteen minutes Ebbsfleet began to assert themselves and seemed to have the upper hand having secured a fortuitous penalty. The chance was spurned by striker McFee but his moment was to come a few minutes later as he slotted home following a dreadful mistake by the Torquay right back. 1-0 to Ebbsfleet and that was the way it stayed.

We had travelled down without tickets confident in the knowledge that there would be some available on the day. This proved to be the case and we even had a choice of ends. We elected to go with the Torquay supporters on the grounds that Ebbsfleet seemed to have more fans and we felt a strange antipathy towards the boys from myfootballclub.com. That’s right, Ebbsfleet are subjecting themselves to the mother of all internet experiments. Myfootballclub.com have been drumming up investors at £35 a time with promises that the geeks will be able to become a part owner of a football club and even to select the team! Last year enough investors had been found to enable a takeover of a small club (Leeds United were also mooted for a while) and Ebbsfleet became that club. As you can imagine, manager Liam Daish hasn’t yet relinquished the reigns and, in my view, nor should he – when did real football fans ever approve of the owners getting involved in team selection? But it can’t be denied that the experiment has provoked interest (and investment) in Ebbsfleet and at least some of their supporters on the day were there to see how their charges were getting on. The attendance on the day exceeded 40,000 making it the second best attended FA Trophy Final ever - the best ever was last season’s return to Wembley game between Stevenage Borough and Kidderminster Harriers.

The day was also notable for being the Racing Club Player of the Season Awards Night. In another excellent evening we enjoyed the prize giving for the future of Racing Club: the Under 14 and Under 16 sides as well as our beloved first team. The presentations were kindly made at short notice by father of Matty and former Racing Club manager Andy Blair. There were numerous categories but most were won by Ryan Howells, with Matty Blair, Scott Handley and Gareth Plant bagging awards as well. All that remained was to dance the night away which everyone did - away from Racing Club that is….

Wednesday 28th May – England v USA, Friendly International

This was a game that seemed to come in for some unfair criticism from the learned gentlemen of the media. For the record I enjoyed this one! These days the USA are no mugs and went into the game 21^st in FIFA’s rankings in comparison with England’s 11^th so this was never going to be an easy run out. A number of lazy journalists appear to think that the USA haven’t progressed since 1950 (when they beat England incidentally). A week prior to this game you may recall that ITV served up “From Russia with Love”: the Champions League Final live from Moscow enthralled us as evil Bond-villain Scudamore saw his dastardly scheme for world domination by his clandestine organisation come a step closer. An export strength Premier League fixture as Manchester United took on Chelsea and, unlike the 2007 FA Cup Final version, proved to be compulsive and dramatic viewing. Poor old honest John Terry was thwarted at the death and his shoot out blank let the Reds off the hook and left him sobbing his little heart out for all the world to see.

So the USA friendly represented John’s first step on his personal road to recovery and there was considerable pleasure for all watching Chelsea fans apparently as Terry nodded in a first-half opener following yet another exquisite free kick from the people’s hero Beckham. Becks was earning his 101^st cap in this fixture and, to mark the occasion, had been presented by the FA with what looked like a large Perspex fish tank with his cap handsomely mounted within – I bet that was a bugger to take back to Los Angeles in his Business Class hand luggage. In truth I felt that Beckham more than merited his place. He still puts heart and soul into England performances and the side was all the poorer following his untimely removal at half time. David Bentley is certainly not worth a place ahead of Beckham on the evidence of this game.

England’s second came after the break with a characteristic finish from our own Stevie G (I really hate that nickname). Gerrard broke free following a pass from Gareth Barry that immediately highlighted the difference between Gerrard playing with Lampard as compared to Gerrard playing with Barry. At 2-0 the game was as good as over and the US side seemed happy enough to settle for the defeat sending England off to Trinidad and Tobago for a last-game-of-the-season politically expedient World Cup 2018 vote winning friendly. Well done lads!

The game represented my 60^th of the season but there was still one more game left for yours truly to attend before putting season 2007/8 to bed…..Euro2008 was waiting.

Keep the faith!