NATIONWIDE SOUTH
Att : 668
SUTTON UNITED – 0
WEYMOUTH – 3 [Wilkinson 41. Clarke 43. Nade 68]
Way way back in the mists of time (well, the end of October to be precise) we made our customary drunken weekend visit to the seaside town of Weymouth. Then, what seems a lifetime ago, Sutton were a good side and unbelievably travelled to the title favourites down in Dorset actually sitting atop the division! Naturally, it all went down the pan from there and despite a battling display, mistakes cost us dear and we went down 3-1. A scoreline that slightly flattered our hosts somewhat.
Now fast forward 4 and a bit months and the season has moved on somewhat from then and it’s now Weymouth who top the division. And us?? Er, not so good. 2 wins in twenty-fucking-four to be be precise and a weak as piss defeat to Lewes just 72 hours before. So, needless to say, a bloody good hiding is expected by one and all. Still, we do still have the one ace up our sleeve. Our pitch. Which is almost as crap as our form.
Hopefully it’ll drag our illustrious full-time visitors down to our level. Although I wouldn’t bet on it.
For Windy & myself, the afternoon has an unusual start. Instead of the customary pint in the pub, we instead find ourselves at the club enjoying a 3 course lunch with the great & good of SUFC as guests of a long time U’s fan, who is celebrating his birthday today.
Dear god. First organising race nights and now pre-match luncheon with the Blazers?? This club is gong to the bloody dogs I tell you and not just on the pitch. They’ll let any fecker in these days! Still, we can’t complain as it’s a half decent bit of nosh and it’ll help soak up the beer better after the game.
We take our leave at around 2 and head for the bar to try & locate a couple of ‘Muffs ‘online’ characters. Sadly, it’s a bit packed and after stuffing our faces, we’re not in the mood to wander around a busy bar looking for bloody farmers. There’s pints to be chased down!
Thankfully, the Times Square lounge is open and we head in there to stretch our legs. Here we find Mr & Mrs C and a few other U’s fans who’ve had the same idea. Golden Goal tickets are offered around and foolishly, Windy and the C’s invest in a couple each. Naturally, Windy is somewhat disappointed with his choices of 37 and 76 minutes.
“We’ll never hold out THAT long!” I comment mockingly.
Mrs C’s choices are little better and Chalmers finds his first one a rather unlikely ‘no goal’. But, his other one is far far more promising….2 minutes. Hmmm, it’s definitely a front runner, but still probably out by a good 60 seconds I’d say mate.
Beers sunk, we head out into the ground with the news that Chelsea have nicked a 91st minute winner against Sperz. That’ll put Greek in a suitably miserable frame of mind for this one then!
Unsurprisingly, after Wednesday’s less than fluent showing, changes are once again rung in the starting line up. Rivers and Adams revert to the bench, with Boosey getting another chance with a starting slot. Fearo also returns in midfield, which is handy, ‘cos that actually gives us a midfielder on the pitch. Sadly, Paul Honey’s iffy tonsils once again keep him out of the line up. Obviously doesn’t drink enough beer that boy. We really must have a word with his old man about that…
Despite the changes, Sutton start brightly and a very early Gray cross causes a little bit of hesitancy at the far post. A couple of minutes later, a surging run up the centre from Boosey takes him to the edge of the 18 yard box where he feeds Watson to his right. He manages to hold his man off before returning the pass to Boosey, this time in the box.
Sadly, the resulting shot flashes across goal and is wide of the mark. And it’s at this point that Chalmers first and most promising golden goal ticket expires. Unlucky chief, better luck next time eh?
The visitors soon find their feet though and build up on the right leads to a loose ball being gobbled up and a driven effort from 25 yards being hit straight at Emberson. Sutton keep up their early tempo though and on 12 minutes, Gray & Douglas combine down the right, with Gray eventually thumping a low shot towards the near post that the ‘keeper smothers on the second go.
3 mins later, Douglas heads a left sided Peter Fear free-kick wide of the far post, although one wonders if he could have done better if he’d attacked the ball a little more aggressively.
Weymouth pop up again shortly after. A quick counterattack down our left wing results in the pulled back cross being hit narrowly wide of Embo’s near post. Almost straight after and Carl is making his first real save of the match, flicking an audacious, dipping first time effort from 30 yards over his crossbar.
But it’s our underperforming bunch that continue to have slightly the better of things. On 24 minutes, the ‘Muff defence is stretched when a great ball down the right sends Douglas away. He cuts in and goes for goal, but seems to delay his shot that fraction too long and it’s half blocked by the ‘keeper. The resulting clearance only goes as far as Fear lurking 20 yards out, but his drive through the crowd is beaten away from on the goal-line by an alert ‘keeper.
Another opportunity comes our way on 5 minutes later when again Douglas chases a ball forward on the right. This time he feeds Boosey and with a god sight of goal, he takes a rather unnecessary second touch, which coupled with a nasty bobble is enough to allow the ‘keeper to close the angle and block what turns out to be a rather weak toe poke.
Our guests give notice that they’re still around with about 10 to play before half time when the play moves from right to left. With a good overlap worked, the ‘Muff man cracks in a fierce angled effort that Emberson can only push into the air. But as it seems a striker will follow up and complete a tap in, Patsy covers and hooks the ball to safety over the bar for a corner. Still, we feel fairly confident that a level score at half-time should set up a good 2nd 45.
D’oh! We had to go and say it didn’t we? Stand by, we are at full on mockers alert!
With 4 minutes to the break, the ref it seems unfairly penalises Fear on the right touchline for what seemed a perfectly good tackle. The free-kick is lumped deep into U’s territory and nodded down on the edge of the area. We fail to clear and it finds it’s way into a gap, which is all the ‘Muff no7 needs to loose off a rising drive out of Embo’s reach high into the net.
Flaming fuckcakes. Here we go again.
Worse is to come as 3 minutes later, a cross field ball catches out Akumouah and his attempted defensive header only serves to tee up an attacker out left. With the defence now caught trailing a bit by this perfect flick on, matey delivers a calm slide rule pass to the no10 at the far post and he makes no mistake from 8 yards, finding the bottom corner of the net with Embo again left exposed.
Now, one was a tad unfortunate, but 2 really is taking the piss a bit!!
Annoyingly, the visiting fans populating the Securicor terrace behind that goal indulge in that shite ‘Easy easy’ SoccerAM nonsense, complete with the halfwitted clapping. Please don’t do that, it’s from SKY tv and is therefore not in the slightest bit funny or ironic.
We encourage the lads as best we can as they leave the field, but no matter how much you mean it, even we know that we’ve just suffered a pretty hefty kick in the bollocks and the likelihood of rescuing owt from this game is somewhere in the neighbourhood of zero. Just around the corner from bugger all, opposite the Fat Chance Inn.
Oh well, time for a drink. Beer is of course being the cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems.
My plans for such are abruptly cancelled when the Bobbins score comes through on the vidiprinter up on the telly as we walk in. It seems they’re holding our visitors nearest rivals for the title, St Albans, 0-0 at half time. At St Albans. And naturally, this excites the Dorset people.
So having just suffered that undeserved blow before the break, having a farmers convention making pro-Scummer comments in our bar really is just too much for this man to bear!
Right, anyone fancy some fresh air?? Maybe a cuppa from the tea bar perhaps?
The restart has us again off to a bright start. And just a couple of minutes in, Douglas again finds himself bearing down on goal after a ball in from the flank, but rather than shoot, he elects to try & go around the ‘keeper and end up in a heap. There are half-hearted shouts for a penalty, but the ref isn’t having any of it. To add insult to injury, a somewhat sluggish Mark Watson fails to snap up a rather promising loose ball.
After this, the match turns into a pretty dull affair. With the visitors seemingly quite happy to sit on their advantage and the U’s unable to really muster the drive and tempo of earlier, almost feck all of note occurs until the 72nd minute.
And naturally, with their first real attack of the half, Weymouth confirm that 3 points will be added to their current tally come 4.45.
Some poor defending from Sutton sees them fail to clear their lines on several occasions over a few moments spell. They pay for this as the ball is eventually prodded through for their other striker to finish low at the near post on the right.
Now the game does drift into nothingness, with Sutton failing to make any chances of note, obviously knowing full well the game is up.
Weymouth bring on about half a million quids worth of subs (and that’s just Dean Holdsworth’s wages!) near the end and they contrive to miss a complete sitter with about 5 to go when an easy ball down the left is pulled across goal only to be horribly sliced well well wide of the far post.
Ooops!
The final whistle finally arrives and we are mercifully able to head for the bar, but some good news arrives in the shape of a 2nd half collapse from the Scummers who’ve eventually gone down by the same scoreline as us up at Stalebuns.
So it’s not all bad then!
Beers are sunk and I’m further cheered by Oldham’s last minute winner over Colchester. We chat to a few visitors and are mildly amused by one pissed Devon blokes attempt to get a chant of “We are top of the league” going in the bar, as he’s roundly ignored by pretty much everyone! Shut up mate, people are drinking here.
Eventually, hunger gets the better of us (even Windy and I have managed to digest that lunch) and we eventually depart for munchies at the Hood where the evening is taken up with bacon toasties and talking footy with some passing Wombles.
Still, despite all this, there’s still that nagging disappointment about todays result. Would’ve been nice to see how the second half would’ve panned out had we gone in 0-0 as we at least deserved. We certainly might’ve got a more interesting second half if nothing else.
Still, that new manager can’t be far away now. Here’s hoping it gives us a bit of a boost for the last month of the season and we can, heaven help us, actually win a couple more games.
What’s that?? Last orders?? What, ALREADY??
Awwwww….
MAN OF THE MATCH : Glenn Boosey. Our liveliest performer.
ENTERTAINMENT : 6. Actually a very entertainnig 1st half, the 2 goals killed us though….
TEAM : Emberson, Scarborough, Elliot, Gonsalves, Palmer, Fear, Boosey, Gray, Akuamouah, Douglas, Watson SUBS : Wilson, Cornwall, Adams, Gordon, Rivers