13 March 2010

Today sees us take the field here for the 3rd time in 5 days following our 1-0 victory over Walton Casuals on Tuesday night followed by a 0-0 draw with Met Police on Thursday night. It is a situation I findunacceptable at this level of football to put players through that many games in such a short space of time, especially as we have played more games than anyone else in the league It is even more galling when, after talking to Jim Cooper (Met Police manager) on Thursday, he told me that they are also up with their games and have several Tuesday nights available before the end of the season. I totally fail to see the logic in putting our lads through 3 games in 5 days (4 in 7 if you take last Saturday as welll) when our opponents today have had a completely free week since last Saturday and have played 4 fewer games than we have overall! The 2 games that we have played this week have seen us bounce back from 2 defeats with a well deserved 3 points against Walton Casuals and a very hard earned but fully deserved point from a 0-0 draw with in form Met Police. The Walton game saw us dominate possession against a team fighting for their survival in this league and who came and put numbers behind the ball to try and frustrate us. Once we scored, through Westies first goal of the season mid way through the second half, I felt that we were always going to win even if we got a bit nervy in the last 10 mins having thrown leads away a couple of times i recently. Thursday’s game was a totally different proposition and was, I thought, a really good game for a 0-0 draw. It was fast and physical, very much like the away game earlier in the season, with us dominating the first half and them the second and a draw was a fair result in the end. Both sides hit the woodwork a couple of times and I was proud of the lads who, totally shattered in the last 23 mins, defended superbly whilst still creating a couple of decent chances and keeping a second clean sheet in a row. The only real frustration on the night was the referee failing to send their last defender off when he pulled Geardy down from behind on the edge of the box in the first 10 mins, a key decision that would most probably have altered the outcome of the game. Player news today will depend on who feels fittest after the week that we have had as several of the lads were nursing knocks at the end of Thursday’s game. Simon Lockwood plays in the reserves in readiness for his return to replace Tony in goal, after today‘s game, when he starts a 3 game ban for last Saturdays red card at Godalming and we hope to have Gavin Geddes back in today‘s squad after illness has seen him miss both midweek games.

27 February 2010

This is the second meeting between YM & Leatherhead this season with the Hrst being the second game ofthe season where we recorded a very good 6-2 victory over our opponents, who were most peopIe’s favourites for promotion this season. It is fair to say that their season hasn‘t panned out as expected but I know that today's game will provide another stern test for our lads. Those of you that were here on the previous Saturday would have seen us produce an outstanding display to defeat Fleet 3-2. Fleet had won every game that they had played in 2010 and came expecting another 3 points but our lads were determined to put the record straight, following our cup defeat by them last week, and produced arguably our best display of the season. I have been on record recently in describing our recent victories over Leatherhead and then Walton & Hersham as being our best of the season but, in my opinion, Saturdays display eclipsed both of those due to the standard of the opposition and the sheer quality of the football that we played. We started brightly and took the lead on 5 mins when Geardy finished off good work from Tom Lawley and then Doddsy, who could have gone down for a penalty before keeping his feet and setting Geardy up for a routine finish from close range. Mike Huckett then missed a great chance to put us 2-0 ahead as we played them. off the park. We were only really threatened from set pieces throughout the first half and that proved decisive as they scored twice in a minute from set plays to go in 2-1 up. This set back didn’t upset our rhythm as we continued the second half were we had left off and deservedly equalised within 10 mins of the break when Timmsy finished off a rebound from his own header from Geardy’s corner. We continued to play all of the football, with Tony rarely tested in our goal, and got a deserved last minute winner courtesy of a fine finish from Tom Manton as he got around the back of his full back to drive across their keeper into the bottom corner. Player news today sees us lose Brakey and Timmsy and Dodd as they all start suspensions and we await fitness checks on Drew, Geardy and Mets while Pullers is back from on holiday so the squad is being stretched to the limit at the moment. Young Mike Shaw returns to the squad after a college trip as does Flacky, who has been keeping fit playing for Broadbridge Heath in the county league.

13 February 2010

This is the third meeting between YN & Fleet Town this season and I know that our lads will be keen to avenge both our 2-0 league defeat back in October and our 3-0 league cup defeat on Tuesday night. We will be looking, therefore, to put the record straight today and we will be trying to inflict our opponents first defeat of 2010. Since my last notes for you we have played 3 league games, beating Corinthian-Casuals 4-0 here and Walton & Hersham 2-1 away and drawing 0-0 at in form Sittingbourne. The game against Corinthian-Casuals was fairly routine. Once we had taken the lead and goals from Luke Gedling, Mike Huckett (2) and Geardy saw us pick up all 3 points against a team who never gave up but never really troubled us. Walton and Hersham were a different proposition and the lads were magnificent on l the night to come away with all 3 points. We went 1-0 down on the half hour mark from a free kick that unfortunately saw Tony Timms harshly sent off for a professional foul. I guess the ref had no choice by the letter of the law but, having seen it on DVD, Timmsy tried to get out of the way but the forward was clever in his movement and engineered the collision and that was Timmsy's night over. The rest of the lads did him proud and we equalised through a great Tom Lawley strike before halftime and Doddsy put us in front on about 70 mins following a fine Luke Gedling break. They huffed and puffed but we held them quite comfortably to claim a really good win. The Sittingbourne game probably ended about right in a 0-0 draw with both sides having chances to win what was, in truth, a pretty dour game. Tony Di-Bernardo made a couple of good saves at one end and both Doddsy and Tom Manton had chances to win it for us at the other but it showed how far we have come as we came away disappointed that we hadn‘t taken maximum points from a side that hadn‘t dropped a point at home since October. Tuesday night's cup game against today’s opponents saw us suffer only our 2nd defeat in the last 12 games and, whilst Fleet deserved to win the game, I felt that the game was spoilt by the man in the middle who dished cards out like confetti and sent Doddsy off after less than 20 mins to make a difficult game even harder! Still, we managed to get a game for a number of lads that haven't seen too much match action recently, from that perspective the game served its purpose. Player news today sees the return of Brakey and Drew to the squad following ankle and groin injuries, Brakey missing Tuesday’s game and Drew has missed the last 3 games. Pullers is away on holiday and misses today’s game and Tuesday’s game here against Met Police, when both Brakey and Timmsy will be missing through suspension (2 and 3 games respectively).

30 January 2010

This is the second meeting between YM & Corinthian-Casuals this season and I know that our lads will be keen to avenge our 2—1 defeat back in October, where we produced just about our most disappointing performance of the season. We will be iooking, therefore, to put the record straight today and to continue the fine run that we have been on over one past couole of months Due to the recent adverse weather conditions causing severai postponements it is now over a month since we were last here, the boxing day game with Eastbourne Town. Since then we have managed only three games, all away, at Eastbourne over New Year followed by trips to Leatherhead and Ramsgate in the past ten days. The Boxing Day game was, to say the an incredible one to experience for all of us! They started brightly, we got and took the lead through Tom Manton before missing numerous chances. inciuding a penalty that saw their player sent off for deliberate handball, and came in at the break. The second half was one Tye never witnessed before in all my time in senior football as we totally ran riot with further goals from rlucks, Geardy, Lawley, a Gay Geddes hatrick, Shaz and a second from Manton saw us score another 8 times to win the game 9-0. They didrn't help themselves by losing their discipline and having a second player dismissed that shouldn't detract from a fabulous second half performance from our lads. The away game was always going to be a different story and so it proved. They had a change of manager together with a dozen changes to their starting line up meaning that we were on a hiding to nothing. It a scrapy game played on a difficult surface where we had the better of the chances as both Doddsy and Geardy hit the woodwork and Luke Gedllng saw a second penalty saved. The game finally ended 0-0 which was probably the right result given the circcumstances. The Leatherhead game saw us produce arguabiy our best performance of the season as we totally dominated and ran out 6-2 winners. The quality of our football, on a superb surface, was a joy to watch and the score line was fully justified with the scorers being Doddsy (2), Manton {2}, Gedling & Wattsy following something like a 12 pass move, Last Saturday saw us take another away oint from a 1-1 draw at Ramsgate where we took the lead through a Doddsy penalty but allowed them a cheap equaliser on the stroke of half time, Although they were down to 10 men, the second half degenerated into a battle on a very difficult surface and the draw was certainly about right. Still, as we said to the lads afterwards to take 4 out of 6 points away at Leatherheacl and Ramsgate shows how far we have come since the dark days we endured in September and October when we didn't know where our next point was coming from! Last Saturday saw us take another away oint from a 1-1 draw at Ramsgate where we took the lead through a Doddsy penalty but allowed them a cheap equaliser on the stroke of half time, Although they were down to 10 men, the second half degenerated into a battle on a very difficult surface and the draw was certainly about right. Still, as we said to the lads afterwards to take 4 out of 6 points away at Leatherheacl and Ramsgate shows how far we have come since the dark days we endured in September and October when we didn't know where our next point was coming from! Player news today sees the return of Tony Timms whose two game ban has finally been completed some four or tive weeks after it wouldhave been but for the weather? The weather break has, however, allowed a few nigglling injuries to clear up and means that we have a full squad to choose from for the first time this season. We have signed striker Darren Annis on dual forms with Worthing United as cover and we also welcome goalkeeper/goalkeeping coach Stuat Owens to the club as cover for Tony.

15 December 2009

Our match against Burgess Hill is the first of four Sussex derbies that we play over the next couple of weeks as, in addition to tonight, we also play Eastbourne Town (twice) and Worthing over the Christmas period. Tonight's game is the one we look at as our local derby and, what with seven of our squad tonight plus myself and Virgs all having been involved with the Hillians in recent seasons, we will certainly have the incentive to put Saturdays disappointment behind us and get back to how we have been for the past five or six weeks. Those of you that were here on Saturday would have seen us give our worst display for a while as our six game unbeaten run came to an end with a 2-1 defeat to Chipstead. It was certainly a case of "after the Lord Mayors show" following our performance against Horsham as we never got going against a team that, quite frankly, worked harder than we did. We started slowly but still had a couple of decent chances before we went ahead through Terry Dodd's penalty following a foul on Gavin Geddes. They were then reduced to ten men when their centre back was sent off for a nasty challenge on Wattsy having already been booked for giving away our penalty and I think some of our lads thought the game was won there and then. They then equalised through a quick free kick that we fell asleep for and that gave ihem the foothold in the game that, to their credit, they were not going to let qo. Their second goal was a penalty conceded by Tom Lawley following more defensive indecision and, despite then laying siege to their goal for the final 20 mins, the nearest we came to saving the game was a penalty that we should have been given for a blatant trip on Doddsy as he was about to shoot in the last minute. Disappointing though Saturday was I am not going to criticise the boys too much as they have all been terrific recently and I fully expect them to show their character and bounce back to form tonight as we chase another important three points. Player news tonight sees us waiting on injury news on Mike Huckett, who missed Saturdays game with a knee injury, and also both Drew Cooney (hamstring) and John Westcott (groin) who both limped out of Saturday's game before half time. In addition Tony Timms starts a two game ban tonight for his two yellows at Walton Casuals and he won't now be available until Boxing Day.

27 October 2009

Suffice to say it makes tonight's game against Ashford Town is very important for both teams as we attempt to turn our recent results around and climb away from the foot of the table. The Sittingbourne point was ultimately disappointing as I felt that we dominated proceedings for most of the game.. Our work rate and general play was excellent but, yet again, we only had Tom Manton's superb voiley from Westies cross to show for it and we were eventually punished for not finishing them off with a very soft goal as we were undone by a big punt from their goalkeeper that caught us napping and another couple of points slipped away. The following Tuesday we travelled to Corinthian Casuals and, in truth, didn't deserve anything as we gave two poor goals away and didn't start to play until we were 2-0 down. We then pulled one back through Torn Lawley and could have snatched a point in the end as both Shaz and Westie went close in the closing minutes but the overall feeling was that we had taken a step forward against Sittingbourne only to take two backwards in this game. With no game the following Saturday we were able to make some changes to the squad prior to our visit to Fleet last Saturday and, despite the defeat against a decent side who have won 7 on the spin, I was much happier with our display. We were, in my opinion, the better side for the first 30 minutes when disaster struck in the form of another individual error. Randy had been warned that he was close to taking the ball out of his area before kicking it and finally the linesman flagged for handball and they scored directly from the free kick which was a real blow to our confidence. The second half was pretty even until they scored a second with us chasing the game but I feel that had we got to half time level we definitely would have got something out of the game. Player news over the past couple of weeks has seen us make some changes to the squad with 2 new signings and the departure of 3 players from the club. We welcome 2 new strikers into the squad in the form of the vastly experienced Gavin Geddes from Burgess Hill and 19 year old former Worthing player Terry Dodd from my old club East Preston. They .both have good goal scoring records and will hopefully add some much needed fire power to us. Departing the club are Steve Sargent by mutual consent and I have released both Scott Bennetts and Tom Graves and would like to thank them all for their efforts for us and wish them well in the future. In addition I have allowed Martyn Flack and James Rhodes to join Broadbridge Heath and Shoreham respectively to gain somr much needed match fitness.

26 September 2009

Since my last notes for you we have earned an ultimately hard but disappointing 1- 1 draw here against Ramsgate followed by two cup defeats on the road, 4-0 at Tonbridge in the FA Cup and last weeks 3-1 defeat at Chipstead in the FA Trophy. The Ramsgate point was ultimately disappointing as I felt that we dominated proceedings for most of the first 70 mins and they really only came into their own in the last 20 after they had been handed a ridiculous penalty to draw level. Our work rate and general play until then had been excellent but we only had Met's superb volley from Sarge's driven corner to show for it and we were punished for not finishing them off with the soft penalty decision. Everyone in the ground saw their winger bring the ball down with his hand before smashing it at Mets from about a foot away and, although it hit Met's arm, how it was deliberate handball I will never know. The last 20 mins saw them dominate and only the excellence of the recalled Tom Rand in goal kept the scores level. The past two weeks cup defeats have been disappointing and, in truth, we have got what we deserved from both. The Tonbridge game was always going to be a big task for us to get a result but, having done our homework on them I was quietly confident of a result but we never got going and conceded far too early to give ourselves a fighting chance. Last week at Chipstead saw us go in front on 2 mins from a Mike Huckett header and, again, for 25 mins we were great but couldn't get the all important second goal. Once again though, once they equalised on the half hour mark, we seemed to lose confidence as they gained it and 2 further second half goals (including another dodgy penalty) saw us exit the competition. In addition we had new signing Scott Bennett’s sending off for a second yellow to cap a miserable afternoon all round. Player news this week has seen the return to fitness of Neil Watts and James Rhodes with Martyn Flack also returning to training therefore just leaving the longer term victims White, Lockwood and Timms still missing. Having said that Timmsy has now had the cast removed from his arm and he did some light training on Thursday and I hope that it wont be too long before he is ready to return. We have also had a change behind the scenes that has seen the departure of assistant manager 'Terry Graves and I would like to thank him for his hard work and wish him all the best for the future. This has meant that Virgs has stepped up to be my no 2 and Keiran Collins (joint youth team manager) has also stepped up to take the pre-match ups and to work with Virgs on the training ground.

19 September 2009

Good afternoon everyone and welcome back to Gorings Mead for today's league game against Ramsgate. I would like to extend my welcome to Jim Ward, Ramsgate's manager, his management team and players. Our opponents today have, like ourselves, had a mixed start to their season so far, winning two, drawing two and losing three of their seven league games to date. Having been relegated from the premier at the end of last season I am sure that they will have ambitions of an immediate return and therefore will provide another stern test for us today. Those se of you that were here last Saturday saw us progress to the second qualifying round of the FA Cup courtesy of a 1-0 win over county league East Grinstead. We made hard work of it but, considering we were without a total of 12 players either unfit or ill, it was the result that mattered and I thought that overall it was just about the right outcome. After a pretty uneventful first half our goal came 10 minutes after half time from a Mike Huckett header that their keeper managed to fumble into the roof of the net and we should have gone further ahead shortly afterwards when Mike managed to hit the post when scoring seemed far easier! That seemed to give them a lift and they put us under a bit of pressure in the final 10-15 mins but the returning Tom Rand and his defenders managed to cope with what they had to offer to send us through. We have been handed an away tie at Tonbridge Angels in the next round next week and I hope that as many of you as possible will make the journey to support the boys as, I am told that this equals the furthest the club has ever got in the FA Cup (the last we reached this round was in 1991) and we will be going all out to make a bit of club history. Player news this week sees us still missing Jeremiah, Rhodes, Timms, White , Westcott, Lockwood, Watts and Flack through injury but we should welcome Brakey, Tom Lawley and Shaz back into today's squad after injury and illness. In addition we have signed former Farnborough, Met Police and Bromley midfielder Scott Bennetts this week and he will be in today's squad. Scott has vast experience of playing in this league and I am sure will be a big Asset to us. We should also complete the signing of pacey striker Dean Wright from Three Bridges this weekend but, due to being cup tied he wont Come into contention until we go to Chipstead in the FA Trophy in a couple of time.

12 September 2009

Since my last notes, we have suffered 2 league defeats on the bounce and so making today's game against East Grinstead even more important to us, as we attempt to not let our decent start to the season go to waste. Croydon Athletic gave us a first half lesson 10 days ago and will undoubtedly be among the title contenders come the end of the season. Finding ourselves 4-0 down at the interval meant that it was only our personal pride at stake in the second half and we certainly showed some character as we came out and took the game to them, won the second half 2-1 to eventually go down 5-2. In addition to the 2 goals that we scored, through Lake Gedling's first for the club and Tom Manton's penalty, we had further food chances through Paul Elliott, Mets and Mike Huckett that we couldn’t take, which might have made things more interesting. The fact that 2 or 3 of tJieir players had to be pulled apart at the end of the game showed that we had rattled them but we must stop giving sides a head start as it is not easy to recover in this league. Saturday's trip to Folkestone was more disappointing for me as, although they are top of the league, in my opinion they are not a patch on Croydon and again we waited until we were 2-0 down at half time until we started to play. We then created several good chances that we didn't take whilst restricting them to virtually nothing in reply. The game was overshadowed by a nasty injury to our goalkeeper, Simon Lockwood, who suffered a broken leg and underwent surgery earlier this week which will see him sidelined for he next few months. Simon has impressed everybody since he came to us in he summer and will be missed. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope to see him playing again as soon as possible. Simon's misfortune will see last years custodian, Tom Rand, restored to the side today following his recovery from his summer leg injury. Other player news sees us still missing Sam Jeremiah, James Rhodes, Tony mms, Dan White, Nigel Brake and John Westcott through injury and they ave now been joined by Martyn Rack (suspected hernia) and Neil Watts, ho suffered a recurrence of his ankle injury at Folkestone. We are currently working on bringing a couple of new faces into the squad and I will keep you formed on any developments on that front.

1 September 2009

Its fair to say that Croydon Athletic are most peoples early season favourites for the title and they certainly started the season off with a bang in despatching both Ashford and Whitstable in their first 2 games, scoring 12 goals and not conceding in either game. Since then they have drawn at Met Police, surprisingly lost at home to Chatham and progressed in the FA Cup on Saturday by beating Godalming 2-0. Suffice to say we are expecting a tough encounter tonight and we will need to be at our best to get a result but we will stick to our principles of playing entertaining football. Those of you that were here on Sunday saw us eventually gain a fairly comfortable passage through to the first qualifying round of the FA Cup by beating our old county league rivals Wick 5-3. We started the game full of confidence after our decent start to life in the higher division and took an early lead through a fine finish to a sweeping move by Tom Manton, a satisfying goal for him against his old club. I felt that we were pretty much in control and duly scored a second through Paul Elliott just before half time and then added a third from Mets 5 mins after the break to put us in complete control. We then seemed to take our foot off the gas and caused ourselves an uncomfortable last half an hour as they scored twice to get themselves back into it, we scored again through an individual effort from Tom Lawley, they got another to give themselves hope and we finally put the game to bed when Paul scored his second by heading home Puller's cross 5 minutes from the end. The pleasing aspect of the first hour was that, even when not quite at our fluid best, I felt that we were a class above a side that we were vying at the top of the county league with a few months ago and it showed me how well the lads have adapted to the step up. The victory came at a price though as we lost Westie to a badly cut knee, Tom Manton suffered a back injury and both Tom Graves and Mike Huckett came off with knee problems. We will not know the availability of any of them until shortly before kick off so its fingers crossed that they are all ok for tonight. In addition to these we have lost Nigel Brake for between 3 and 6 weeks with a hamstring injury picked up in training last week so the squad is being stretched to the limit so early in the season. The good news is that Neil Watts was fit enough for the bench on Sunday but James Rhodes suffered a reaction to his hamstring in training and he now won't be back until the end of September.

30 August 2009

The FA Cup is, in my opinion, still the greatest cup competition in the world and it is always exciting and a privilege to be involved in it. Every team that enters has the dream of a run in it and we are no different. We will be giving it everything today to ensure that we progress to what would be another home tie against either East Grinstead or Combined Counties Cove in the first qualifying round. Of course there is not only the prestige of a cup run at stake but also some decent prize money on offer so it is doubly important for clubs like ours to progress as far as possible. Those of you that were here on Tuesday night saw us lose our first game of the season in what was a cracking game of football against Dulwich Hamlet. Dulwich were, as I predicted, the best footballing side that we have played so far and it was, in my opinion, an end to end game full of quality football from both sides. We had the perfect start after a couple of minutes when good work from Shaz saw his shot well saved and Mike Huckett was on hand to volley the rebound into the net for his first competitive goal for the club. Unfortunately, we gifted them an equaliser a few minutes later when a mix up between Simon in goal and Flacky resulted in Simon being lobbed from just inside the box to level the scores. We had numerous other chances in the first half and a combination of great goalkeeping and poor finishing from us saw in no particular order Shaz, Gravesy, Nets, Tom Lawley and Flacky all denied and the half finished 1-1. We started the second half brightly and were on top when half way through the half a speculative 30 yarder from ex-Lewes winger Stefan Cox somehow managed to creep under Simon's body and we were 2-1 down. We hit back well and carried on creating what seemed chance after chance with Shaz, Lawley and Westie all guilty of missing golden opportunities and, in the 90th minute with us piling forward, we vere hit on the break for their 3rd which wrapped the points up for Dulwich. All in ill I had no complaints with the effort or the quality of our play and I would ie worried if we weren't creating chances but we are creating plenty and I have very confidence that we will soon be putting a better ratio of the chances reated away. On the playing side I am pleased to be able to tell you that Tony Timms had his aeration on Wednesday and it went well and hopefully he will be well enough to : here today. Neil Watts (ankle) and James Rhodes (hamstring) both resumed nning on Tuesday and were due to train on Thursday and we are hopeful that ey will both be back in contention in a week or so just leaving longer term sentees Sam Jeremiah and Dan White on the sidelines.