Phew.

That was a close call. This was a classic game of two halves, the Dons had the game won after one of the most impressive 45 minutes of football you’ll see from a Wimbledon side, hell, a side in this division. Yet it almost wasn’t enough. A goal early in the second half gave Kettering hope, it was game on at 3-2 with ten minutes left, and only the reactions of Sebb Brown kept us ahead at the end, where nerves threatened to throw away two points.

Sunday football is weird. I never really got used to it in the nineties, and on the rare occasions we have to play now it just messes with my weekly pattern. I like to keep to some type of schedule, and Sunday is reserved for the well-earned treat of doing fuck-all. And ironically public transport is twice as busy, as it takes twice as long for buses to turn up and South West Trains decide to half the length of their trains despite there being no significant reduction in the amount of folk out and about for the day.

The Dons were rewarded for switching the game with the lowest crowd of the season turning out, and the atmosphere was a bit lacking, too many people either full of Sunday lunch or empty and longing for their dinner. Even the promise of Stevenage tickets being on sale didn’t boost the attendance, not that the decision helped me in any way as I didn’t find out until I actually got to the ground, and hadn’t brought enough money with me. Which kind of serves me right for being too lazy to walk down the ground on Saturday when they were openly available.

Still, the Dons punished those unable to attend with the sort of first half display that makes you wonder whether we might just be playing our way out of recent indifferent form, just in time with some difficult looking fixtures on the horizon. Ricky Wellards low raking cross field ball found Luke Moore in plenty of space, after teeing up Thursday nights late pair Moore showed the composure to slot the ball under Kettering keeper Jack and into the bottom corner. Wellard had a superb game, especially in the first half where he looked the best player on the pitch. It sums up why we get so frustrated with Ricky sometimes, I’m sure the manager must too, because when he is on his game he’s one of the best midfielders in the division. 

The Dons grabbed a second when Kettering’s Nick Green simultaneously obstructed his team mates attempt at challenging Sammy Moore, while managing to knock the Dons midfielder literally flying into the air. In Danny Kedwells absence Luke Moore tucked away the spot kick, the Dons were looking comfortable now. In fact, the rested Kedwell wasn’t missed at all, Moore having a fine game on the left and Jolley – looking well rested after his three game ban – almost unplayable on the right. In fact, Wimbledon almost looked like scoring every time they went forward.

Well, not really. I mean we all know how many chances the Dons can create for themselves only to find the reward for their efforts wasted through poor finishing, so it was almost a pleasant surprise when the third came. Nwokeji found himself through on goal, his stabbed effort was blocked by Jack only for Jolley to nod into the empty net. Jolley should have got a second for himself and really finished the game before half time when his effort smacked off the bar, and the Dons were buzzing. After the other two members of the runaway top three posted big scores yesterday, you wondered how many the Dons would get as the teams departed at half time. Matching Luton’s five at least? Six? Seven???

Something changed though, and it happened before half time. Sam Hatton was removed after another excellent performance, and Ryan Jackson replaced him for what should have been a comfortable fifty minutes or so at right-back. The back four had looked pretty solid up to that point, repelling rare Kettering counter attacks with ease. Yakubu and Harris looked unbeatable, and while he gave the ball away cheaply on a couple of occasions, Bush looked capable defensively on the left.

Kettering created the goal they needed to build a comback on ten minutes into the second half. It was a very defendable goal, the sort of sloppy effort conceded by teams who are a little too overconfident of holding onto a big lead. Just a simple ball into the box from the left, nodded beyond Brown by Solkhon who had the space and time to make it look easy. A classic consolation goal, really, or so it should have been if the Dons had regained the initiative. They threatened to, but the old problem of overplaying in the final third reared its ugly head, Jolley and Yussuff being two in particular who found themselves hustled off the ball when they really should have got a shot away earlier.

At the back, Wimbledon seemed to have weathered the storm, but that all changed when Ryan Jackson had to hobble off injured. Fraser Franks came on to fill in at right back, but from that point on the Kettering winger could beat him for fun. The threat of Kettering’s pace caused Wimbledon to defend deeper and deeper, to the point Paul Furlongs half way line flicks to nobody were now taking place on the edge of the Dons box, causing more than a few heart attacks.

Kettering seem to have made an effort to be a little more pleasing on the eye following Marcus Law taking over, but the robust side of their game seems to have remained. By ‘robust’ I of course mean ‘thuggish’, they managed to pick up five yellow cards but it could have been so much worse for them, a couple of assaults on Sebb Brown while he lay on the floor with the ball in his hands went unpunished.

Going into the last ten minutes, the Dons looked absolutely shattered. The prospect of a week off must be appealing to them before Stevenage! It was almost no surprise that Kettering made a real game of it courtesy of Furlong scrambling home. Sebb Brown then had to be at his absolute best to claw out a fierce Furlong effort that seemed to be heading for the top corner. It’s at moments like that you realise how important Sebb Brown is to us. That save was every bit as important as a goal to us, and ultimately it won us two points. There was one last worrying moment, where Noubissie threw himself to the floor in the box in stoppage time. The referee blew, and for a split second you wondered whether he had fallen for it, but fortunately the yellow card was waved in the Kettering players direction, and the Dons had not just escaped, but returned to the top of the table once more.

You get the impression Crawley and Luton must be looking at our young, inexpensively assembled squad, wondering what the hell we are still doing above them in the table? I still feel the resources of those two sides will be enough to see them clear of us post-Christmas, until then we will do well to put as many points on the board as possible. Just being top once more is a fantastic achievement, and we can now look forward to our FA Cup tie with Stevenage, and perhaps show them how much we have improved since last April?

AFC Wimbledon 1 Kettering Town 2 – A Match Report

If you were frustrated about the Kidderminster game, you would have been pulling your hair out over this one. However thinking back (not that far) to the reverse fixture, despite the euphoria over a memorable performance we were quite lucky to get away with the points in the end… and this game was a mirror of it. Perhaps in my mind, being as it is drenched in blue and yellow blood, we made a better fist of our attempted comeback than they did in the corresponding fixture? Either way, a win and a loss is better than two draws in terms of points gained…

That doesn’t mean I’ve come to terms with this defeat. Hell, I haven’t got round Eastbourne beating us in our second game. Thankfully defeats have been as rare this season as they were last, yet despite the end-to-end excitement and proper sense that any game we play could go either way I still find myself begrudging our victors. Especially as their goalkeeper was a former franchise cuntbag. I don’t think I even mentioned it the first time around, yet yesterday it seemed to rub salt into the wound.

Those that bleat on about how we should have ‘got over it’ by now clearly have no idea what its like to be a Wimbledon supporter. No matter how good things are going at Kingsmeadow (or fingers crossed any future Dons stadium…) we are always going to be reminded of that betrayal. Presumably those big brave Kettering supporters who were chanting ‘MK Dons’ at us after the final whistle where aware of this, as they went strangely quiet when forced to mix with 3500 Dons fans in Jack Goodchild Way.

The match sponsors were Kick It Out, a worthy organisation, and you wonder whether they actually paid for the privilege or we gave it up for free. I would hope the latter, as it is their One Game, One Community initiative I gather they are sponsoring a number of games over two weekends. After the ‘misunderstanding’ against Lincoln in the cup last season I would have thought the message would have been better aimed at the visitors, but that would be to ignore the fact the Dons named a side whiter than a BNP wives coffee morning thanks to the absence of Derek Duncan (missing-presumed-injured) and Kennedy Adjei (unused substitute despite his flag flying in the Tempest).

Chris Hussey took the field before the game to a warm applause to thank us all following his move to Coventry. Think we might have laid it on a little thick with all the future England international talk, but the good news is the fee appears to justify his potential. Numbers in the high five figures have been bandied about by those who would know better than exaggerate, with the potential fee possibly worth six figures to the club. This is good news when it has been reported that Sven Goran Eriksson is lining up a move for Danny Kedwell… I have to say I haven’t seen Sven at the Meadow this season (not our Meadow anyway) although needless to say we would require six figures up front from that particular club for that particular player…

But back to Hussey. He must have noticed, as presumably we all did, how much he is going to be missed on the field. As Duncan was absent, Johnson took over at left back with Inns filling in at centre half. Brett Johnson is more of an out and out defender however, and a lack of support on the left side was obvious from the start. Luke more frequently found himself short of options when attacking that flank, almost as if he was still expecting Hussey to come bombing past him to send over that killer ball. I think it mattered enough that we would have won this game had we still had Hussey, so getting Duncan playing regularly and/or having a decent backup on the left side of midfield must be a priority.

Did Hussey’s absence have an impact on the result? At first you may think thats clutching at straws, but as a Don’s blogger I have to at least examine the claims… The start of the match certainly showed we weren’t creating as many chances as the visitors despite having the same amount of territory and possession, yet when the ball found its way to Luke Moore on the left he looked short of options, almost as if he was waiting for a blue shirted number 3 to bomb past him (if not to pass the ball to then at least to create some space for himself).

Big Exodus Geoghaghon was playing just in front of the Kettering back four allowing him the freedom to roam the midfield and pick up the aerial balls dropping in the midfield area, and he created the games first chance. His header was picked up by Francis Green who struck a woeful effort well wide from 25 yards. Moments later it was Moses Ashekodis turn, finding space while running at Inns to screw wide of the left post. Neither chance threatened the Don’s goal, but it was a sign of the dangers to come for Wimbledon.

Ashekodis came a lot closer moments later, his fierce effort palmed upwards by Pullen who then collected the loose ball. Hopes were briefly raised when Wimbledon put together a decent move at last, and it was no surprise that it came down the right (which looks as though it could be the new left since Hussey’s departure…). Kedwell and Taylor combined well on the flank, the ball being fed through to Hatton, who could have shot but obviously didn’t trust his left foot enough and instead rolled in Luke Moore. The angle was against Moore, who tried to pull the ball back only to see it bounce off a defender and land fortunately in the Kettering goalkeepers arms.

Sadly this didn’t start a new wave of Dons pressure, Kettering instead winning a throw on the left. Geoghaghon launched a huge throw towards the six yard box which led to a mass outbreak of sheer panic among the Wimbledon men, the ball eventually being tucked into the bottom left corner past a helpless Pullen and gift the visitors the lead. The home fans barely had time to take this in before Danny Thomas picked up the ball twenty five yards out. Boosted by the confidence of having just taken the lead he smashed a superb dipping effort over the helpless Pullen, the Don’s net bulging for the second time in ninety seconds and the Wimbledon fans facing up to the fact the game could already have slipped away as those occupying the away section erupted.

Just moments after that Wimbledon won a corner. Played short to Hatton, the Don’s midfielder hit a deep cross that confused Harper into believing the ball was about to safely drift out for a goal kick. He didn’t realise Kedwell had other ideas, floating a header back over the keeper who had wandered out of position, for Jon Main to have the easiest job of grabbing his third goal from open play in two games, and his sixth overall this season.

With three quarters of the game still to play, Wimbledon fans could have been forgiven for thinking their side would come back to claim a point, maybe all three. They could have been right in doing so as their side blew a fantastic chance to level the scores on the half hour. Kedwell picked up the ball on the left side of goal and attacked the penalty area with wonderful directness, dancing round a defender before squaring for Main at the near post. The man of the moment seemed certain to score with any kind of contact, yet his stabbed effort just floated into the air before caressing the crossbar on the opposite side of goal and being thumped clear by a grateful Kettering man.

The Dons looked fired up, but they had to ride out the rest of the half, Kettering forcing a number of throws and corners. Their best chance to extend the lead came just before half time, Askekodis combining with Thomas for the latter to drag a shot across the face of goal. Half time came, and a familiar face appeared next to me having experienced the Tempest End for the first time. While he enjoyed the experience, he moved partly down to the unnecessary swearing all around him – yet perhaps standing next to me was a mistake, as the Anonymous Don spent much of the half having a Tourettes-like fit due to shear frustration.

It all started well enough, a Hatton corner on the right drilled low towards Alan Inns, who managed to get under the ball and float it well over the bar. The visitors held out well for the next ten minutes or so, in fact creating a chance themselves for Thomas who got free in the right side of the area only for Pullen to make a solid upright save. The hour mark saw the now traditional Terry Brown substitution – you wonder whether Brown is actually being controlled by a bored fourteen year old in another dimension who always makes his first sub at this point… This time around the fourteen year old must have been drunk, as I’m not sure why anyone would choose to remove the solid Conroy for Ricky Wellard, seeing the youngster fit into midfield and the veteran (by comparison) Hatton drop back to Conroy’s position.

Actually, thats unfair. I knew what Brown was trying to do, he wanted a more attacking fullback to pick up the pace down the right, with someone hungry to liven the midfield up Wellard moved to the left yet even without the wonderful power of hindsight you maybe would have expected the more confident Kennedy Adjei would have been more at home in this position. Wellard needed a chance in the first team however, and very nearly found an equalizer with virtually his first touch. Hatton got forward down the right as expected and stood a wonderful ball just begging to be buried by Wellard, whose downward header gave Harper no chance but somehow sneaked past the right post (well, there was a little licence used there. I was right behind the header so sadly knew it was destined to drift wide as soon as it left his head… there was no ‘somehow’ about it!).

A minute or so later Hatton created another chance, this time sliding the ball behind the back four for Jon Main to use his pace and get clear. Last seasons top scorer hit a fierce shot that was too close to the keeper, who touched it over for a corner. Then it was Luke Moore’s chance to shine. Receiving the ball with time about twenty yards out, Moore could have picked either side to place his effort but managed to guide his effort towards the portly Kettering custodian. Harper, perhaps down to the level of abuse he was receiving from the Tempest, still managed not to gather it cleanly and for a split second it looked as though he was going to fall over and allow it to trickle over the line. Yet, and further proof if it was required that billions of Christians are wasting their lives and there is no God, he actually managed to gather it quite easily in the end.

While it looked like any shot on target that wasn’t a yard either side of Harper might find the net, the Dons chances were becoming more and more rare – hence my frustration, triggered by a number of free kicks given the visitor’s way with little contact being made by the likes of renowned football hard men such as Wellard and Moore. Don’t I remember this happened a couple of weeks ago? Is it only when we are chasing the game that referees turn against us? I know, I’ve been watching the game way too long to pretend I don’t know the answer to that…

With twenty minutes of the game to play, Kedwell picked up the ball in the box on the right, outmuscled his marker despite being pulled all over the place (and perhaps would have been better off letting himself be tugged to the ground) and smashed an effort across the face of goal and wide. I found my anger rising as the final whistle approached, and the time flew by. The home sides last chance came with two minutes remaining, and just about summed up the day. A Moore cross was just missed by Lewis Taylor, striking the unfortunate Wellard before bouncing wide of the right post, away for a goal kick.

The frustration was caused mostly by the knowledge that we could and should have taken at least a point from a side that are up there in the table, yet didn’t look as though they were any better than us. Two months into the season we are still losing games thanks to the experience of our opponents. Kettering had a years head start on us – it didn’t show in August, but it has now.

Heading into a big FA Cup game this coming Saturday, that is a lesson we could do well to learn, and fast. If we are to do well in the Cups this year (and bear in mind there are only two of them this season) we obviously cannot let Crawley take the sort of advantage they did at Kingsmeadow last month. Don’t get me wrong, Crawley are an inferior side to Kettering, and it may be easy to imagine that they have had their chance against us for the season. That old cliche of the Cup being a great leveller only applies if the superior side allows complacency to get in the way…

Conference Score! Saturday 18th October ’09

AFC Wimbledon    (1) 1    Main (22)

Kettering Town    (2) 2    Taylor (18), Thomas (20)

The Dons shared the points for the season with Kettering in frustrating manner after a couple of preventable Kettering goals within two minutes of each other cost them the game. A quick Jon Main reply wasn’t enough for the Dons despite dominating the closing stages, a second successive home defeat leaving them down in eight while Kettering further consolidate their playoff position.

Match report to follow… no fuck ups this time I promise…

Second Thoughts… Kettering Town 15.8.09

The shambolic nature of my match report last night kind of summed up the first part of my day on Saturday. The coach journey I am prepared to put down to incredible bad luck, for example when was the last time an official coach failed to make kick off? Yet there were errors made, by both Wimbledon and Kettering, that could have prevented the delays we experienced both on the journey and on arrival at the ground.

It was well publicised that the departure time had been moved forward by half an hour, but it didn’t seem enough as the coach also ran into traffic between Kingston and Hampton Court. The two traffic delays were not helped by the coach getting stuck behind a Combine Harvester for a good few miles, and you can only imagine our frustration at being forced to drive around the ground the long way due to a low bridge. On arrival there was nobody on hand to guide the coach to the away turnstiles, consequently Dons fans went on a wild goose-chase looking for the away section.

As well as this, the reaction of the Kettering stewards was absolutely awful. Upon noticing a frantic group of Dons fans waving tickets and asking to be let in they… did absolutely nothing for a good five minutes. Then a fat steward came down to the gates promising to ‘let us in in a minute’, before moaning that ‘it wasn’t my fault you were late’… like it had anything to do with us!

Eventually we were allowed through the gates, although the steward made out he was doing us some kind of massive favour. The whole thing could have been sorted out a lot quicker for my liking by simply coming down, opening the gates, and letting us in. Kettering and the police would have been aware that two coaches had travelled, and I cannot believe someone miscounted when the first one arrived (apparently only twenty minutes late).

Kettering seem to be the sort of club who are aiming for the League, but will find themselves lacking if they continue with this typical Non-League attitude towards organisation which, as we have seen on many occasions, tends more often than not to be best described as ‘shambolic’.

The Kettering philosophy of overcharging has been covered in great detail elsewhere, and I only want to add… originally I thought 80p was quite good value for a bottle of coke. Until the guy in the refreshments took the cap off and poured it into a tiny cup! A bottle of coke at Kingsmeadow is (I believe) £1.20… three servings from one bottle at Kettering adds up to £2.40…

Anyway… enough about Kettering. More about the Dons. Now I suppose you’ll be thinking as I didn’t see half the game, it would be unfair for me to mark the players… and you’ll be right. But I’m going to do it anyway…

Pullen    6

Conroy    7

Hussey    6

Gregory    7

Lorraine    7

Johnson    7

Hatton    6

Taylor    6

Kedwell    8

Main    5

Moore    6

SUBS

Judge    6

Duncan    6

As you can see the marks have risen due to the improved performance away from home. Jon Main seemed to be having a tough time of it, but worked hard at the start of the second half, so I thought it best not to mark him down too much. Kedwell had an immense performance, holding the ball up, bringing the midfield into play, and therefore earns the highest individual mark I have given so far.

While we seem to be having a few difficulties taking a firm grip on games, we are proving to have a defence that is hard to break down, and seem very dangerous on the counter. Yet to take some pressure off ourselves we really need to start stamping our authority on games, especially at home.

While a poor start doesn’t make a season, stringing a few results together now will take the pressure off us later in the year. I’m sure we are all hoping for a couple of decent cup runs (and not just in the Surrey Senior…), and not having to worry about league form will certainly help in this aspect. Unless of course we overdo it, and end up challenging for a playoff place or something stupid…

Kettering Town 1 AFC Wimbledon 2 – A (Half) Match Report

I managed to see Wimbledon win in the Conference Premier! Well, 55 minutes or so of it… and we will win again at some stage. But at least I can say I was there when the final whistle blew on our first victory in this division.

As I said yesterday, when Danny Kedwell put Wimbledon a goal up I was still on the coach, following numbing traffic at Hampton Court and the M25. The whole coach incident will be dealt with in my follow up post tomorrow, but its safe to say I was in a kerfuffle when I managed to gain entry to the ground, my stress levels not helped by watching the Dons play out the last few minutes under pressure…

Dons fans on the terrace

I don’t know why, but I felt like an interloper, joining my fellow supporters so late. I had no way of knowing what mood to expect, I could never expect to be filled in on what happened to the level of detail I require by questioning a random supporter.

The ground itself looked and felt different to how I expected. For example, even before I managed to get in I could hear the Wimbledon fans vocally dominate (and due to the absence of any stewards we went the wrong way and had to pass behind the home end). For some reason I th9ught any noise we did make would dissipate into the air, but the Dons fans made themselves heard and deserve a lot of credit for that.

I was pleasantly surprised when the second half kicked off (late, thanks to the officials taking their time returning… I think they only did it to experience what it was like to be cheered onto the field… albeit ironically) to see the Dons really going for it, and playing some great football as well that earned them a couple of early corners.

Kettering were restricted to half chances, the best of which saw Patrick Noubissie drill wide of Jamie Pullens left post. In fact by far the most popular activity during the start of the second half involved verbally reminding Lee Harper, the Kettering goalkeeper, of his Franchise links. As for Jon Main, well I have no idea how he played, but he did work very hard for the first quarter hour of the game until he was replaced by Derek Duncan on the hour.

Dons fans in the stand

I frequently wonder why Terry makes substitutions like this precisely on the hour… are they pre-planned? Does he tell Main he might need to bring him off on the hour, so the player knows he only has fifteen minutes until his shift finishes. This particular substitution involved tweaking the system slightly, so you have to wonder how Terry Brown would have reacted had Kettering scored at the start of the half?

However it was Wimbledon who increased their lead on 66 minutes. Another really good move down the right lead to Jay Conroy bursting into the box on the right side… conveniently right in front of me… only to be bundled over before he could deliver a ball in. The referee, despite having a great view, still wasn’t prepared to give it. As I prepared to unleash my rage on him, he finally pointed to the spot, but only after being told to do so by his linesman.

Now, Kettering manager Cooper has been moaning to the press that this was a ‘soft’ penalty, that he felt the referee should have made up for later (we’ll get to that in a minute…). I’m sorry, but we saw what appeared to be a pair of soft penalties last week against Luton turn out to be complete stonewallers upon viewing them back. All I can say is perhaps Cooper might want to watch the video back before he moans about this one.

Danny Kedwell stepped up in a manner that suggested he was never going to miss, and indeed he did blast it to the right of Harper, with the rotund shotstopper having guessed the wrong way. The celebrations after showed a team who knew the importance of the second goal… yet perhaps betrayed their belief that it had put them out of sight of Kettering.

Immediately after the restart it could well have been. Duncan and Hussey worked well down the left (and how many times have I written that already this season?), which lead the Hussey cutting inside and trying to stab the ball past Harper with the outside of his left boot, the keeper read his intentions and got down to his left quickly.

Kettering go forward

Wimbledon let Kettering back in the game with about a quarter hour to go, as a ball knocked into the area seemed destined to be heaved clear by Hatton. He swung his boot on it, certainly got something on the ball, and appeared surprised as anyone to see it bounce off him to Poppies substitute Danny Thomas who stabbed past Pullen.

Thomas had another great chance to level it with less than ten minutes to go (sorry about the approximate timing by the way… my mobile/stopwatch ran out of juice on the way up…), when he got the better of Hussey and drilled just over. By this stage Wimbledon were looking tired in body and mind, Lewis Taylor in particular showing how tiredness affects decent footballers.

Ben Judge had come on for his first appearance of the season in place of Brett Johnson, finding himself up against Kettering giant and Southampton target Exodus Geohaghon, who had predictably been thrown up front (and this is a desperate tactic that almost never works… I mean what was Cooper expecting to happen? If he really thought it was a decent tactic then Geohagheon would be leading the line every week…).

During the last couple of minutes of normal time it was actually Wimbledon who looked more like scoring. Lewis Taylor attacked down the right, saw he had no support, so cut inside and drilled over and wide of the left post. Then following a world class block at one end by Paul Lorraine, the ball found its way to Danny Kedwell to twist and turn his way into the box for a deserved hat trick, taken from him only by a brilliantly timed challenge by Ketterings James Jennings.

Kettering had the desperate look of a side who were about to lose and knew it, yet still managed a couple of unconvincing penalty shouts during the four minutes of stoppages. Led of course by their cheerleader general Mark Cooper, Kettering have obviously been watching too many Manchester United circa 1995 videos judging by their desire to surround the ref for no apparent reason.

Cooper even had the cheek, as previously mentioned, to moan about it afterwards. In fact his comment to the press, something along the lines of ‘you expect to be given penalties at home in that kind of situation’ is laughable to the point you actually understand the only reason he said it was to take a bit of pressure away from himself after a home defeat.

As I mentioned in my pre-match preview (which eventually wasn’t finished, so I admit none of you would have read – it’s been a bad weekend…) Kettering and their supporters seemed a little overconfident coming into this game, with comments along the lines of them needing to beat ‘sides like Wimbledon’.

Eventually the final whistle came, much to the delight of Dons fans who had to endure a final two minutes where Wimbledon refused to leave a man outside the box to take pressure off the constant barage of high balls into the box. In fact we even saw Jamie Pullen punching clear of his opposite number (who was able to stay in our area due to the lack of threat Wimbledon posed at that stage.

The win puts us level on points with the likes of Kettering and our next victims opponents Salisbury City. So all in all, not a bad start. Yet with some tough home games over the next month or so, it was an important three points to pick up.