Bank Holiday Fixtures

Grays Athletic v AFC Wimbledon (A) 0-2 Altrincham v Chester City (H) 2-1
Eastbourne Borough v Ebbsfleet United (D) 1-1
Hayes & Yeading United v Salisbury City (D) 2-2 Histon v Stevenage Borough (H) 2-1
Mansfield Town v Kettering Town (H) 3-0
Oxford United v Forest Green Rovers (H) 2-0
Rushden & Diamonds v Cambridge United (A) 1-3 Tamworth v Kidderminster Harriers (D) 1-1. Wrexham v Barrow (H) 2-0

Saturday Predictions

My Predictions for today

• AFC Wimbledon vs Oxford (A) 1-3
• Barrow vs Tamworth (A) 1-2
• Cambridge Vs Gateshead (H) 2-1
• Chester vs Mansfield (A) 1-3
• Crawley vs Grays (D) 1-1
• Ebbsfleet vs Hayes & Yeading (A) 1-2
• Forest Green vs Wrexham (A) 0-2
• Kettering vs Luton (A) 1-2
• Kiddiminster vs Altrincham (A) 0-1
• Salisbury vs Eastbourne (D) 2-2
• Stevernage vs Rushden (D) 1-1
• York vs Histon (H) 2-0

Thoughts on a fundraising idea

I would like to get an idea of if people would be interested in a fund raising idea. I saw this advertised at Altrincham yesterday and had previously thought of running it.

The idea is you are allocated a number between 1 & 49 then on Saturday night when the National Lottery is drawn if the final number drawn (The Bonus Ball) if that number is yours you win £20.

So for each group of 49 people that we get £20 would go to the winning number £29 to the dons trust. To make things easier to monitor I would need people to pay for 1 month’s draws in advance and we would have  5 draws a month, this would work out as each Saturday in the month, and if their are only 4 Saturday’s in the month we would use the final Wednesday draw of that month, an example of this would be in September the Saturday’s fall on 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th so we would also use the Wednesday draw.

You might think that raising £29 for The Dons Trust is a lot but a quick calculation and you see that the funds soon add up even if we only had 49 people taking part it would raise £145 a month or £1,740 in a 12 month period

You would be given the same number for the whole 5 draws and in any future month’s you can keep the same number or request to change your number with anyone else who wants to change all being put into a draw to reallocate the numbers, or if anybody drops out additional people can join.

If we fill the first draw I will take names for a further draws but will only allocate a number when we have sufficient numbers.

It would be nice to start this from September so if you would like to be part of this, or have any further questions please send me an e-mail on paul@itmustbedons.com and I will get back to you regarding when this will start, payment or questions that you might have.

Long Journey for 3 Lovely Points

Just over an Hour ago (as I type this) we secured a lovely 3 points at Altrincham.

The day started at the crack of dawn, well 0630 to be more accurate as I set off for breakfast at the cafe on arrival they wernt open but they soon open and we stocked up for the day.

An 0800 departure and amazingly everyone seemed wide awake. Fortuatley heading off at such an early hour the roads were nice and clear as we headed up the M40, M42 and finally the M6 we stopped on the M6 Toll Road at the service station where a few other football fans were including Wolves, Ipswich & Man City but were soon on our way again.

It was only once we moved back onto the M6 did we hit some traffic and although it slowed us fractionally we still made good progress and arrived at the ground at 1330 so plenty of tike to go in the very hospitable bar, Chip Shop or just go into the ground and enjoy the sunshine.

From a line up point of view we had Main replaced by Duncan with Kedwell and Oore up front.

As the teams warmed up the Altrincham players warmed up in front of the AFC Wimbledon fans on the open terrace. One thing to notice was the pitch looked very good and the large number of small TV gantrys that were round the ground but both of these could be down to the fact that Manchester United reserves play at the ground.

We kicked off attacking the goal that we were standing behind, maybe altrincham thought that the sun would create a problem for James Pullen in our goal.

It was a lovely sunny day and although we had a lot of possession and attacking play we really were lacking the final ball. Let’s hope that this would come back to haunt us.

In the second half Altrincham were putting us under a bit of pressure but nothing that the solid defence of Lorraine and Johnson couldn’t cope with.

Then a big 2 minutes came along Paul Lorraine appeared to pick up a knock on the top of his leg and was subbed by Ben Judge but in the very next attack within a minute Ben Judge went up for the ball and was sandwiched by two Altrincham player and had to be replaced by Elliott Godfrey, More amazingly the ref gave the free kick against Judge?

So in the space of 2 minutes we had lost two centre halfs and had to change the formation so Jay Conroy who had been at Right Back went to centre Back Sammy Hatton who had been centre midfield to Right Back could we get the system sorted and get back into the game to claim a point?

Then on 80 minutes we converted one of our chances when Danny Kedwell was at the back of the goal and fired home past the keeper. From hoping we could hold on for a point we were now looking at 3 points on our travels.

A big 10 minutes and injury time was on the cards as Altrincham really went for it but with defending happening all over the pitch we held out well and the couple of times when they did get through James Pullen imposed himself well. Only once did it look like we had mucked up when at the back post altrincham had two players and a semi open goal but the shop went into the terracing behind the goal.

Full time the points were secure in another hard thought victory. As the players congratulated each other and acknowledged the 400 plus AFC Wimbledon fans it was a major case of job done.

Two final thoughts (1) Sitting on the coach and hearing our result on Sports Report that sounded good. (2) Looking at the Table and seeing we are 4th and have clubs like Oxford, Mansfield and Luton above us, and Oxford visit Kingsmeadow nezt week.

Anyway 1 hour 15 mins into the journey only about 4 hours 15 mins to go. This national football lark is good.

Saturday Predictions

My Predictions for Saturdays game are as follows: –

• Altrinham Vs AFC Wimbledon H 2-1
• Crawley Town vs Gateshead H 3-1
• Eastbourne Vs Barrow D 1-1
• Grays vs Kiddiminster A 0-2
• Hayes & Yeading vs York – A 1-3
• Histon vs Salisbury D 2-2
• Luton vs Chester H 4-1
• Mansfield vs Ebbsfleet H 3-1
• Oxford vs Stevernage H 2-1
• Rushden & Diamonds vs Forest Green D 1-1
• Tamworth vs Cambridge United A 1-2
• Wrexham vs Kettering H 2-0

Tuesday Night predictions

The games come thick and fast at this time of the year and on Tuesday night we have another full programme.

Here are my predictions: –

• AFC Wimbledon vs Salisbury D 2-2 This could go either way so I will go for the draw with goals, expect a 0-0 now.
• Altrincham vs Histon H 2-1 Alty have started strong so will go for them
• Cambridge vs Crawley A 1-2 Think Crawley will sping a suprise here
• Forest Green Vs Luton A 0-4 Luton seem to found the goal scoring route and it should continue here.
• Gateshead vs Tamworth H 1-0 A tight game with Gateshead edging it
• Grays vs Eastbourne A 0-2 Think Eastbourne will win at grays as grays appear to be in problems at the mo.
• Kiddiminster vs Kettering D 1-1 a tight game with points shared
• Mansfield Vs Barrow H 2-0 Mansfield to be to strong for barrow
• Oxford vs Chester H 3-1 Chester still finding their feet and Oxford very strong
• Rushden vs Hayes D 1-1 Could go either way
• Stevernage vs Ebbsfleet H 2-0 Stevernage to be to strong for Ebbsfleet
• Wrexham vs York H 3-1 two strong teams but I think Wrexham at home will edge it.

How did my predictions go?

So we have two set’s o result to look at first of all let’s look at last Tuesday’s games.

9 games were played on Tuesday and out of these I had 2 results right and 2 scores bang on.

The games I had the result right on were: –

• Ebbsfleet vs Cambridge United
• Luton vs Mansfield

The two games I had the right score on were: –

• Kettering vs Oxford
• Salisbury vs Kiddimister

Satrday was the first weekend where we had a full programme of 12 matches and from these although I didn’t get ant scores fully right (i was close on a couple) I had 5 results right these are: –

• Chester vs Cambridge
• Histon vs Oxford
• Luton vs Gateshead
• Tamworth vs Grays
• York vs Forest Gren Rovers

So out of the 21 games in the past week I have managed to get 9 of them with a right result, I wonder if I can keep that up over the season.

Away Tickets & Travel

Over the past couple of weeks their has been a lot of talk about the cost of away games and the fact some people beleive us and other clubs with large support are being ripped off with the cost of tickets.

The main talking point is the fact that Kettering have 3 price categories and the price for the same bit of terrace seat is either £16, £14 or £9 maybe part of the problem is that our prices are maybe cheaper than what they should be. With us having back to back promotions we haven’t adjusted the ticket prices as much as maybe we should of.

If you put aside facilities at a ground you would expect seats to be £2 more than terrace places but what is a fair price for terrace? I usually think that an afternoon at football I will be in the ground for around 2 hours and if you think the current minimum wage is around £6.50 an hour does this make £13 a fair price?

Questions have also been asked about our away support this season and how many will we take to away game this season. One thing that has always been made about us is that we don’t travel north of the river, although it’s not clear if they mean the Wandle or the Thames?

In the past 7 years the vast majority of games have been in about a 2 hour radius of Wimbledon that means for most people it meant that football was just a case of giving up an afternoon to get to and from the game and watch it. With any games that fell outside this area were more of a rarity and therefore people would make a special effort to get to these games.

This season the majority of games are more than 2 hours away and all of a sudden it’s taking up the whole day, you might be thinking well thats what football is about, but for a large majority of fans that have families or other commitments to give up every weekend might be a bit to much and therefore people will pick and choose their games.

Add in the cost element and in the current environment if people are trying to reduce outgoings one of the first things that will go is away trips if their are two people going an away day is going to set you back over £50 without even trying. Yes we did take a very decent number of people to the game at Eastbourne but I believe it was for a number of reasons, these included First Away game, Seaside trip even midweek people went down for a few extra hours, admission was reasonably priced, knowing they wouldn’t be going to the next few away games.

It will be interesting to see what our average number of people we take away compared to previous season, I think we will be round about the 500 mark, this will seem a lot less than previous years, but for some games we will take a serious lot of people, Next weekend we visit Altrincham and I think if we get 4-500 there that will be a very good turnout.

That wasn’t meant to happen

At the start of the summer when the fixture list came up everyone looks at the early games to see where points can be picked up and you have to say it would be a very brave person who would of said our first win would come at Ketteringn well if you did take a bow.

Around 600 wombles made the trip although atleast 50 of them didn’t arrive until 30 mins into the game as the traffic on the M25 was so bad.

I took the option of paying the extra £2 for a seat and although their was only 1 toilet and 1 tea facility the view was very good, the large number of wombles on the terrace were in excellent voice.

Kettering kicked off attacking the end that we were standing behind and were sitting at the side of and almost immediatley it became clear that one of their major weapons was the long throw where almost like a well known team still in the Blue Square South would load the box and just launch the ball in to cause problems.

The main change in the line up this week was Jay Conroy starting instaed of Luke Garrard who had spent the previous hour doinga fitness routine with Kennedy Adeji.

On 8 minutes we were awarded a free kick on our left and this was fired into the box and headed home by Danny Kedwell.

We were already getting mutterings of had we scored to early, we are a pessimistic bunch our fans.

With a strong wind blowing against us we seemed to be under constant pressure but the defence was doing a brilliant job to ensure that any attack was cleared from danger, this sometime involved playing it out to the midfield or a very deep forward line but we continued to battle very well.

The half time whistle was greeted with great cheers, We kicked off the second half although this time we had the wind with us would this help us or help Kettering?

We continue to be under a lot of pressure but then with 20 minutes left Jay Conroy broke into the box and was pulled down after a moment thought the Lino signalled a penalty and Danny Kedwell stepped up for it as Jon Main was already off the pitch as had been subbed. He fired home to give us a 2-0 lead.

5 minutes later it was a case of oh no start to worry again as Kettering pulled a goal back with a tap in at the back post and with 15 minutes and injury time left it was going to be a long time.

Bearing in mind we are just 3 games into the season it was a strange sight to see with 5 minutes left the kettering Goalkeeper going up for every corner and long throw opportunity but we held strong and picked up our first win of the season.

Did we deserve it? I think today was a great deffensive display and conter attacking football, yes we were under a lot of pressure but its down to Kettering to convert the chance and they didn’t.

This has been slightly delayed as on the train home I was chatting with a Truro fan who had seen his team win at Bedford and a Luton fan who had seen them go top of the table against Gateshead with a 4-2 victory.

How things have changed.

I’m currently writting this whilst sitting on the 1200 Kings Cross St Pancras to Corby service, and the first time since 2001 or possibly earlier that I have used the station.

St Pancras used to be the station that we would use for the trips to Sheffield and Derby and was always very basic. You would get the tube to Kings cross come out of the station and enter a little archway that took you to St Pancras, you were greeted by 4 plstforms 1 Train if you were lucky and a couple of shops. St Pancras is now part of the huge Kings Cross site and with the eurostar trains departing from there you see a whole host of shops and a lot of the signs are in multiple languages.

After walking through the whole avenue of shops you find the Uk train ticket office and then head off upstairs to where the trains depart from. As you reach the top of the escalator you see the eurostar trains on the other side of the perspex divider. Although its all modern the actual floorspace of the new st pancras domestic service doesn’t appear to have changed if anything you have lost a few shops but with the new roof it all looks very nice.

You only have 4 platforms to choose from and usually the majority of them are empty. The train feels a lot smoother than the ones we used to get but for the price I have paid I would hope so.