Daily Archives: January 14, 2012

All change at Crewe

14 Saturday Jan 2012

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Saturday 14th January 2012 ko 3.00pm

League 2

OXFORD UNITED 0

CREWE ALEXANDRA 1 (Pearson 89)

Att 7, 052 (313 away)

Entry S/T

Programme £3 including Oxford Mail

I remember the first time I watched Crewe. Oxford had just been relegated into what’s now called League 1 and we were playing them that Saturday. I sniffed that this should be an easy win, and was rapidly educated about the Alex manager Dario Gradi and all that he’d achieved on absolutely no budget. Oxford did win that day but the beautiful passing game Crewe played marked my card.

Gradi did get Crewe to the second tier, until a mixture of the Bosman ruling and budgetary restrictions saw the Alex return to the bottom divsion. Dario’s now retired after a 24 year stint as manager, and is now involved at the club’s academy. Its worth noting that Crewe are the only club to participate in the FA Premier Youth League, whose adults have never played in the Premier League.

With Gradi upstairs, its fallen to former Oxford United player, and Nantwich Town manager Steve Davis, to revive the Alex’s fortunes. Judging by the start Oxford made, Davis looked to have his work cut out. Oxford, as befits a team 6 games unbeaten, looked sharp, and James Constable had a goal disallowed for a push in the build-up. Soon after Constable’s goal bound shot was deflected over the bar and at that point you felt that if Oxford had have scored, they’d have won the game at a canter.

The fact they didn’t gave Crewe heart, and as the game progressed, a change of formation allowed them to stifle play, and gradually Oxford’s passing got longer as the space available decreased. It certainly wasn’t reminiscent of the Gradi years, but for the 313 away fans it worked a treat. A Crewe corner was headed wide by Adam Dugdale when he really should have hit the target, but Pittman’s front play for Oxford was still causing the away defence problems, full of feints and mis-moves.

The second half was notably more dull as Crewe were more than happy to settle for a point. But with Oxford frustrated the visitors looked more and more confident. Byron Moore was put through following a clever flick and only a sliding challenge from Michael Duberry prevented a shot on goal. Nick Powell then saw his 25 yard shot just go over the Oxford bar.

From a point early on where Oxford looked like easy winners, the 89th minute saw Crewe take the win. A series of one-twos on the left eventually found Powell. His cross found late subsitute Gregg Pearson, and the on-loan Burton forward touched home.

Peter Leven had a late free kick to gain some sort of salvation for Oxford, but his shot, like his forwards, hit a wall….. For Crewe a welcome away win, but I’ve never seen a Crewe side pass so badly. Maybe with Dario’s retirement, the style will change, but I hope the production line of talent never will.

Test Match

14 Saturday Jan 2012

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Friday 13th January 2012 ko 7.45pm

Wessex League Division One

TEAM SOLENT 3 (Kinge 20 Churms 30 Edwards 74) Edwards missed penalty 74

PETERSFIELD TOWN 1 (Coker 70)

Att 148

Entry & Programme £4

Tea 50p

Pot Noodle £1.50

Test Park, is the Sports Ground of Southampton Solent University, and is to be found on Lower Brownhill Lane, just off Junction 1 of the M271. It’s a modern set-up with some real quirks. The car park is small and the lane narrow, so its well worth arriving early to get a parking spot. There doesn’t appear to be good public transport links either. The team are attached to the University, and seem to attract players doing courses after being released by other football clubs.

The facilities have the feel of a leisure centre, rather than a Step 6 football team. You buy your match ticket at reception, and there’s a large lounge area. Its got ESPN tv, but the bar facilities haven’t been installed yet, so there’s a hot water urn, and sweets for sale. It does the job for now. The ground reflects the fact that its Team Solent’s first season in the Wessex League. The rails and floodlights are in place, as is the turnstile block, but the “Meccano” stand won’t arrive for another few weeks. The ground will have been massively improved, fulfil all ground grading issues, but be almost totally lacking in character. That, I suppose will come with age.

Another improvement with time will be how the club copes with 1. a crowd, and 2. the needs of groundhoppers. The procedure of selling tickets at reception at least meant the queue at the turnstile moved slightly quicker, but the real issue was that each ticket issued was having “Adult” and a message allowing free entry to their next home game written on the back of it. It may work when the attendance is 40 or so, on this occasion it produced a massive queue that meant many missed kick-off. I ended up getting the teamsheets photocopied, and the manager admitted that a lot of hoppers had asked for the lineups, and he’d told them to look in the programme. I’ve long since known that clubs don’t understand hoppers, and vice-versa! Mind you the club took heed of the number of phone-calls they’d received, and printed 150 programmes; I would imagine that’s around 6 times more than the normal print run!

One area thought the club has got right though is the playing side. On a bitterly cold evening they had far too much for their visitors. They raced into a two goal lead, before being pegged back before half time. They continued to dominate in the second period, and the winner came when Declan Edwards’ penalty was well saved by John Burnett but the rebound fell kindly to Edwards and he was able to tap home.

Correctly Team Solent are planing for Wessex Premier football. Whilst the hopper-fest tested them closely, they’ll have learned from the experience and I expect they’ll be far better able to cope next time they get a big crowd.